Ivan Vyskočil

A speech delivered by Ivan Vyskočil  

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am a man of the nineteen-sixties. The sixties, their beginning. A man of that great intellectual, ideological and philosophical debate, which was suppressed and falsified by ideological and political interests and later by normalisation and consolidation. Of that then worldwide debate, in which Czechoslovakia played more than a minor role. Of that unfinished debate. Yes, this is nostalgia speaking, a memory of the response, of the demand, of what some experiments and findings evoked around the world before the cage fell. I am also speaking with the knowledge that, as they say, we are entering Europe and it would probably be good to reminiscent a little and realise the context and the possibilities.
The sixties begin a few years earlier, in the late fifties – there was a need for a new and different conception of man and his world. A conception different from the communist, collectivist, productive one. “Young Marx” steps into spotlight – the philosopher of alienation, and of course the philosophy of life, the philosophy of existence, existentialism and personalism, phenomenology and structuralism, just about everything Lenin considered to be misguided, dangerous and reprehensible “priesthood”.
The concept of man, in opposition to the ruling ideologised scheme, the most specific “dialectic of the concrete”, the image and model of modern man and his world at the time. But that is the central theme of dramatic culture and production, of theatre, isn’t it?
But theatre is an institution. One that produces, distributes and administers. Moreover, at that time, a centrally managed, ideologically controlled network of theatres. A highly inflexible, inoperative, inertial matter. I wanted nothing to do with theatre and its world. When suddenly I realised I was actually doing theatre. In a way. And that, in a way, I was a part of that great debate, without wanting, without trying.
Thus, from that atmosphere and for that atmosphere, a new and different theatre was born. Indeed, it was born of almost nothing and without anything, without preparation, foundation, establishment, permission or approval. It was born out of empathy and intuition rather than wilfully, it spontaneously entered the relationship, dialogue, action, and in fact it was only from the response it became self-aware and cognisable. It was born outside the then theatrical art and, of course, outside the theatrical network, outside the then usual spaces and environments of culture and theatre. It was probably born of the need for contact, response, meeting – organically born of play, a play in itself. In that play it identified itself and gave the name to text-appeal: word, pun, association, determination. An appeal. A call. Perhaps to meet and participate in a joint play. A call through text, through word, speech, thought, idea, story, fable, narration. And because it was a play, then not only through but with text, word, speech, thought, idea, fable, narration. Simply the intellectual stuff, so downplayed by so many.
It was probably the need for the source most inherent. The dark hour. Come, come and spend some time with us. A poor, non-traditional theatre perhaps, although it was basically the oldest and most original tradition. But more probably no theatre as such, even no art as such. That is perhaps why it was allowed at that time, at least somewhat. For a while. Until it became about theatre as such and art as such and success as such and exports, profits, television, etc. It can be assumed that the new and different thing at the birth of that was mainly its ethos. Its authenticity, spontaneity, creativity, its authorial attitude and personal responsibility.
The so-called small – young, non-traditional – theatres, officially known for a long time as “small stages”, of the sixties and perhaps of the first half of the seventies cannot be considered something homogeneous, uniform, coherent. On the contrary, the differences are very significant. You can hardly recognise these without ideological, philosophical interest and insight. Without knowledge of the context.
Some critics and theorists started respecting the small theatres, but at the same time declared them a kind of prelude, a lower stage of development, something like larvae or tadpoles of that normal large theatre. Saying that the sign of their quality and viability is and will be, if and how they soon mature, become professional, normalise – that is if and how soon they will lose their own character and meaning before uncovering what it is. Another thing that significantly disrupted and confused the development before political normalisation and consolidation was the massive onset of the “beat music” wave and demand from television. Intervention of commercialisation, “pop”, medialisation and humour and folk entertainment.
Can the matter in question be considered worthy of study and recognition today? That is not easy, it is a time above all dramatic, when the most important thing could not have been published as such. On the contrary, tactics, concealment and pretence, confusion, and censorship were frequent and abundant. Intentional and unintentional alike.
