Alois Jirasek: Lucerna

A fairy-tale play from the Bohemian sub-castle about serfdom, fear of the authorities and courage. The theatre classic, beloved by generations, in a new radio production. In the main roles you will hear Helena Dvořáková, Peter Lennecka, Ivan Trojan, Jaroslav Plesla, David Novotny, Petra Spalkova, František Němec, Ondřej Rychlý, Tereza Císařová, Daniela Kolářová or Kamil Halbich. Alois Jirásek is known primarily as a prose writer, but he also devoted a considerable part of his creative energy to the theatre. Of the twelve plays he wrote, the most performed to this day is the fairy-tale Lantern, in which Jirásek wanted, in his own words, "? to give a piece of Czech life from the time of workers and serfdom. " And also to capture what he calls "Czech nature". The author offers several portraits of this Czech character in Lucerna and they are not always flattering for our nation. Only a minority of the Czech subalterns are able to resist the pressure and seductions of the upper class, not to bend over backwards or even to give up their own benefit, because that would mean betraying their fellow men. From its first performance in 1905, the Czech audience immediately took Lucerne as their own, as evidenced by the 33 extraordinary performances the production received at the National Theatre. From the beginning, the fairy-tale creatures of the watermen and the comedy scenes of the country bumpkins preparing to play cassation for the new superiors were very popular. And the play about the magical lime tree, standing as a living symbol on the border between the miller's fields and the prince's forest, between our times and the ancient past, between the human world and the world of natural forces, has retained its charm to this day. As evidenced by the generations of theatregoers and audiences who gather around it.