Kohlhaas

An eco-terrorist play – in disguise.
Lachende Bestien repeatedly return to “Kohlhaas motifs.” Heinrich von Kleist’s novel tells the story of a man who is wronged. In the pursuit of redress through legal means, a time comes when legal means are not enough. In his fight for justice, Michael Kohlhaas breaks the law, uses violence. Lachende Bestien break interpretation and venture into original commentary. The play is not a study of a person becoming a terrorist. Or a partisan. Or a revolutionary. But it could be.

Horses will appear on stage – in disguise
Violence will be called for on stage – in disguise
The law will be broken on stage – in disguise?

In Kohlhaas, Lachende Bestien continue in their pursue of original theatre that demonstrates, alienates, and spoils the clear boundaries between the personal and political, between alternative and drama theatre. They build on the principles of Brechtian theatre today, playing an interpretative game with the original text, and the theatre itself is the material.

About the company

The Prague alternative theater group Lachende Bestien was formed around director Michal Hába, musician Jindřich Čížek and set designer Adriana Černá already in 2011. The group is considered one of the most progressive theater entities in Prague.
They made their mark in the public consciousness already with their debut, the production of 120 Days of Freedom – a variation of de Sade’s controversial novel, which dealt with the limits of imagination and de facto characterized the direction of the group’s work, in which they go “against the viewer’s guts” and invite him to an active dialogue. They gained fame with the production of Werner Schwab’s drama Pornogeography, for which they received the Josef Balvín Award.
Their repertoire mostly includes original projects, but they also adapt “traditional” theater texts – such as Ibsen’s Enemy of the People (2019) or Sikora’s Castle on the Loire (2020).
Lachende Bestien continue the tradition of Brechtian theater not only with alienating acting, but especially with an analytical view of reality. In their projects, they thematize and question the idea of ​​capitalism and programmatically deal with social inequality. The result of this profiling is a socially-critical and appealing theatre, which is also characterized by self-irony and cracking humor.