GORGÓ / MALÁ INVENTURA 2023

“And you’ll love me! And you’ll marry me! And I’ll never forget you.“

DIRECTION Ondřej Cikán, Antonín Šilar
DRAMATURGY Ondřej Novotný
SCENIC DESIGN, LIGHT DESIGN Antonín Šilar
COSTUMES Lucie Sedláková
SCENE DESIGN AND COSTUME ASSISTANT Anežka Karasová
MUSIC Pasi Mäkelä
CAMERA Kryštof Melka
EDITING Zuzana Walter
PHOTO Patrik Borecký
POSTER Terezie Chlíbcová
STARRING Magdalena Kuntová, Marie Švestková, Jakub Gottwald, Vojtěch Hrabák, Pasi Mäkelä
VOICES Tereza Hofová, Nina Jacques, Sára Märc, Ondřej Bauer, Hynek Chmelař

The play by the Czech-Austrian poet and philologist Ondřej Cikán is a suggestive version of the famous myth from the Metamorphoses by Ovid. The hero Perseus is at the wedding with the princess Andromeda that he had previously saved from the sea monster Cetus. Meanwhile, there is the head of the Gorgon Medusa hidden in Perseus’ knapsack and he takes care of her. Andromeda seems to be made of marble, Cassiopeia is insufferable and Phineus should stop drinking. The sea nymphs are dancing on the beach and they have no idea that they’ll be soon devoured by the darkness.

The tragic experience of unrequited love results in the fatal impossibility of having any feelings. Heroes are supposed to kill monsters but what if, way back, they had loved them? One violent act is the first step and eventually, the man turns to stone. Love turns to numbness and coldness.

From the 90s, Ondřej Cikán has been living in Vienna where he studied Latin and Old Greek. His first play Tragödieninsel was staged in the Spielbar of the Volkstheater in Vienna in 2000. In 2002, he founded a theatre and literary group the Die Gruppe with Anatol Vitouch. In 2018, he founded the publishing house Kētos which mainly focuses on the translation of poetry from Czech to German (for instance, he translated the poem Máj by K. H. Mácha or the book Krvavý román by Josef Váchal). He published several novels. Based on one of his novels, Cikán and Antonín Šilar made a feature “sword-and-sandal” film called Menandros & Thaïs
The Theatre X10 started to collaborate with Ondřej Cikán in 2017 during the unique “theatre marathon” called The 24 Hour Plays.

The classical drama is one of the basis of European culture and therefore, it represents a fascinating topic for the Theatre X10 as it comprises the themes of responsibility, causes and consequences and natural connection between the political and private sphere of human existence. In 2018, The Theatre X10 produced the play Teritorium by Ondřej Novotný, the main dramaturge of the Theatre X10. This play was a dystopian vision based on the story of the Greek king Agamemnon who comes back from the Trojan war. It was nominated for the Best Czech play award of the Czech Theatre Critics Award. While Teritorium mostly accentuated the clash of socio-political concepts, Gorgó focuses on the private sphere. The classical antiquity merges with the present, magnificence merges with trash, love with sacrifice and murder. The classical myth speaks to everyone who has ever fallen in love.