The Drak Theatre has presented Karel Čapek’s utopian work in Maribor

The 58^th International Maribor Theatre Festival hosted the interactive exhibition project The Utopia at Large co-authored by the Drak Theatre and the International Institute of Figurative Theatre. The exhibition took place from 3 May to 2 June 2023.

The exhibition featured six installations that are the author’s reactions to Čapek’s novels The Absolute at Large, Krakatit, War with the Newts, and dramas R.U.R. and The Makropulos Affair. The authors of the installation – Tereza Vašíčková, Kamil Bělohlávek, Robert Smolík, Jan Čtvrtník, Antonín Šilar, and Karel Czech – have been brought together by puppet and alternative theatre, thus they are keen on telling stories, as well as the sense of theatricality, playfulness, and metaphors. The exhibition will be part of the program section of the Young Theatre 2.0 festival.

The exhibition was created for the exhibition space of the Drak Theatre Labyrinth, then it moved to the Sladovna Gallery in Písek, where it significantly contributed to the development of the educational program, and it could also be found in Kibla Portal in Maribor, the space of the former textile factory. The production there was launched one hundred years ago, i.e. the same year when Čapek’s The Utopia at Large was published. The first equipment of the factory was two hundred looms imported from Bohemia. One hundred years later, the past and the present along with the fiction and reality started their dialogue.

The program of the festival section of Young Theatre 2.0 focuses on young audiences, developing methods and techniques, which help the young people search for their identity and the development of their social skills. The program has been developed in close collaboration with theatremakers, educational institutions, and international theatres, and direct dialogue with young people.

The project was implemented with the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture, National Recovery Plan, and Next Generation EU.

Source: Draktheatre.cz
Photo: Ljubljana 2.6.2023, source: Embassy of the Czech Republicin Ljubljana