Cardboard Papa

CARDBOARD DADDY is a black comedy set in a Central European kitchen. A father, mother and teenage daughter are visiting a widowed relative to show their support. However, the aunt arrives in good spirits, accompanied by her son and a cardboard cut-out of her husband. Soup is served. They all pretend this is an ordinary family reunion; indeed, the cardboard guest is a remarkable companion. He goes to bed before the main course and the initial embarrassment turns into a whirlwind of questions. How can you share a dining table with someone who clings to their delusion at all costs? For how long can you maintain it – and should you? How long can you hide from reality? At dessert, the young get to provocative questions, and the facade starts to crumble. To what extent do we need (patriarchal) order and where do we need to embrace a new one? What if the values and slogans we proclaim at the family table are made of cardboard, too? Father is dead, long live the father!

The playwright subtly and skilfully combines family realism, exaggerated madness and a social metaphor of authority deeply affecting other people’s minds ever after its demise. Every now and then comes a plot twist as one of the actors goes ‘mad’ when they can no longer stand the pretence that everything is all right even though the whole situation is absolutely insane and sick.
JOSEF CHUCHMA, Divadelní.net

At the beginning, the production seems to be just a simple caricature of misguided conservatives, next it feels like an absurd little family drama. The final part, though, artfully combines the two planes and reveals the heavier undertones that were not apparent at first sight, thus making the whole piece disturbingly topical. Moreover, as Tasnádi aptly notes in the interview published in the booklet, the escape to the ‘proven’ conservative-patriarchal models does not concern exclusively confused elders, but can be just as easily embraced by the generation of fifty-somethings. (Greetings to the supporters of a certain car-addict politician).
VOJTĚCH VOSKA, Nadivadlo

MICHAL VAJDIČKA (1976) From 1993, he worked as a lighting technician and professional lighting designer at the Slovak National Theatre Drama and in the Bratislava Dance Theatre. In 2004 he graduated in theatre directing under Peter Mikulík at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. While he was still a student, his production of The Lonesome West met with success at the international festival of theatre schools Setkání / Encounter festival in Brno and at the domestic festival Istropolitana. As a director he then worked with many Slovak and Czech theatres (Drama Section of the Slovak National Theatre, State Theatre in Košice, Andrej Bagar Theatre in Nitra, Dejvice Theatre in Prague, Vinohrady Theatre in Prague, National Theatre Brno). From 2014 he was artistic head at the Dejvice Theatre in Prague, where his work has included the successful A Blockage in the System, the winner of an Alfréd Radok award for best production in 2012. He also teaches at the Department of Acting at the Academy of Performing Arts. Occasionally he also directs films for TV. Two basic lines can be traced in his directorial work. The first focuses on producing classical drama (above all the plays of Chekhov, Shakespeare, Pirandello and the adaptation of works by Slánčiková-Timrava). The other focuses on contemporary foreign drama with an emphasis on the black comedies by Martin McDonagh and Irvine Welsh. Vajdička’s productions show precisely functioning principles of a conservative model of theatre making use of modern (in some cases almost film-like), craftsmanlike stage situations, as used in his films by Quentin Tarantino, for example.

DLOUHÁ THEATRE is a repertoire theatre with a permanent company. It was created in 1996 and is funded by the City of Prague. A basic feature of the theatre’s work is deliberate variety of style and genre. The productions make frequent use of the musical, singing and movement potential of the actors. In the spectrum of Czech theatres, the Dlouhá Theatre has defined itself as one that crosses the boundaries of standard drama in the direction of alternative, musical, puppet and cabaret theatre. Ivan Buraj takes over the post of the theatre’s artistic director from the new season.