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| Statue of Carlo Goldoni in Venice |
Actually, why are we both remembering Carlo Goldoni? Because he was connected with the activity of the theatrical group at our high school that we both have been acting in for two seasons. An extract from his theatrical outputs was chosen for our first performance by our director Rudolf Faltejsek. In my opinion it was quite a lucky choice. We were young, so this mixture from old Italian commedias dell'arte was the right for us. Some of us „actors“ have been performing in another theatrical group at our school before, but it was really an amateurish job led by our Czech language teacher who lacked any practical experiences from the theatre. We have rehearsed a Christmas musical performance called „The Nativity Scene“, full of old Czech carols, that we have performed on a roof-less corridor of our school before Christmas holidays, and then another fairy-tale musical performance presented in a local city hall that I can hardly remember. In contrast with this Mr Faltejsek chose a drama much challenging for his ensemble, namely the Roark Bradford's „Ol´ Man Adam an´ his Chillun / Ol´ King David an´ the Philistine Boys“. The ensemble of our schoolmates had above that a chance to peform in a much suitable area of the „Jesličky“ (The Crib) Theatre, that was used as a home stage for amateur actors from local school of arts. So the youth between their 15-20 years has got their first chances to meet the environment of a real theatre from behind the curtains, not only as the non-regular theatre visitors. That brings with it of course a familiarization with another professionals from the theatre – the curtain operators, lighting technician, the staff from the costumes & props rooms, the prompter... Our collegues passed their challenge well, their performance was very succesfull both at premiere and at reprises and even those students, who were labelled as less talented took their chance to excel in it.
The next year things changed – some boys and girls from Mr Faltejsek's ensemble quit, as well as most of us from the „competetive“ one of our Czech language teacher went conversely just to Mr Faltejsek's. So Mr Faltejsek as a director had a completely new ensemble of young people he either had never seen before, or met them only in our school rhetorical courses. Even some girls and boys from the first grade at our school joined us. And everything could for Mr Faltejsek start anew – the selection of a play to perform, adapting it for the number of the ensemble members and roles needed, casting of the roles, explaining the plot of the play to the cast, and finally that weekly repeated routine of rehearsals, that were held in our classrooms after finishing our classes. Well, that was the hardest part of the process – from time to time it was obvious (especially for the boys from our group) that many of us would prefer relaxation either by some sport, or with a nice mug of beer after all those hard school lessons, instead of another hours of memorizing the dialogues and rehearsing the interactions with co-performers. So it was quite uneasy to get the whole ensemble together on these rehearsals, although we were only about 15 members. Every time there was someone absent and we were forced to rehearse in pairs or groups according to the members who were present. But I think it's quite normal when performing in a theatre is not your regular job.
Well, as I wrote, for our performance we chose the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni, from whose pieces (mostly from The Mistress of the Inn, A Servant to Two Masters and Brawling in Chioggia) a compilation was made for us by our director. And as life brings many surprises, I was casted to one of the lead roles – a girl who wants to marry against her father's wish. As I've mentioned in some of my previous blog post, I still was that shy girl from the Czech countryside, who was trying to become acclimatized to the life in a big city and who fought her jitters everytime she had to make some school presentation in front of her schoolmates. But actually all those jitters were for me an impulse to join Mr Faltejsek's theatrical ensemble – I simply wanted to get rid of them. And of course I wanted to know whether I'm able to cooperate with some group on a theatrical perfromance with everything that is connected with it. There are no doubts that Mr Faltejsek as an experienced actor himself and a director who used to work with amateur actors for many years before percieved my lack of self-confidence – but he didn't have any objections against me as a cast of my role, instead of casting some spunkier girl. So my „Beatrice“ was chaste, diffident – and reliable in what regards not forgetting the text of her role. Well, I hope I didn't dissapoint Mr Faltejsek much.