So far, only one book has been published on the subject of small stages. Large in its impression, rather large in scope and the author’s self-confidence. But also by his lack of knowledge and spread of confusion. A typical product of normalisation and consolidation at their peak. Typical also in the fact that the author somehow fails to take into account the aspect of liberty and especially the lack of freedom. With all the symptoms and consequences, with the rule of impossibility.

The need and search for a new, mostly different conception of man and his world, the concept of humaneness and humanity, different from the past but still present – that is of great importance for the concept of actor as man and partner and especially for the concept of acting as such. Acting not as a specific profession, but as a deeply human, existential matter.
That is nothing new. It is an old, very old thing. This was definitely cultivated, but not under the name of education and training in acting, but as education and training for self-knowledge and consciousness, towards creative, honest behaviour, towards courage and self-improvement, a sense of play, humour and joy, voice and speech, the art of disputation. By way of example and guidance, for example, by Comenius or Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits in general – John Bosco, a saint as well, and the Salesians – and on the completely opposite pole, for example, by A. S. Makarenko. In all cases, in conjunction with the theatre as a workshop of humanity.
In a secularised, utilitarianised, rationalised, and increasingly technicalised and consume-devouring world, this education has disappeared, dramatic culture and creation, which is also the culture and creation of quite ordinary decency and interpersonal relationships, has rapidly declined. In the 1950s and 1960s, this is manifesting itself as a big and growing misery and there was the need to tackle it. A need directly self-preserving, ecological.
There are many reasons to “do something about it”. And their number increases. It has to do with more and more burdensome alienation, with the death of humanity, with stronger and more frequent substitutes, compensations, illusions, self-deceptions, suggestions, pernicious habits, with increasingly difficult and more confusing and confused communication, especially verbal, with predominant media coverage of life and the emptying, exhausting and numbing entertainment that come with it, humour paired with murder if you will. More and more people no longer know about themselves and do not want to know, they are no longer living their lives, their stories, merely consuming their regular doses of emotions one way or another.
The burnout syndrome is becoming more common as well. Loss of interest, meaning, energy, creativity, empathy, joy. In its stead, a feeling of emptiness, disinterest, annoyance, anger, superficial routine, mannerism, poses. Teachers and educators are among the most at-risk. Also psychotherapists and therapists. And priests, clergymen, public officials. Actors as well. Those whose professions lie in creative communication. Probably the only effective prevention and help is proper education. Education in acting as conscious, creative, communicative action, behaviour and experience in a given situation.
In the late 1960s, top psychotherapists, representative participants in the Third World Congress on Psychodrama and Group Psychotherapy, felt equally and convincingly that their profession should move from more or less “natural”, “naturally-gifted” lay acting toward real study and education of those in acting and dramatic play in general. However, the question was and apparently remains: What does this mean and entail? What is it about? And where, from and with whom?
Need and demand evoke supply. Of course, first and foremost from enterprising, lively, skilled tradesmen and often parasitical fraudsters. A number of “easy and fast” techniques as well as “for-everyone” methods, courses, workshops, training. Just take look around a little and see how things are. Unfortunately, it is often just a pretention, delusion, a sale of illusions and dummies, often even obscuring and confusing real issues and quality solutions.
Interest and questions seem to persist. Probably more around the world than in our country. Nevertheless, we managed to make some progress in that time as well. Hopefully we are progressing a little and maybe we could be even more successful. It is perhaps only possible to study the above with some direction at a university. It is still mostly about studies, about acquiring knowledge from the ground up – basic empirical research. Under the communist regime, this was not possible at all. All you had to do was just say and start, and the vigilant guards were already destroying “the diversionists, the existentialists, and the priests”. Practicalism, on the other hand, does not want or cultivate any such intellectual research and study.
Exploring and studying acting, which is barely possible without feedback and without interplay with philosophy and psychology and probably others, is not and probably cannot be a traditional, proven study of actors for the unequivocally gifted, inclined and selected. This can hardly be the current mostly practically focused single-subject study and education. Everything point to the fact that it should probably be a study and education conceived as combined and complementary. Combined with other suitable fields or concepts. Simply said a university degree and education in humanities. To open the perspective and allow new experiments, possibilities and cases of creative practice to arise. To reasonably overcome the practicalism. That is why the work is put into that. Long and persistent work. However, we seem to need a permanent debate, an academic discussion, a real university.

