BLOG: English Theatre Comes to Bratislava

The Festival of English speaking theatres Bridgin`V4 will open with the play Vernissage based on a ‘theatre of the absurd’ play by Vaclav Havel.

Five plays in English will be introduced at the second year of the international festival of English speaking theatres, Bridgin'V4. The festival takes place on 16 and 17 March in Bratislava`s V-club.

The opening production is Vernissage, based on the play by Vaclav Havel, performed by the Theatre on the Roof Company from Budapest. The play is inspired by the theatre of the absurd and reflects the social situation in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. “The main heroes are a petty bourgeois couple and their guest, to whom they show their flat filled with different stuff symbolising their pretentious social status. Cyclically repeating situations reflect the dullness and sadness of a social life without future prospects under socialism,” says the festival manager Michaela Vrabova from the Bridge English Language Centre.

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In addition to Vernissage, Hungarian artists will also perform a show about a dysfunctional family, based on the screenplay by Tennessee Williams, Glass Menagerie. Slovak theatre will be represented by the Bridgin'Drama Company and cabaret club, Red Cat Cabaret. Bridgin`Drama will present an adaptation of Tea at the Senator`s by Ivan Stodola – Just Another Cup of Tea, and Red Cat Cabaret will perform an original show called Made in Slovakia, which is a multi-genre road show about Slovakia and Slovak traditions. The play, The History of English Literature, by the Czech theatre company, The Bear Educational Theatre, from Prague, has an educational and interactive character and will playfully introduce the great writers of English literature.

Part of the festival will also be a special workshop for English speaking drama students, both professional and amateur, as well as for theatre lovers in general. It will be led by Oliver Micevski (University of Oslo), Daniel Hall (University of Sussex) and Timea Kasa (The International theatre school of Jacques Lecoq in Paris).

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Partners of the festival are the Bridge English Language Centre, the American chamber of commerce, the Canadian chamber of commerce, the British chamber of commerce and the Czech centre. Media partners are The Slovak Spectator, www.welcometobratislava.eu, www.skolskyservis.sk and Divadelný ústav.

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