Having a chance to perform in a school theatrical ensemble was for me on the one hand a possibility to meet with my schoolmates that I would otherwise passed by at the corridors of our school, and secondly it was a big opportunity for working on myself, as I wrote before. It was just a leisure activity for me, but I already realized that I'm a part of a bigger team that is dependent on my performance. It was a kind of transformation from my childhood and young teenage years into young adultery, too – suddenly I wasn't just a kid with a schoolbag on my back, who just started her experiments with using the make-up, but I was forced to act as a girl suitable for marriage! The worse – my role involved a love scene, although performed only by sounds behind the scene! And it should be played by me, who wasn't paying much attention to opposite sex then and whose first real relationship between a boy and a girl was hidden deep in her future. But my schoolmates in our ensemble struggled the same problem, e.g. the role of my father was casted by a 15 year old boy from the first grade of our school. But I enjoyed this all – everything that I wouldn't allow to do myself in my real life was allowed or even ordered to me as a part of my role, as flirting with the boys or rejecting them, quarelling with my father, giving orders to my maid or to Truffaldino... I can even remember that I acted just in the opening scene, where the girls meet and chat by hanging the laundry – and I wasn't sure whether I will be able to do it „right“, since I wasn't used to do this in my real life.
Well, little by little we went more familiar together with my schoolmates and our roles, so there came a time for us to bring our rehearsals into the area of our theatre. It was a really small place, with only a few dozens of seats in the auditorium. But yet – a first meeting with a place like that... the first gathering of us - „the actors“ - on an empty stage, without any decorations or props (that we partially hunted for or even made by ourselves), with an empty auditorium (our guests were that moment sitting at school) and with only one light on and our director in front of us giving us some friendly advices... And then came our first careful steps on stage, as we started to rehearse in couples or grups as needed, practice the arrivals to the scene and leaving from there, we were tottering between the curtains, as we were moving from one side of the scene to another in the backstage... recalling on what side of the scene has someone left the paper with the text of his role or some of his props... And then there were those pauses for smokers, when „Truffaldino“ played us a Jaromír Nohavica's song „Swallow, fly!“ on a piano next to the stage, while me and one of my friends were chatting about total nonsenses then... And of course there were the first funny moments during our rehearsals, like that one, when the boys left their empty beer bottles at the wooden crate I should be standing at and talking „from inside the window of a house“ and then I was supposed to go down from the crate and „run to the front of the house“ - but I accidentally tumbled all the beer bottles down and as I went so frightened, I immediately forgot the text of my role.
Maybe this all seems so romantic to you... But in fact, it was a kind of work itself as well. One already knew that someone else wouldn't dare it or simply wouldn't manage to learn, say and perform these few sentences of his role, that were needed for about a hour lasting play. But I never had a feeling that need to step on the stage only to hear the applause and the word „Bravo!“ or for being admired for the way I took my role. That applause in my opinion belonged to the whole ensemble with the director and its purpose was to confirm us, that we created a good performance. Of course everyone steps on the stage to do his best.
Well, the time of our premiere has come, followed with all that bold make-up and hairstyles - we asked the girls from the make-up artist's branch of some high school to support us, and they were happy that they could use a really generous portion of their creativity for us. So my eye make-up was pink shaded for the premiere and green shaded for the rest of our performances, I wore two pigtails and the boy that played my father asked me if we are going to some kids party... First were we performing for the youngest students of our school, on afternoon there was a reprise for our parents and other guests and friends of the school, and the next day another one for the rest of our students. Of course I suffered from a big stage-fright before the premiere, but I was acknowledged again that if someone survives the first moments on the stage, his head turns somehow "off" and he can concentrate more on what he is actually doing and sayin than on the fact he is being gazed at with all the lights on. And my collegues suffered from the stage-fright even less - actually I remembered one mischievous joke that have our boys made towards the girls during their performance: there was a scene in the coffee shop, that the girls should visit and drink a toast with the shot of a liqueur (that was meant to be substituted with pure water, of course) there and then continue in their dialogues. But our boys substituted the water in the bottle with vodka without telling the girls - so they drank their shots and were almost unable to speak again in that shock, while the boys in the backstage could laugh their hearts. But besides that the premiere went all right into it's nice finish, when everyone on the stage (including poor Truffaldino) got married and the final fell of the curtains was followed with "So that's how everything ends. And what will be next? There's a carnival starting in Venice. And our theatre play remains as it is, and is allowed to make fun of everyone of us." We've got a big applause from our schoolmates, that returned to school then, and we had to wait a few hours for our afternoon's reprise. I remember that I almost gave up putting my make-up off and went for a lunch to one of local tearooms, where I sat in a rear room with a nice pot of a tea and a textbook (the test in the school really couldn't wait for our performance to be gone) and for sure with a screenplay of our play (what if my text was substituted with some chemistry formulas in my head?).