Laudatio delivered by prof. PhDr. Bořivoj Srba, DrSc

IVAN VYSKOČIL’S NON-THEATRE

Ivan Vyskočil is a kind of legendary figure in the history of post-war Czech theatre and the event of that time: he is a creator who has shown extraordinary initiative in many fields of theatre, leaving a significant mark everywhere – as the founder, organiser and leader of several theatre stages, as a playwright and mastermind of their spiritual base and artistic programme, as the author of many dramatic texts and their performer and actor, a director and set designer in one, but also as a theoretician of the field and last but not least as a theatre educator. Ivan Vyskočil is known to the general Czech public mainly as a writer, the author of several dozen texts intended both to be read and above all to be performed on stage – this is a specific feature of his creative efforts.
In this context, a large collection of his original prose deserves special attention – the subjective authorial consideration that prevails in them would almost make one say “poetic prose” if these pieces of prose, such as narratives and short stories, did not equilibrate between the lyrical way and the ways of epic and dramatic literary depiction, which makes his prose almost entirely impossible to classically and precisely choose its genre from the common literary theoretical nomenclature of species and genres: prose addressed to the reader, and – provided that the mediation mission in this sense is undertaken by the actor, actor as narrator and the performer – for the listener and the spectator, as the author himself proved by his interpretations of these texts in performances called “text-appeals” since the beginnings of Reduta in the late 1950s, establishing as a whole a kind of “theatre/non-theatre”. His “prose”, as is well known summarised in a number of jointly themed units, have given Vyskočil enough material to publish four separate books: Vždyť přece létat je snadné (1963), Kosti (1966), Malé hry (1967), Ivan Vyskočil a jiné povídky (1971), Malý Alenáš (1990); some were published in magazines (Meziřeči, Divadlo 1966), and some, on the other hand, made it into the book anthology Nedivadlo Ivana Vyskočila (1996).
We have said that the texts mentioned – as they tend to be lyrical on the one hand and dramatic on the other, with a clear foundation in the epics – are difficult to classify among the traditionalist literary works in terms of type and genre. However, in any case, although presented externally as “prose”, they can, in our judgment, be perceived and judged in the context of dramatic production. However, Vyskočil’s creations do not always call for an immediate actor-narrator mediation. Even those which use dramatic methods of material modelling only to a modest extent, and obviously do not aspire to be performed on stage or narrated, and can thus be considered truly prosaic literary units, are presented by Vyskočil as a kind of “dramatic texts”. They manifest as a kind of small, “silent” dramas, intended for a special way of theatrical performance, namely for “performance in the dramatic space” of the reader’s imagination, carried by the author’s idea that the recipient himself will try to “perform” them, because they are primarily intended for him, the reader. Their nature as dramatic artefacts of this kind was, moreover, revealed by Vyskočil himself, when, for example, he named a certain set of his prose – a set published in his third book – the Little Games and encouraged the reader in his author’s note to “not read” the prose, but to “perform and play” the stories in the “home theatres” of their mind through their imagination: “This is a book-script mainly for those who still know how to play those small game and want to play them,” Vyskočil writes there. “The texts expect not only an attentive reader, but also an understanding performer. Maybe a silent, unpretentious showman, a performer mostly in the spirit.” To us, these texts are an eloquent example of “dramatic” texts of the “irregular” type, “unregelmässig” if you will, a type of “irregular dramaturgy” that makes the reader anticipate stage narrative productions.
Besides the texts the generic nature of which may be disputed, Vyskočil wrote almost two dozens of similarly unspecified texts, which were, however, clearly intended to be performed on stage from the very beginning. Although even in their case the performance was based on both the principles of narration and dramatic action. However, most of them have also been published in print, and can therefore provide the recipient-reader with a similar experience to the “prose” in the Small Games.
