The Vultures

THE VULTURES Family happiness, domestic comfort and financial security vanish overnight when the patriarch of the household dies unexpectedly. Left behind, his widow and three daughters must quickly come to terms with their new reality. But how can they, when they have never been responsible for the family’s finances and are suddenly besieged by lawyers, a notary and unpaid bills? What happens when life changes in an instant, yet there is no time to grieve because the machinery of the economy never stops? The play follows four women struggling to adapt to circumstances that give them no chance even to catch their breath, let alone find their footing. It is hard to say who is the victim and who is to blame. We are all voyeurs of other people’s lives: what may appear to us as comedy can, for those living it, be a profound tragedy.

The Vultures was awarded the 2025 Theatre Critics’ Award for Production of the Year.

Jan Frič’s production of an old realist drama was impressive, as he managed to preserve – and indeed emphasise – the cruelty and mockery with which the author dissects social mores. He achieved a timeless resonance by using an old television production of this play as a grotesquely distorted reflection of the present day. This was also helped by significantly reducing the text, which effectively condensed the main message. To this must be added the renowned ensemble acting of the Dejvice troupe, which blossomed once more and took on new forms under Frič’s direction.
JANA MACHALICKÁ, Divadelní noviny

The Vultures tells a story that is depressing and entertaining at the same time. This is in keeping with Dejvice’s finest traditions, where an ironic and often grotesque sense of detachment combined with a serious core is certainly no surprise. This approach is popular with audiences (particularly in the Czech context), but it can be more challenging than it seems on the surface. The magic lies in the ability to tread the fine line between a sense of perspective and detachment, and self-serving humour. At best, the latter is distracting; at worst, it can overshadow or even completely undermine the fundamentally serious subject matter. Dejvice managed to strike this balance in The Vultures in a way that hasn’t quite been seen there for a long time.
VLADIMÍR MIKULKA, Svět a divadlo

JAN FRIČ (1983) A sleeping member of the Society of Dr Krása. An unmistakable theatre personality of his generation. His production Vassa Zheleznova at the Estates Theatre was selected as the Production of the Year of 2021 in the Czech Theatre Critics’ Survey. Apart from directing, he was also involved in some productions as a co-writer (e. g. The Visit, New Stage, 2018) or set designer (e. g. Velvet Havel, Divadlo Na zábradlí, 2014). He studied drama direction at DAMU in Prague under Jan Nebeský and Daria Ullrichová. From 2017 to 2022 he was resident director of the National Theatre’s drama company. He works both with large theatres (such as the National Theatre Brno, the Klicpera Theatre in Hradec Králové, the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre and the Divadlo v Dlouhé) and with intimate, alternative stages (such as A studio Rubín, the Masopust theatre company and Divadlo X10). Alongside original productions (such as BurnOut!, A studio Rubín, 2019) and stagings of contemporary plays (The Father Watches Over the Daughter, New Stage, 2022), he returns again and again to the classics (such as The Bacchae, Estates Theatre, 2023; Oedipus the King, National Theatre, 2019; and Faust, Estates Theatre, 2018). After a brief hiatus from directing during the 2023/2024 season, he returned to the Czech stage with the production The Vultures.

DEJVICE THEATRE was founded in 1992. Following the departure of the original company and its head Jan Borna in 1996, director Miroslav Krobot served as the new artistic head until the end of the 2013/2014 season. From 2014 to 2016 the artistic head was Michal Vajdička, who had been working with the theatre from 2011 as director of A Blockage in the System and Seagull. Martin Myšička, who joined the theatre’s company as an actor in 1997, served as artistic director from January 2017 to the end of 2024. In January 2025, Jiří Havelka became the new artistic director of the Dejvice Theatre. The theatre’s dramaturgy goes in several directions. As well as showing original plays by contemporary European and world authors, the theatre focuses on works by distinguished Czech and Slovak playwrights who write their work directly for the Dejvice Theatre’s company, and in most cases also participate in directing it (J. A. Pitínský, Miroslav Krobot, Petr Zelenka, Jiří Havelka, David Ondříček, Karel František Tománek, Viliam Klimáček, Petra Tejnorová, Daniel Majling, and others). A distinctive interpretation of world literature is another significant component of the dramaturgy. The Dejvice Theatre has won many prestigious awards during its existence, and so have its actors, who are consistently approached with leading roles in other fields of dramatic art, especially in film, TV and radio. In 2022, the Dejvice Theatre was named Theatre of the Year for the sixth time in the Svět a divadlo magazine poll (the Czech Theatre Critics’ Survey, formerly the Alfréd Radok Foundation Awards).