IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD Dysfunctional family relationships and the inability to communicate are the basic themes of this French drama, which follows the life of Louis, a successful, single and childless man in his thirties, who leaves Paris to visit his family in the countryside. He has been coming home less and less, and it has been several years since his last visit. Cultural divides also cut across families. He arrives to share a great and painful secret with his loved ones. Waiting for him are his mother, lost in memories of the past and his dead father, a younger brother, who stayed at home to look after the mother, with his wife, and Louis’ youngest sister, who looks up to the city-dwelling big brother as her idol. Silence, embarrassment, and reluctance to open fresh wounds add to the tension. Everyone is trying to keep their emotions in check and play the roles they are expected to play. But is numbing oneself the only way to handle a family gathering? Where are the limits of selfishness in family relationships and how important is it to protect our illusions about others? The desire for a career and personal freedom clashes with the demands of caring for loved ones, as if it were impossible to succeed in either. A pervasive sense of guilt permeates the house. Who owes what to whom in this family? How often are you supposed to come home? What is home? This is a production that straddles reality and computer model, theatre and computer game, a family simulator. The autobiographical motif of the complicated relationship between a liberal urban intellectual and his rural family resonates in this play by a contemporary French playwright. The desire for intimacy against a background of homecoming, abandonment of loved ones, change of place and identity, class and relationship to life and values is an important theme in French literature. It can be found in authors such as Didier Eribon, Annie Ernaux, Michel Houellebecq or Édouard Louis, who chose his pen name after the main character in It’s Only the End of the World.
The main dramatic conflict of Buraj’s production is Louis’ dilemma of whether and how to tell his family about his diagnosis, and Antoine’s evolution from a wronged, hostile man to a sincere and deeply loving brother who wants to relieve himself of the burden of the “stronger” – though, paradoxically, younger – sibling. Buraj brilliantly ratchets up the tension to a phenomenal final crisis and catharsis.
– TOMÁŠ KUBART, Divadelní noviny
The director, Ivan Buraj, chooses a very slow pace with long pauses, allowing awkwardness to manifest itself. These techniques and styles help to create a dreamlike atmosphere, leading the audience to question whether all this is really happening. The answer lies in a snapshot where different actors appear on stage instead of the original cast in a scene shrouded in blue light. The emphasis is on the intertwining of illusion and reality: is this family reunion really taking place? Or are we seeing a scenario unfolding in Louis’ head? The above snapshot leads us to conclude that the dialogues we see on stage are just figments of the protagonist’s imagination. Like going to a family dinner and imagining all the questions they might ask, the arguments that might break out, but also the kind words and hugs from loved ones.
– ADÉLA KALUSOVÁ, art.ceskatelevize.cz
IVAN BURAJ (1988) is a director and co-author of theatre plays. Since 2015, he has been the artistic director of HaDivadlo, where he has produced, among others, a series of interpretations of classical dramas by Chekhov, Ibsen, Gorky (Divadelní noviny Award 2019), Havel and an adaptation of Hermann Broch’s The Sleepwalkers (Project of the Year 2017 according to the …příští vlna/next wave… festival), Max Frisch’s Stiller at the Studio Hrdinů, Witold Gombrowicz’s Cosmos at the New Stage of the National Theatre, and Gianni Molinari’s Everything Is Still Possible Here for the Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem. Together with Bohdan Karásek, he wrote the play Humanism 2022 and staged it at HaDivadlo. Also in HaDivadlo, he has developed an engaged and eclectic repertoire, leading, for example, to the creation of film remediations (Provincials, Eyolf) and co-operation with Terén, a platform of the Centre for Experimental Theatre in Brno. From the 2025/26 season, he will serve as the artistic director of the Dlouhá Theatre in Prague.
HADIVADLO In the fifty years of its existence, HaDivadlo has made a name for itself as an alternative theatre scene with a distinctive world view and its own poetics. Since its inception, it has been known as a stage for distinctive authorial poetics, demanding dramaturgy and strong creative personalities. HaDivadlo is part of the Centre for Experimental Theatre (CED). Since 2015, the ensemble has been led by Ivan Buraj. In recent years, HaDivadlo has presented productions of Maryša (2014), Uncle Vanya (2016) and The Presidents (2020) at the Divadlo festival.