These are the following texts: Kdyby tisíc klarinetů (co-author Jiří Suchý, 1958), Faust, Markéta, služka a já (same co-author, 1959), Smutné vánoce (with Pavel Kopta and Miloš Macourek, 1960), Autostop (with Václav Havel, 1961), Poslední den (1964), Křtiny v Hbřbvích aneb Blbá hra (1965), Meziřeči (1966), O rodný ranč čili Padni, padouchu (1969), Malý Alenáš (1976), Haprdáns (1980), Cesta do Úbic (1985), Evokace 1–5 (1980–1990) and others.
However, even all these texts testify by their character that Ivan Vyskočil considers a purely dramatic way of depiction to be of insufficient bearing capacity, a principle that unhappily encloses the stories in a real space in which everything happens as in reality, without a semantic overlap and thus without an appropriate power to explain. In all of them, as said already, the three basic imaging possibilities known to literature and theatre are fully utilised to their maximum extent. In all of them, a dramatic way of presenting reality is exploited, but it is also combined with the epic and the lyrical. However, the epic narrative principle is preferred here and plays an important role, so important in fact that it even becomes a decisive method of Vyskočil’s treatise of the matter.
All of these plays – one more, another one less – are thus – similarly to Vyskočil’s text-appeal prose – based on the author as the work’s “spokesperson”, a point of their noetic certainty, and the author, mediating to the viewer the knowledge and understanding he wants to talk about, takes on the role of guarantor for the completeness and accuracy of the information he provides, and with this responsibility of a guarantor he essentially gives the meaning to his way of presenting the world.
The initial attitude Ivan Vyskočil takes in portraying reality as a “prose writer” and a “playwright” fundamentally influences the attitude he takes as the performer of his texts. The procedures Vyskočil chooses in the semantic construction of his “prose” and “drama” are largely determined by his idea of the future interpretation of these works by the “Vyskočil” interpretive stage and acting method, and vice versa, the choice of interpretive procedures is governed by the method of the texts’ semantic construction; the literary grasping of the topic and its acting and narrative interpretation are conditional on each other in an existential manner and so integrally connected that it is quite impossible to perceive them separately – one cannot be perceived only on the literary level and the other only on the theatrical level.
In this sense, in the Notes to the key text of his repertoire, Meziřeči from 1966, Vyskočil described the type of narrated “theatre/non-theatre” as the ultimate objective of his creative effort, in which everything that happens on stage would be born – as a gift of an unrepeatable moment – from a more or less improvised cooperation between the performer and the recipient as in some psychodrama.
With regard to Vyskočil’s dramatic-authorial and theatrical-interpretive activities, which, as already said, appear in such close unity and togetherness that it is impossible to separate them and that they need to be considered a single, integral creative act, we must note in summary that this creator sees theatre as an imaging system that is only a special parallel to the imaging system of literature, as it provides the same conditions for the free movement of thoughts and ideas as the system of literature, and which – open to all possibilities as the author himself – allows the use of all three basic methods of literary presentation of the image of reality, the modelling principles of the epic, lyrical and dramatic, without weakening its effect in relation to the recipients-viewers; on the contrary, the fact that the purpose of the theatre is realized by the concretisation of that image on stage with the participation of the audience, in its phenomenal form only before their eyes, it evokes through the live presentation some maximally enhanced emotional effects, acting in a given direction much more intensely than the simple words of a literary work. However, in this sense, Vyskočil’s theatre actually represents more of a possibility than reality in relation to the traditionalist conception of dramatic art in the present moment. Therefore, as he places it as an alternative to literature, he provocatively calls a theatre of such type a non-theatre; this is a theatre to which his programmatic ideas are attached and which he tries to realise throughout his life. He then uses this word, non-theatre, in the name of his last self-initiated programme, a more than twenty-five-years-lasting theatre company, fully adapted to perform his own plays in the above-described interpretive forms: Ivan Vyskočil’s Non-Theatre, or as known in the Czech Republic – Nedivadlo Ivana Vyskočila.
