An awkward and somewhat unhappy churchwarden quits his job at a big city church to find a new life in a remote mountain village. By a tragicomic coincidence, he is considered the new parish priest whom the forlorn community desperately searches for and needs. Having tried in vain to explain and escape the part in a ‘miracle’, the churchwarden eventually accepts the role of the accidental saviour. His unorthodox ways and understanding for all human sins and weaknesses capture the hearts of the peculiar villagers. However, he clashes with the local teacher, who used to be the local celebrity and authority and who promotes ‘non-spiritual’ education. The faith of a man who has humbly assumed the desired task thus stands in juxtaposition to the self-confident ‘common sense’. But what if not everything is as it seems?

End of a Priest

National Theatre Prague

Bílá Voda, or White Water, a remote village hidden in the mountains... Two young girls consecrated to God – Tobie and Evarista – arrive in the village the last September night of 1950, when the communist regime interned all Czechoslovak nuns in concentration convents. They are forced to labour in the local factory together with all other nuns. Tobie is crippled forever by the hard work, while Evarista has her vow of chastity forcibly broken and suffers humiliation in a communist prison. Yet the wardens cannot deprive her of her faith and loyalty to the order. Can a nun rebel against the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, stand against the regime and the collaborating church? The hardest battle must be fought within one’s own soul...

Bílá Voda (White Water)

The Estates Theatre

We are in 2034. Russia has occupied Ukraine and the Baltic States. Hungarians and Slovaks have left the EU and voluntarily acceded to the Russian Federation. The Czechs and the Poles are the only Central-European nations left to stand for European values. The West sees the two brave nations as a wall protecting European civilisation from collapse. The French write philosophical treatises about us, the Germans keep their fingers crossed, and the Americans send us military aid. Everyone is well aware that the Poles and the Czechs must stick together. Facing the imminent disintegration of the fractured EU, an idea arises to sign a Union Treaty that would unify the two nations. Time is pressing as the Russians are threatening to start a war, and someone must come up with a narrative that will support the historical ties between Poland and Czechia and prove that indeed they have always been fraternal nations, or one nation, actually. The problem is that neither politicians nor soldiers are capable of devising any such story, let alone selling it to people. So, the task to prove the existence of the Polish-Czech Union falls upon the personalities of culture.

The Unexpected VICTORY OF THE POLISH-CZECH UNION in World War III

La Fabrika

The councillors of Honice are to elect a bellman, the person responsible for security in the village. The task is formidable, with two strong candidates running for office – the veteran soldier Valentin Bláha and the tailor František Fiala. What is more, the mayor, Filip Dubský, and the first councillor, Jakub Bušek, obstinately sit tight, neither of them willing to compromise. The fraught situation is further aggravated by the municipal council receiving an anonymous letter threatening arson. A plethora of human types is presented on the stage – the “important persons” and their wives, old-timers, young lovers, lowlifes, pig-headed dimwits, tenacious truth-seekers and enthusiastic dupes. All of them live their little lives and great dreams, all of them desire, fight and argue, while the Red Rooster hovers above their roofs … Some 135 years after it was written, Our Uppish and Defiant Fellows is still a fascinating Czech play, a play about ourselves across generations and eras, a play in which the contest for the post of bellman becomes a gigantic struggle for truth and honesty.

Our Uppish and Defiant Fellows

The “voucher privatization” (post-communist distribution of vouchers to the general public to bring private capital into state-owned companies) laid the foundations for the current structure of socioeconomic and political forces in the public sphere, affected hundreds of thousands of lives, and became a cornerstone of the modern myth about regained freedom. Many personal stories about the voucher privatization involve a  fairy-tale motif “What if”: – “What life could I have if I had chosen a different investment strategy?” – “How would I live had my parents become wealthy back then?” – “What if grandpa left the hidden stock of shares?”... The concepts of voucher and general privatization reflect the global and individual histories of the Czech Republic and of each of its citizens. The stories behind voucher privatization brought about dreams and desire for freedom, naivety, and ruthless family disputes over power and property. The turbulent “tale of the new National Revival” hardly left any time for the people to concentrate on themselves, perceive themselves as living beings, sense their growth limits, and consciously embrace their mortality.

Privatization

The Tulip Fever is an adaptation of the classic comedy Spanish Brabander (Spaanschen Brabander, 1618) written by Shakespeare’s contemporary Gerbrand Breder (1585-1618), a master playwright of the Dutch Golden Age. The play describes the machinations with tulip bulbs – which in 1637 led to what is considered the first speculative bubble – set against the backdrop of the picaresque poetics of swindlers at the time. The text is skillfully interspersed with typical attributes of real capitalism: quick money, monetization of human relationships, profitable investments, madness of crowds, political scheming, and the notorious uppishness of public figures. In fact, Jerolimo orchestrates this major investment campaign, targeted on Amsterdam bourgeoisie, secretly amidst a never-ending party at Madame Beatrice’s brothel. Will the (mostly sober) people of Amsterdam see through his cynicism before it is too late? Will they come to their senses before realising that they served him not only as a joke, but also as a source of profit? And that it destroys people’s souls? Mhm?! Hardly.

Scamsterdam

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.

Šimon Krupa

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 8, 2026 - Feb 27, 2027

End of a Priest · Národní divadlo

Sep 14 - Dec 18, 2026

Bílá Voda (White Water) · Národní divadlo

Sep 23, 2026 - Jan 17, 2027

The Unexpected VICTORY OF THE POLISH-CZECH UNION in World War III · Národní divadlo

Oct 10, 2026 - Feb 21, 2027

Our Uppish and Defiant Fellows · Národní divadlo

Oct 20 - Dec 7, 2026

Privatization · Národní divadlo

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