Our afternoon's premiere was perfomed the same way, except the fact that the girls watched the boys with the bottle in their hands carefully this time. Our parents and grandparents and other guests of our show were satisfied with our performances, as well as we were. But there slightly were these feelings of some routine after this reprise, that were connected with the knowledge, that tomorrow it will be the same for us, this time in a reprise for the rest of our older schoolmates. One simply knew when and how should he enter the scene and who will be in the backstage waiting for his own act when he returns. So the only thing that slightly started to get into my mind was the fact that with this performance is our all-year endeavour over and it won't be repeated with such ensemble anymore.
Of course we returned to our director Mr Faltejsek the next year. Our ensemble remained almost the same and we solved the question "what are we gonna perform this time?" again. This time we chose a Czech playwright Václav Kliment Klicpera and his comedy "Everyone Something for his Homeland". So the motive of a girl tempting to marry against the will of one of her parents (this time her mother's) remained the same. And so did the cast - with myself again in a role of this girl called Minka, a daughter of a town mayor and his bossy wife. The boy I chose to marry in this role was called Jesenský and this part was casted by "Truffaldino" from our previous performance - therefore a boy who had the most experiences in acting from all of us. I can only hope I didn't spoil our common act much. But there were many more suitors, that were presented to my throughout the performance and that would be more acceptable by my mother, because they seemed to her to have more credits for developing our country - but my Minka steadily refused all of these silly teachers, brewery owners and old wine distillery owners and let them marry her talkative neighbours, insisting to marry only Jesenský. In the end the will of her mom relented, it was proven that Jesenský has the most "credits for our homeland" from all of the adepts and even the most promising future, so the marriage could be celebrated between him and Minka.
And my feeleings about the preparation of this performance and the performance itself? This time I already knew what I should expect from it and what will be expected from me. The more could I concentrate for what my role demanded from me, instead of getting familiar with a new surroundings. Despite the fact that the role of my Minka this time was a bit eclipsed by her mom, that was more distinctive. There were no mischievousnesses throughout this performances, if I do not count that one that my schoolmate (who inspired me to write this post) just before the premiere got an idea to buy a bag of flour and sprinkled it all over his white miller's costume, so he could dust and strew it everywhere on the stage everytime he moved.
That's how we made our two school theatrical performances. We wanted to perform the next year, too, we already chose the play (it was "A Midsummer Night's Dream" from William Shakespeare), but we were unable to get our ensemble completed in that number of members that would be needed. Our older schoolmates already had their leaving school exams finished and entered various universities all around our country, my grade was just before these exams, so we had only a little time left for another things, the schoolmates from the third grade wanted to finish their exams in various languages and so on, and no one from the youngest students dared to join us. But what concerns me, I'm apparently able to remember all these moments and experiences even more than ten years after they happened. I didn't manage to step on the stage anymore after I finished my high school and university studies, up to now. The path of my life leads me in another direction so far. But I wouldn't hold myself back in case of a chance like this in the future. And of course I remember especially the patient and benevolent approach of our director Mr Faltejsek, who had to teach us all these theatrical basics - the pronounciation and working with our voice, the use of gestures and mimics, so we could get the character of our role as well as her momental mood... Fortunatelly it was obvious that Mr Faltejsek has got a lot of experiences with leading the ensembles of amateur actors of various age. A few months later one of my neighbours from our village even revealed to me that Mr Faltejsek was born and used to live there, too. And as a cherry on top was for me the information I found somewhere on the web that Mr Faltejsek is a schoolmate of famous Czech actors and playwrights Zdeněk Svěrák and Ladislav Smoljak (the authors of well-known fictional character Jára Cimrman), too. I'm quite glad I didn't know it before - it doesn't seem to be a good thing to help you with the stage-fright and shyness.
Anyway, I think it's good to thank in time to the people such as Mr Faltejsek, who try to transmit something good to others selflessly, push them towards something positive, help them to create something worthy, spend their time with them and share some precious moments together.
So at least for myself I want to say: "Mr Faltejsek - THANK YOU!"
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| Rudolf Faltejsek, our director (photo courtesy Ivo Mičkal) |
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