From what we have presented here so far, one could easily get the impression that Ivan Vyskočil is a creator who boldly experiments exclusively or mainly in the field of work with only malleable procedures. But there would be nothing more erratic than such an impression – it would be a misunderstanding of the true meaning of his creative endeavour. All of Vyskočil’s experimentation, all his efforts to transform the traditional “dramatic” theatre into an “epic” theatre, a “theatre-storytelling”, a “theatre-story”, is carried by the closely watched intention to move the theatrical imaging system so that its cognitive energy and its hidden eloquence start moving as well. Theatre is one of the most important tools for Vyskočil to understand the man and his world, a means of naming reality, and thus the viewer’s noetic reality, it is a means of a process aimed at enabling the man – by freeing reality from the chaos of the unknown and incomprehensible – to orient himself as a human being, and thus contribute to the meaningfulness of his abode on Earth. Vyskočil’s theatrical reform has its raison d’être in its opinion, precisely in its belief, its aesthetic manifestations are only the consequences of its overall spiritual and intellectual application. After all, the most characteristic feature of Vyskočil’s creations is that they bring to the fore, together with the component of the poetic imagination, the component of reasoning, elements of thinking, contemplation, commenting and questioning.
The core of Ivan Vyskočil’s theatrical work are undoubtedly authorship and acting. However, as follows from the above, Vyskočil is also a creator who, over the past forty years, has also played a significant role in shaping the very existential basis of Czech theatre. As stated, seeking the possibility of establishing appropriate organisational and operational conditions for his theatrical activities, he directly initiated or co-initiated the creation of three important theatre stages – Reduta, Divadlo Na zábradlí and Nedivadlo Ivana Vyskočila, and already in the very way of programmatic determination of his work as an author and actor he co-determined not only their overall programme focus, but also the specific form of their repertoire. Indirectly – by example, by the way of the organisational set-up and ideological “programming” of these theatrical companies – he inspired the activity of dozens of other scenes and stages that think of the mentioned theatres as of their role-models.
The unique nature of the aforementioned theatrical activities arising from the initiative and co-initiative of this creator in the development of Czech theatre in the second half of the 20th century is now generally recognised – and to some extent reflected even by the youngest audience, who cannot remember Vyskočil’s activities in Reduta, Na Zábradlí and Nedivadlo from their own experience – and therefore there is no need to talk about it extensively. Let us recall at this point only the fact that when talking of Vyskočil’s scenes, we are not talking about some ordinary, then-current neoplasms of Prague and Czechoslovak theatrical life; and they were also much more than just a common type of small theatres – platforms of the young generation. The significance of Vyskočil’s small scenes – as will become apparent from other statements below – lies in the fact that in their time they played an important initiating role as centre of theatrical experimentation, largely establishing the development of a completely new type and genre of theatre by telling, playing and performing stories, theatre, which Vyskočil provocatively named as “non-theatre” in opposition to the “regular”, “regelmässig” forms of “dramatic” theatre – as we have known them since the Age of Enlightenment.
However, Ivan Vyskočil plays the role of a creator not only by creating dramatic works, no matter if understood narrowly or in the broadest sense of the word “dramatic”. He is also an element on the feedback line of the theatre system. He is an excellent representative of the theatre’s theoretical reflection – thinking about theatre and through it thinking about substantive issues of art, culture and human life in general.
If we overlook Ivan Vyskočil’s theoretical efforts in their overall scope, we find that – whatever the motivation for Vyskočil’s individual theoretical works – all these efforts are related to the concept of theatre as a distinctive communicative system in which communication between its main parts runs in both directions, from the actors to the spectator and vice versa, both acting equally to shape the meaning of everything that happens in both halves of the theatre space divided by the ramp – the stage and the auditorium. In this context – in the spirit of this concept he strongly feels the need to “open” the theatre in the direction towards the auditorium and through it towards the society in general – Vyskočil focuses his attention on the problem of creative commitment of the main creators of the theatre who wield the means to initiate this communication, the means needed to develop a conversation with the viewer – i.e. in his imagination the creative individualities of actors or performers, acting in productions in the position of the author’s subject; he also focuses on the issue of these tools and their performance in a reminded role, such as the technical problem of releasing psychosomatic abilities of actors thusly programmed, as well as the issue of emphasising the creative role of the stage word, narration as such, an irreplaceable factor of interpersonal communication, in establishing the above-mentioned close relationship between the two parties forming a community, which is a basic condition for every theatre performance.
