This life is for drowning

Marysha refused, Marysha was forced, Marysha tried to explain, Marysha was ignored, Marysha resisted, Marysha was being humiliated, Marysha decided: and now you have it. How can parents deceive their own children? Why to live one’s life when there is no way to decide about it? And what price is one willing to pay to buy oneself out of a miserable existence? Inspired by a real story from a Moravian village, the stage play Marysha (1894) by the Mrštík brothers, depicts such remorseless questions of life in a bare bone manner. The destiny of Marysha, Franck and Vavra is not only a story from the late nineteenth century, but an intricate constellation of relations, economic concerns and interests of power. Today, just as in the past, it can result in that ‘life for drowning’. Considered to be the gem of nineteenth-century Czech drama, and possibly the greatest Czech drama of all time, the play Marysha is making it back to the Mahen Theatre after more than two decades – this time in a more intimate rendition directed by the acclaimed stage director Dodo Gombár. The work of the two Mrštík brothers, Alois (1861–1925) and Vilém (1863–1912), has its incontestable place in the Czech literary canon and is well worth getting acquainted with in any epoch. The 2025 adaptation of Marysha at the Mahen Theatre has no intention to resuscitate theatrical practices of the century before last; it presents a girl of our time who is right about everything but who is ignored by everyone. Thus, as if it was nobody’s fault, everybody destroys her life.

Premiere: March 7^th, 2025 at Mahen Theatre

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