Metro (UK), 18.08.2006: „Drawing on fragments of song, verse and anecdote from Slovakia’s rich history of the emigrant experience, the place is not so much a narrative as a tonal cacophony of a people’s grief, fury and desolation… Performed with tender symbolism, intimate poetry and a pounding passion, this is all too rare example of theatre you instantly want to see all over again.”
9. 6. 2012
SCLAVI / The Song of an Emigrant
Premiere 03rd and 04th March 2005 at Svandovo Theatre in Prague
Choregraphy assisstant: Ivana Dukic
Set and costume design: Barbora Erniholdová
Dramaturg: Jana Pilatová
Musical Dramaturgy, Arangement, Vocal Arrangement: Mariana Sadowska, Viliam Docolomanský
Musical director: Mariana Sadovska
Director: Viliam Docolomanský
Producer: Alena Banakova
Actors: Róbert Nizník, Anna Krsiaková, Jun Wan Kim, Roman Horák, Zuzana Pavúková, Cécile da Costa, Hana Varadzinová, David Jánský
SCLAVI / The Song of an Emigrant is based on field research the Farm in the Cave did in villages of eastern Slovakia, on old Ruthenian and Ukrainian songs, on letters of Slovak emigrants, and on the story of Josef Capek ’s Hordubal.
After several years, an anonymous gastarbeiter returns from America to his village in Slovakia. His place is taken. The emigrant´s effort to fit in the imagined gap back „here“ fuse with his memories of attempts to participate in the community „over there“. The rupture in the inability to be fully there where he is, and „bare life“ as the emigrant experiences it does not mean only life without any social rights and identity, reduced to material needs, but mainly life without soul, without any network of relationships. The Latin word Sclavi means both Slavs and slaves at the same time, and Slavs still remain cheap labour force in this world. The scenic composition draws on old Ruthenian songs, letters from emigration and Karel Capek´s novel Hordubal. It is carried in feverish beat and melodies of multi-voiced songs intermingle with raw physical action.
The creators of the performance are of czech, slovak, polish, ukrainian and serbian nationality and with a necessary degree of self-irony they realize the gap between slavophilic ideas and the reality of Slavs in Europe today.
The musical director of the performance is Mariana Sadovska, famous in New York (La Mama Theatre, Joes Pub, Makor), Great Britain (Royal Shakespeare Company), Japan, Israel, Poland...in Czech Republic she was honoured by the applause of the spectators at the VOICES OF THE EAST concert at Svandovo Theatre.
In the year 2005 Viliam Docolomanský received the Sazka and Divadelni noviny (The Theatre News) Prize for Direction and Choreography of the performance SCLAVI / The Song of an Emigrant and furtheron The Prize for The Personality of the Year by the Festival Next Wave.
In the year 2006 the performance was awarded The Alfred Radok Award for the Best Performance of the Year, The Theatre News Award, Main Award Veljko Maricic at the International Small Scenes Theatre Festival in Rijeka, Total Theatre Award, A Fringe First Award and A Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.