This issue of theatrical production – an issue of decisive importance for the developmental movement taking place today in the field of theatrical art – is examined by Vyskočil in a broad social, cultural, political and creative context (reflecting the knowledge of various scientific disciplines related to theatre and art, such as sociology and psychology). However, his approach to theatrical production extensively reflects not only his practical artistic experience, formed into a special personal creative programme, which encourages him to see the process of building a theatre in the categories of both literary and stage production, but also the experience of an erudite sociologist and psychologist with extensive professional socio-psychological experience. However, it cannot be overlooked that his theoretical work goes beyond this experience, and that – and this is reflected in his extensive philosophical education (he was also a member of Professor Jan Patočka’s private philosophical seminar) – through the way he grasps individual problems from ethical points of view, he aims to generalise the style of great thought. It can be said that the great will to break the researched issue from the shackles of mere practicalist point of view and to see it philosophically represents the most characteristic spiritual feature of his theoretical efforts – as well as of his entire work.
And of course, Ivan Vyskočil is also an excellent teacher of various theatrical, practical and theoretical disciplines – one of those who intensively takes care to ensure the further continuation and development of the field of education of young theatrical creators.
And let us point out right away that he is a teacher above all well equipped for his work: he is equipped with his professional theatrical, sociological, psychological, philosophical, and also special pedagogical training, and of course with the experience gained from many years of systematic pedagogical practice, not to mention the fact that the just described “dialogical” focus of his practical and theoretical theatrical work also qualifies him for his pedagogical work in a special way.
In this sense, his conception of theatrical production as a dialogue, an open discussion between the creator and his audience can be considered decisive. Vyskočil – as evidenced by his above-mentioned theoretical expressions devoted to the problems of theatre education – understands the pedagogical process not as teaching in the “downhill” direction, i.e. from teacher to student, as simple passing of experience, skills, practices and know-how on the one side and simple taking over on the other, but rather as a joint “learning” of teachers and students in a given field, as their joint research into the secrets and mysteries, a joint search for correct answers to theoretical questions arising in practical creative activity. In his case, a process of learning about issues of theatre, art, culture, the world in general. In this sense, in his opinion, a theatre university should promote free liberal higher education, it should be an institution founded in the spirit of productive creative community of teachers and students, as was the case with old European universities, which derived their name from the words “universitas” – that is, a “community” – “magistrorum et scholarium”, with emphasis on the very word “universitas”, “community”.
Ivan Vyskočil has played a completely unique and in many ways key role in shaping the development of Czech theatre in the past forty years – at least in our opinion. Vyskočil’s personal contribution to this development lies not only in that he stimulated the creation and contributed to the programme of three Prague scenes in the 1960s, which became important development entities; it is also not only about the contribution he made to the development through form of his works of authorship, directing and acting, etc. And it did not lie only in his theoretical and pedagogical activities. The mentioned contribution was mainly by his overall program activity in the Czech theatre, an activity which multilaterally exceeds the boundaries of his own dramatic authorship and interpretive, and possibly the theoretical and pedagogical work as well.
Ivan Vyskočil gave the Czech theatre a valuable inspiration pointing out the different possibilities of theatrical production than those commonly used in Czech theatre back then. He did that by creating and testing the bearing capacity of the “narrated theatre/non-theatre” programme, which turned the stage into a space for the free, independent movement of words, thoughts and ideas – a space available to poets and novelists. He also gave it a new chance for reintegration into the general development of European theatre culture, namely into its flow of development, which was directed through the episation and lyricisation of dramatic form as a necessary precondition for the process to “open” drama and theatre to the public and fully unleash its repressed internal power to explain. However, an important aspect of his programmatic efforts was that he pursued the efforts while adhering to the procedures of a special domestic model of authors’ theatre, based entirely on the subject of its creators, whether the creator is a playwright, director or actor, and conceived in a distinctive form, an author’s statements or even confession made special by that subject and guaranteed by the author. Today, there can be no doubt that Vyskočil, through his proactive programme activities, pointed out to Czech theatre the most promising development option, which led to profits completely unimagined both in terms of content and morals, and in terms of development of creative abilities, through which it not only caught up with the world, but also gained the disposition to bring new valuable developmental values of our domestic origin to the theatre culture worldwide.

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