An initiative of the
Breathless. A Documentary Film Project /
Vùng biên giới. A Theatre Project with Rimini Protokoll /
rádio d-cz. A Radio Art Project /
Vùng biên giới. A Theatre Project with Rimini Protokoll /
rádio d-cz. A Radio Art Project /
Through Cold Countries
Radio play / Author: Jáchym Topol
(DLR Kultur 2009), 172 min
Broadcasting dates:
13.09.2009, 18:30, part 1 (Deutschlandradio Kultur)
20.09.2009, 18:30, part 2 (Deutschlandradio Kultur)
23.-29.11.2009, 18:30 (ČRo 3 - Vltava)
On a chaotic journey from Theresienstadt to Minsk the narrator of this grotesque embodies the traces of the devastating Second World War which have yet to be faced up to. In his candid and naïve perspective traumata take shape in an absurdly scurrile way and become graspable as a form of collective unconsciousness.
One of the central topics of writer, publicist und media activist Jáchym Topol is a literary exploration of the effects the destructive force of war and political power conflicts have on people’s lives. In his novels “Noční práce” (“Working at Night”, 2001) and “Kloktat dehet” (“Circus Zone”, 2005) he shows how, seen from a child’s perspective, fear and lack of comprehension can turn the experience of violence into a quasi-mystical one: authentic experience intermingles with grotesque daydreams, with current events and fantasies. In his effectively original mix of genres Topol manages to cast a highly subjective and only seemingly a-historic view on the after-effects of totalitarian regimes. He is interested in how his own generation, the now forty-somethings, reacts to the legacy of World War II and the bygone communist era. His radio piece draws us into the fictitious reality of post-war and post-socialist Theresienstadt, a town where the narrator spent a reasonably happy childhood, if overshadowed somewhat by the knowledge of what went on behind the walls of the Nazi concentration camp and its “death machinery”. But the town’s current problems are of an economic sort, which some reckless parties try to solve by establishing an absurd kind of Holocaust tourism. A cultural conflict ensues in the course of which Topol’s radical hero has to escape to the Belarusian capital of Minsk, where he encounters similar problems: the money-driven society and its economic interests are little concerned with the legacy left behind by German crimes. With unbounded energy and pursued by dark powers, the narrator joins up with a group of “upstanding” citizens and they rummage around in Minsk’s crowds and dig, with symbolic overtones, beneath the city and its history.
As always in his work, Jáchym Topol’s first ever piece written exclusively for radio lays bare historically open questions in his specific, highly eccentric style. It seems that radio is a particularly helpful medium for Topol’s wild and provocative stories, for it does away with the restrictions of space and time.
Czech National radio produced its own version of the play: “Čajovna” (Tearoom), producer: Kateřina Rathouská.
JÁCHYM TOPOL
was born in Prague in 1962 as son of the poet and playwright Josef Topol. He took part in the literary activities of the Samizdat and the Czech underground since the beginning of the 1980s and co-founded the underground publishing house “Mozková mrtvice” (“Cerebral apoplexy”). At the same time he co-founded the magazines “Violit” and “Jednou nohou” (“With one leg”), which was renamed into Revolver Revue shortly after and which he headed as editor-in-chief from 1990-93. Ever since then Topol has been working freelance.
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