THE TROJAN WOMEN Euripides’ Trojan Women. When if not today? With whom if not with Ukrainian women?
The stories of the great heroes of the Trojan War have been carved into our collective memory, but we often forget the stories of the women who survived. What ends when the war is over? And what begins? And what never ends? The end of war does not necessarily bring peace, and a truce does not necessarily bring comfort. Hecuba has lost 50 sons, but what if she loses her last daughter? What happens then? Revenge is best served as the sweetest borscht. The characters of the Trojan women without their men are presented by Ukrainian actresses without their men, as they have proven to have a special gift for portraying the Trojan women. This modern adaptation of the classic tragedy The Trojan Women and Hecuba, directed by Jakub Čermák and featuring Ukrainian artists who have found a temporary refuge in the Czech Republic, does not focus on the current military conflict, but on the victims of war in general.
JAKUB ČERMÁK (1980) The co-founder of the ‘theatre gang’ Depressive Children Longing for Money (together with Martin Falář in 2004) is an unconventional creator who often surprises with the selection of authors (e.g. de Sade) and form (apart from normal productions, he may surprise the audience with an experience survey). Čermák’s latest productions prepared with the Depressive Children include the stage adaptation of Édouard Louis’ prose Who Killed My Father? and Čermák’s own text Everyone Deserves to End in Purgatory (about the decaying health of an infamous president). Traditional theatres also invite Čermák as a distinctive director: he staged The Danish Girl at the Fidlovačka Theatre (based on the ground-breaking film about gender identity), The Sorrows of Young Werther at the Horácko Theatre in Jihlava, and most recently Hamlet at the South Bohemian Theatre in České Budějovice.
DEPRESSIVE CHILDREN LONGING FOR MONEY An independent theatre company, currently associated exclusively with the work of Jakub Čermák, has its home scene at Venuše ve Švehlovce in Prague–Vinohrady. The ensemble brings together former amateur actors with their highly-skilled professional colleagues who enjoy working with Jakub Čermák.
