Naive Ema is dying to experience the exciting life and eternal love she only knowns from romance novels. But her dreams and rosy visions clash with the boring reality of her marriage to a prudent and caring country doctor. Ordinariness and banality suffocate her, random love encounters bring temporary excitement but cannot satisfy her fantasies. She is constantly haunted by the desire for all that’s new, better, and greater, but the glittering ideal world that lures her eventually brings her down in the crash with the ruthless reality. Permanent dissatisfaction and desire for a better life that seems at hand and purchasable on credit is a trap into which we are still falling after more than one hundred and fifty years.

Madame Bovary

The Estates Theatre

Thomas S. Eliot wrote his poem – an opus magnum of the 20th century – as a reflection of the horrors of WWI and situated it in a landscape woven from the historical consciousness of humanity and voices of European literature. Through this open barren land, where town meets sea and desert and the state has collapsed, rambles don Quixote, the wandering knight who upholds the values of chivalry and never loses his faith in the power of love. Is he obsolete, foolish? While don Quixote’s acts are incomprehensible by reason, our hearts root for him. The production searches for the fundamental values in a country swept by the war. It is also a tribute to the naive adoration of Dulcinea del Toboso and to the thousands of heroes conceived by human imagination, the great spirits shining as a still point of the turning world.

Don Quixote. The Waste Land

State Opera

Shakespeare’s immortal tragedy about the world’s injustice, the burden of an arduous mission, and human small-mindedness. A ghostly journey in search for the meaning and sense of life, a drama where the past mingles with the future, a story about the erosion of the state, society and values.

Hamlet

National Theatre Prague

Mary W. Shelley wrote her first and most famous novel in 1818. Though it has turned a literary classic, it is mostly known from pop culture references, film adaptations, and variations emphasizing the image of a horrific monster stitched together from various body parts by the insane professor Frankenstein. The (in)human creature secretly brought to life in the ambitious scientist’s laboratory has no name in Mary Shelley’s iconic horror novel. The creator dismisses his creation upon its ‘birth’ as a failed experiment, throwing it on a solitary desperate journey where the only thing it longs for is a compassion.

Frankenstein

The young god Dionysus arrives in Thebes so as to initiate the city inhabitants into his cult. His passionate female followers, the Bacchae, revel in a strange ritual, during which they indulge in orgies and fall into a madness-like state. Their behaviour infuriates King Pentheus of Thebes, who confronts the stranger. Unfortunately, he has no inkling who his rival is, ignoring the advice of those around him to show humility. The arrival of a new god may not necessarily mean salvation, yet it certainly does herald the accession of a new order. Who is right? Is it Pentheus, who refuses to understand the impending change and instead strives to firmly grasp the world, or is it Dionysus the “rubble rouser”? Perhaps equilibrium can never hold sway without chaos …

The Bacchae

A small town, where the old world of liberal fathers is fading away, sees the raise of young idealists proclaiming revolutionary slogans. Some believe this is an inevitable change. Others crave for power. But there are also those, the most dangerous ones, whose only purpose is overall destruction.

Demons

The war of the “Seven against Thebes”, fought between Oedipus’ sons Polynices and Eteocles, ended with the brothers’ mutual killing. Creon the king orders funeral rites of honour for Eteocles, as the defender of the country, yet forbids the same to be served to the defeated Polynices. Antigone, the sister of the two dead men, is the only one who dares to disobey Creon, serving the rites herself. When discovered, Creon opts for her exemplary punishment... Antigone, daughter of the Theban king Oedipus and his wife (and mother) Iokasta, is one of the greatest characters of Greek mythology and world drama. Sophocles in particular rose her to fame in his eponymous tragedy, written around 442 BC, a chief work of Ancient Greek theatre. For Jan Frič, this is the third ancient play he will direct at the NT Drama, again in a new translation and retelling by Matyáš Havrda and Petr Borkovec.

Petr Vančura

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 2 - Dec 29, 2026

Madame Bovary · Národní divadlo

Sep 12 - Dec 20, 2026

Don Quixote. The Waste Land · Národní divadlo

Sep 21, 2026 - Feb 5, 2027

Hamlet · Národní divadlo

Oct 13, 2026 - May 24, 2027

Frankenstein · Národní divadlo

18 - 23 Nov, 2026

The Bacchae · Národní divadlo

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