Fredy | Perform Czech

Some stories are seemingly untouchable. Fredy Hirsch’s story is one of them: the story of a teacher of children, a Jew in a concentration camp and a homosexual under totalitarianism.

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Some stories are seemingly untouchable. They carry great tension. They have hidden areas and secret passages. We can only dance around the cave entrance and peer inside. Fredy Hirsch’s life is one of those stories. It is shrouded in several kinds of untouchability – it is the story of a coach and teacher of children in inhuman conditions, of a Jew in a concentration camp, of a homosexual in totalitarianism.

The emphasis is on physical fitness, exercise and hygiene. Discipline and regularity. How can a man in a totalitarian prison maintain his self-respect? By rehearsing theatrical performances with children? By building up in them and in oneself a consciousness of untouchability, of the possibility of play and transformation?

At the end of his life, Fredy was faced with the challenge of a camp-wide rebellion. “I convinced him that it was necessary to have a leader and that he was chosen to be that leader. He told me that he understood the situation, but that he couldn’t make a decision for the sake of the children. According to the description, Fredy Hirsch asked for an hour to think it over.” We move through the theater of “an hour to think,” according to the memories of contemporary observers, philosophical maps, children’s stories, and the movements of bodies as they encounter other bodies.

A theatre group with a long history, Masopust is currently based at Eliad’s Library in Theatre on Balustrade and stages variations on the works of unconventional literary authors in collaboration with leading Czech theatre artists.