The Animal Kingdom


author: Roland Schimmelpfennig
director: Kamila Polívková
stage design: Kamila Polívková a Zuzana Formánková
dramaturgy: Jan Horák
scene: Kamila Polívková
costumes: Zuzana Formánková
music: Ivan Acher
translation: Radka Denemarková
design and production of the origami masks: Ondřej Cibulka
animation and projection: Kamila Polívková and Pavel Havrda
stage manager: Michala Kášová

cast: Petr Vaněk, Jiří Černý, Jiří Štrébl, Jakub Žáček, Gabriela Míčová, Ivana Uhlířová, Iveta Jiříčková
length: 80 minutes

The Animal Kingdom by Schimmelpfenig explores the relationship between actor and character (in this case, a wild animal) and describes the dark side of the profession. As part of the everyday existence of its wearer (not only in the metaphorical sense), a mask gradually becomes reality. Although it is becoming hard to bear, it is no longer possible to remove it. The attributes of the fictional characters are becoming inseparable parts of the characters of their protagonists and vice versa. A man acts as an animal, an animal thinks as a man and has to defend its territory and stay alive at all costs. Zebra, lion, antelope, marabou, crocodile and civet are fighting for their opportunity to take part in the next show, The Garden of the Things, as ketchup, salt cellar, pepper pot, fried egg or toast. Who’s going to survive?

We would like to express our thanks to Mr Ondřej Cibulka, the creator of the origami masks, for being such a great help to our team.

We would also like to thank to all our supporters at www.hithit.cz campaign.

Finally, we would like to thank Tomáš Merta and Tomáš Klein for their help with the shooting of the film materials for the projection and to Martin Jansa from blank photo www.blankfoto.cz for the photographs of “The Garden of the Things”.

 

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