Petr Stančík
Good Old Nový (Oldřich)
Open your eyes, I’m coming!
Back in 1930’s, director Mac Frič was shooting a movie about criminal elements, with Oldřich Nový in the starring role. Yet in front of the camera, the actor has trouble ridding himself of his good-natured manners. The director orders him to go to an otherwise proscribed pub named ‘Venom Shack’ so as to pick up gangster manners by watching. But it did not take long for Oldřich to get mixed in a real crime, drawing Adina Mandlová and Lída Baarová into a quagmire! Petr Stančík (born in 1968), a prosaist acclaimed for his succulent language whose bestseller Mummy Mill received the Magnesia Litera Award, wrote his ‘crazy tragicomedy’ for the Dramatic Company of the National Theatre Brno. The play pays tribute to the era of ‘cult classics’ and particularly to the personality of Oldřich Nový, who – a century ago – went down in history as a theatre actor, director and artistic director of the Opera House Brno. The genre of operetta with parodic features is reflected in the very form of the play as it is interlaced with two dozens of original songs with Stančík’s lyrics and music by Jakub Kudláč, the winner of the Czech Lion Award for the best soundtrack for the film Shadow Country.
World premiere: at reduta Theatre on December 9th, 2022
