Don Juan
Stavovské divaldo (Estates Theatre)
Prague
Czech Republic
Tue, 11th November 2008 - Mon, 26th January 2009

Don Juan
by Moliere
Translation: Svatopluk Kadlec
Director: Jan Nebeský
Stage design: Jan Štěpánek
Costumes: Jana Preková
Music: Miloš Štědroň
Dramaturgy: Daria Ullrichová
Don Juan: Miroslav Donutil
Sganarel: Milan Stehlík
Elvira: Jaromíra Mílová
Don Carlos: Vladislav Beneš
Don Alonzo: Alexej Pyško
Don Luis: Jan Kačer
Beggar: Radovan Lukavský
Karlička: Magdaléna Borová
Kačenka: Martina Válková
Petřík: Jan Hájek
Mr Sunday: Petr Pelzer
Get the most out of life and live it up, regardless of others. Have no entanglements with anybody or anything. Only acknowledge those limitations which you have set yourself – and maybe not even those! Remarkably, it is not only our age which has a monopoly on such an approach to life. It is practised by a type described by Tirso de Molina in Spain as early as 1630 and in 1665 by another great dramatist, Moliere, in France. Since that time, Don Juan has become the subject matter of countless reworkings since the discord at the centre of the work is eternal: the discord between provocation and the temptation of order which is hidden and only recognisable through belief. Juan, however, has no such belief and the belief of his servant is too tepid to be able to convince him. Moliere played the part of Sganarello in this comedy. It was in this role that he could best express the excruciating doubts of the servant who is well aware that the actions of his master are wrong, but at the same time is too weak to be able to defy such an arrogant and mesmerising attitude. His last words (“Where is my pay?”) clearly depict the shallowness of his morality. This black comedy written in prose is a permanent fixture of the theatrical repertoire. Whereas recent productions have interpreted Juan as an unconventional intellectual who does not want to reconcile himself with the falseness and emptiness of social forms and conventions, today the play requires a new interpretation which paradoxically may be closer to that of Moliere himself when he wrote of the hedonistic court of Louis XIV.*
*Information from www.narodni-divadlo.cz.

Don Juan
by Moliere
Translation: Svatopluk Kadlec
Director: Jan Nebeský
Stage design: Jan Štěpánek
Costumes: Jana Preková
Music: Miloš Štědroň
Dramaturgy: Daria Ullrichová
Don Juan: Miroslav Donutil
Sganarel: Milan Stehlík
Elvira: Jaromíra Mílová
Don Carlos: Vladislav Beneš
Don Alonzo: Alexej Pyško
Don Luis: Jan Kačer
Beggar: Radovan Lukavský
Karlička: Magdaléna Borová
Kačenka: Martina Válková
Petřík: Jan Hájek
Mr Sunday: Petr Pelzer
Get the most out of life and live
...
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