Czech theatre
during WWII
strategies of survival and resistance
Extremely short case studies ;)

Karel Čapek (1890-1938)
•Liberal, antifasistic author (from circle of T.G.M)
•In 30ties more and more explicitly politically active
•Two antifasictis play: The White Plague (1937) ad The Mother (1938)

Hugo Haas (1901-1968), theatre and film actor, director
•He was sacked from Prague National Theatre in February 1939 because of his Jewish origin.
Trailer

Voskovec and Werich – Liberated theatre
Svět patří nám
The World belongs to Us 1937




Jiří Frejka (1904-1952)
Avant-garde director (in Prague National theatre since 1930)
Search for actual message in Czech or world classical drama
Plautus: Pseudolus

Demonstration of loyality to Reich after assasination of Reinhardt Heidrich (1942)



Emil František Burian (1904-1959) and D 40
•Support new Czech writing
•Founds a school
•Club of supporters (lectures and other public activities)
•
•Theatre officially closed down 1941
1941 – Manon Lescaut – play by Vítězslav Nezval
based on the novel of the same name

Theatre in Terezín (Theresienstadt)
ghetto / transit camp
1941-1945

František Zelenka
(1904-1944)
stage designer
Cabarets – concerts – theatre performances (opera and drama) ….

Hans Krása – Adolf Hoffmeister… opera for children
•Composed 1938 for goverment competition
•
•Break of 1942/43-  performed by childern chorus in Jewish orphanage in Prague přelom
•September 1943, in Terezín, about 55 performances in years 1943–1944

Further reading
Performing Captivity, Performing Escape: Cabarets and Plays from the Terezín/Theresienstadt Ghetto.
Calcutta: Seagull Press, 2014.
A Holocaust Cabaret: Remaking Theatre from a Jewish Ghetto. Bristol: Intellect, 2023.
Jarka M. Burian
Modern Czech theatre: reflector and consience of a nation. Iowa City : Universtity of Iowa Press,
2000.
Leading creators of twentieth-century Czech theatre. London : Routledge, 2002.