Off The Record

At the beginning, there was a word. A sentence. A diary written by a Swiss painter Paul Klee. The stage collage Mimo zápis (Off the Record) is neither a biographical drama nor author’s portrait. It concerns the complex theme of work, creation of a piece of art, identity, authorship and the act of creation itself. It seeks to capture the way of thinking of the innovative painter, his aim to precisely capture the reality, and creating rules for artistic creation.

On the grounds of a situation describing the need to capture reality in great details, two actors move – two personified parts of one personality – the intuitive and the rational one. The tension arising between them is caused by their honest effort to make a perfect performance and their struggle for leading position. Third character is the diary, text, examined object about which and with which the actors play.
It is a directorial debut of Ivana Uhlířová and hand in hand with Klee’s legacy she asks philosophical questions and at the same time creates original and playful Dadaist nonsense poetry, perceives the absurdity and the paradox of human existence.