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JOSEF TOPOL (1935 - ) |
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Nationality: Czech Email: n/a Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: Aura-Pont Theatrical and Literary Agency |
He became a reader for E.F.Burian Theatre only when 18. In 1959 he finished his studies of theatrology at Prague Academy of Performing Arts and started his carreer as a freelance writer. 1965-72 he was a director, dramaturge and co-founder of the Theatre Beyond the Gate, lead by the famous Czech director Otomar Krejca. Most of his plays were written and staged during this period. In 1972, after the Soviet occupation, the theatre was banned and since 1977 when he signed Charter ī77 Topol had to work as a stonemason. He was also active as a translator of plays (under the name of one of his friends). After 1989 his plays (mainly End of Shrovetide) are being revived successfully on Czech stages.
Adaptation / Translations of Plays by Josef Topol
Cat On The Rails | ||
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Beyond the Gate, Prague | 1964 | ||||
Organisations: | Divadlo za branou | |||||
| 1st Published: | Nick Hern Books, London, 1984 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #35723 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol, translated by George and Christine Voskovec | |||||
Synopsis: | two lovers wait for a train that never comes, mirroring the situation in Czechoslovakia before 1989 | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Cat On The Rails | ||
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Beyond the Gate, Prague | 1964 | ||||
Organisations: | Divadlo za branou | |||||
| 1st Published: | Nick Hern Books, London, 1984 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #35724 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol, translated by George and Christine Voskovec | |||||
Synopsis: | two lovers wait for a train that never comes, mirroring the situation in Czechoslovakia before 1989 | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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End of Shrovetide (End of Carnival) | ||
| 1st Produced: | Oldrich Stibor Theatre, Olomouc | 1962 | ||||
Organisations: | Divadlo Oldricha Stibora | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #110878 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 11 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | 11 mummers | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol | |||||
Synopsis: | Topolīs most famous work and the theatrical event of 1964. Directed by Otomar Krej?a, play appeared in the National Theatre which was - at the time - contemporary. As well as being a realistic story about the love of a young Praguer, expelled from college, and a country girl, the daughter of the last private farmer in the village, it was also a tragically strong parable about the huge change in thinking and feeling which was gradually coming about in Czech society in the fifteenth year after the communist putsch. Together with the "ploughing up of barriers" as the traditional slogan of the unhappy period of collectivisation went, the centuries-old moral order also disappeared, the basis of country society, nature and natural relationships. Just like the Lenten mummers, people put on masks so that they could merge with others and relieve themselves of their own responsibility. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Goodbye Socrates | ||
| 1st Produced: | Stavovske divadlo - Estates Theatre | 12 Oct 1991 | ||||
Organisations: | National Theatre Prague | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #110882 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol. Translated by James Naughton (British English). translated by Vera Borkovec (American English) | |||||
Synopsis: | The play was written in 1976 in the timeless period after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and before the establishment of Charter '77. It is a portrait of an ageing artist, the sculptor Zak, whose fiftieth birthday is an occasion for his friends and acquaintances to meet. We see Zak in both creative and a personal crisis, which is partly a crisis of his relationship towards his wife. With the greatest self-denial, Malva has hitherto filled the thankless role of supporting for life a man whom she once admired. In the course of the evening, however, she loses the last bit of faith in him and departs this life in what could be a sudden death, but is more likely a voluntary one. Other characters begin to state their failures in life as well, and Topol's well-known conflict between life and death passes through their interiors and results in a chain of victories for death. The Socrates of the doubtlessly symbolic title is the tame raven which left Zak's 'house of broken hearts' before the beginning of the play, tragically marking the story with the loss of direction of an afflicted generation. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Goodbye Socrates | ||
| 1st Produced: | Stavovske divadlo - Estates Theatre | 12 Oct 1991 | ||||
Organisations: | National Theatre Prague | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #110881 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol. Translated by James Naughton (British English). translated by Vera Borkovec (American English) | |||||
Synopsis: | The play was written in 1976 in the timeless period after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and before the establishment of Charter '77. It is a portrait of an ageing artist, the sculptor Zak, whose fiftieth birthday is an occasion for his friends and acquaintances to meet. We see Zak in both creative and a personal crisis, which is partly a crisis of his relationship towards his wife. With the greatest self-denial, Malva has hitherto filled the thankless role of supporting for life a man whom she once admired. In the course of the evening, however, she loses the last bit of faith in him and departs this life in what could be a sudden death, but is more likely a voluntary one. Other characters begin to state their failures in life as well, and Topol's well-known conflict between life and death passes through their interiors and results in a chain of victories for death. The Socrates of the doubtlessly symbolic title is the tame raven which left Zak's 'house of broken hearts' before the beginning of the play, tragically marking the story with the loss of direction of an afflicted generation. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Hour of Love | ||
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Beyond the Gate, Prague | 1968 | ||||
Organisations: | Divadlo za branou | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #110877 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | One Act Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol | |||||
Synopsis: | In one hour El and Ela experience all the happiness and unhappiness, all the endurance and the boredom of their lives, their love and their death. El comes with the news that he has to go away, seemingly for ever. After the intense experience of this event comes an anticlimactic reversal - and disappointment. El remains, and the flame of love changes into the ashes of every day. Ela's Auntie, the decrepit old lady who lives with them, becomes the witness to and bitter commentator on the 'hour of love'. This one-act play is one of Topol's classics, written for Otomar Krejca's Theatre Beyond the Gate in the 1960s. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Migration of Souls | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Organisations: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #119056 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Nightingale for Dinner | ||
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Beyond the Gate, Prague | 1965 | ||||
Organisations: | Divadlo za branou | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #110879 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | One Act Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol, translated by George and Christine Voskovec | |||||
Synopsis: | A one-act play, Vaclav Havelīs favourite of his friendīs works. It is normally classified as belonging to the works of Czech absurd theatre. A family supper, to which Mr. Nightingale has been invited, has as tragic an end for the guest as the life of every man. It is only the prospect of death which gives life meaning...or vice versa. Every speech in Topolīs black comedy acquires existential dimensions - a method reminiscent of Kafka, Pinter and Beckett. When it was first produced in 1967, the play did not meet with great critical enthusiasm. The ensuing period of censorship did not allow Nightingale for Supper to become an inspiration for other playwrights. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Nightingale for Dinner | ||
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Beyond the Gate, Prague | 1965 | ||||
Organisations: | Divadlo za branou | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #110880 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | One Act Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol, translated by George and Christine Voskovec | |||||
Synopsis: | A one-act play, Vaclav Havelīs favourite of his friendīs works. It is normally classified as belonging to the works of Czech absurd theatre. A family supper, to which Mr. Nightingale has been invited, has as tragic an end for the guest as the life of every man. It is only the prospect of death which gives life meaning...or vice versa. Every speech in Topolīs black comedy acquires existential dimensions - a method reminiscent of Kafka, Pinter and Beckett. When it was first produced in 1967, the play did not meet with great critical enthusiasm. The ensuing period of censorship did not allow Nightingale for Supper to become an inspiration for other playwrights. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Voices of Birds | ||
| 1st Produced: | Divadlo na Vinohradech | 1989 | ||||
Organisations: | Divadlo na Vinohradech | |||||
| 1st Published: | Contained in: "Voices Of Birds And Other Plays" published by Xlibris Corporation 2000 | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-14257800677 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #110876 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Josef Topol | |||||
| An elderly actor, famous for his performance as Lear, has a sudden stroke and is forced to live a quiet and balanced life to which he is quite unaccustomed. He meets two of his illegitimate sons and their mothers, but is unable to find a way of getting close to people, whom until now he has tended just to use. He can only relax in the company of a young girl who is working with him on his memoirs, and whom he finally marries, only to find that this time it is he who is used. The young woman declares he is the father of the child which she is expecting with her lover, and when she drives him to a despairing gesture, has him certified as incapable of looking after his own affairs. He is moved out of his villa into a neighbouring chateau - a psychiatric hospital, where paradoxically he finds spiritual peace at the side of his housekeeper and her backward son (who we find out at the end of the play is also his). Topol wrote this play in 1988, after more then ten years of silence. It was first performed shortly before the November 1989 at the Divadlo na Vinohradech. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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