Summer Shakespeare Festival

The Summer Shakespeare Festival will take place this year from 4 July to 6 August 2023, with performances of Hamlet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, The Tempest and, of course, Romeo and Juliet. The Summer Shakespeare Festival is an exceptional open-air theatre project where the audience can enjoy culture in the beautiful surroundings of Bratislava Castle.

1. ROMEO AND JULIET

It is safe to say that Romeo and Juliet is the greatest love tragedy of all time. It will be no coincidence that other authors and artists are constantly returning to it and building new works on its foundations. Pure love in a hostile environment carries within it what people of all ages and generations will seek.

It carries hope, the possibility of harmony, the possibility of forgiveness. These are the fundamental premises on which the director has built the production. To look mercilessly at today’s polarised society and to hold up a mirror to it through the pure emotion of absurdly forbidden love.

CAST :

ROMEO – David Hartl
MONTEK – Marcel OCHRÁNEK
MONTEK – Renata RUNDOVÁ
BENVOLIO – Vladislav PLEVČÍK
JULIA – Mária SCHUMEROVÁ
JULIA’S FIST – Sisa SKLOVSKA
KAPULET – Marek MAJESKÝ
KAPULET – Sonia NORISOVA
TYBALT – Tomáš TUREK
MERKUCIO – Tomáš GREGA
PARIS – Martin VARINSKÝ
FATHER VAVRINEC – Tomáš VRAVNÍK
AKROBATI – BORN TO TRICK group

2. HAMLET

Hamlet’s story always unfolds in the same way and yet differently. Everyone who approaches one of Shakespeare’s most famous texts leaves something of themselves in it. At the beginning of Hamlet, Shakespeare created a question, and by the silence beyond the end of his personal tragedy, even more questions await us than at the beginning. The questions mirror other questions … The play can never end because it keeps giving us new questions. How do we resist evil? To be or not to be? What to do? How to act? Is there any point in acting at all?

Hamlet is a fascinating play because of its structure – it’s really the Da Vinci Code – where everything is connected to everything. It combines a political tragedy with a family tragedy, one influencing the other. A tragedy of thought and action. A young Danish prince returns from his studies for his father’s funeral. The place on the throne and alongside the Queen ( his mother) already belongs to his uncle. Who is Hamlet? The over-sensitive spoilt son, the brooding intellectual or the implacable avenger? Our Hamlet will also be a bit of a truth-seeker in these troubled times. It turns out that uncovering wrongdoing and getting convicted is not the hard part, it’s much harder not to lose yourself in the process.

A story about madness in a mad time, which reminds us very much of the time we live in too. Where lies the limit of human conscience, the courage to stand up to evil, and the strength to take correction into one’s own hands? Is it possible to keep a clean slate in the dirt? And can love survive ? A play about whether there is more to living than just being…….

CAST:

HAMLET: Ľuboš Kostelný
THE SPIRIT OF THE KING AND CLAUDIUS: Marek Majeský
GERTRUDE: Tereza Kostková, Henrieta Mičkovicová
POLONIUS: Alexander Bárta
OFELIA: Jana Kovalčíková, Barbora Palčíková
LAERTES: Adam Jančina
HORATIO: Tomáš Vravník
ROSENCRANTZ, HROBÁR, HERO: Richard Autner
GUILDENSTERN, PLAYER, ACTOR: Martin Kochan
OSRIK, REYNALDO, ACTOR: Jaroslav Kysel

Wednesday, 12. July 2023 at 8:30 PM

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3. BOUŘE

Magical comedy
“We are of the same cloth that they weave and life is but an island, surrounded on all sides by sleep.”

The production by the SKUTR directing tandem – Lukáš Trpišovský and Martin Kukučka, follows their successful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The work of this duo is characterized by imagination, imagery, movement, musicality and poetry of words.

What can cause a shipwreck? How many sorrows and sorrows on an unknown island, how many endings of an old life and how many new beginnings! And how many miracles ! And what if the shipwreck was only a dream, a magical mirage?

The author’s most beautiful later play, in which themes and motifs that interested the Elizabethan playwright all his life appear: great love, intrigue, revenge or forgiveness. But also the themes of illusion, reality and the passage of time.

Approximate length of performance: 2 hours 20 minutes with intermission

CAST:

Alonso, King of Naples – Ondřej Malý
Sebastian, his brother – Jan Bidlas
Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan – David Prachař
Antonio, his brother, usurper of the Duchy of Milan – Petr Jeništa
Ferdinand, son of the King of Naples – Zdeněk Piškula / Vojtěch Vondráček
Gonzalo, the honest old councillor of state – Jiří Zapletal
Caliban, disfigured savage and slave – Radúz Mácha
Trinkulo, the Jester – Jozef Polášek
Stefano, wine drinker and drunkard – Marek Daniel
Miranda – Eliška Křenková / Hana Vagnerová
Ariel – Csongor Kassai
Ghosts – Leona Hančíková, Zuzana Havrlantová, Jaroslava Janečková, Adéla Abdul Khaleg, Patrik Čermák, Michal Heriban, Lukáš Homola, Michal Toman.

4. TWO GENTLEMEN FROM VERONA

Although this is one of the author’s first plays, he has fully shown his comedic as well as poetic talent in it. Although the play has a classical plot in the construction of a dramatic text, it offers different possibilities to the stagers in the treatment of the work. It has echoes of the commedia dell’arte, which was known for its strong acting craft, and the director has strengthened this aspect in his staging of the text.

In addition to acting, each actor was skilled in other artistic professions that came out of the theatre and exist today as separate stage forms. Singing, which was not to be missed in any production, clown solos – now stand up comedy, acrobatic acts – now a much acclaimed modern, circus form of theatre. And it is all these requirements that our cast reflects. The church perfect stand up showman. Koval, Kral and Matonoha – excellent musicians, Norisova and Švidranová great singers, Sakálová a lover of yoga and dance, Grega a great acrobat. The production is full of live music performed by a charming ladies’ band, stage movement and intelligent entertainment thanks to the endless escapades of the cunning servants and their amorous masters.

CAST:

VOJVODA, Silvia’s father: Tomáš Matonoha
VALENTINE: Ondrej Kovaľ
PROTEUS: Milo Kral
TURIO, Valentín’s comic rival: Cyril Drozda
JULIA, Proteus’ sweetheart: Zuzana Norisová
SILVIA, Valentín’s sweetheart: Eva Sakálová
LUCETTA, Julie’s chambermaid: Barbora Švidraňová
FRČKO, clown, Valentine’s servant: Otto Culka
PODPICH, clown, Proteus’ servant: Ľuboš Kostelný
ATTENTION: Tomáš Grega
CROOK: Barbora Švidraňová
DANCERS, CHAPEL: Marcela Cmorejová, Emma Kakárová, Terézia Hulková, Magdaléna Hianiková

5. MACBETH

One of the darkest tales from the pen of the author, directed by Jakub Kroft, premiered in Prague in the summer of 2022. A deep medieval tale set in a Scotland steeped in legend. A never-ending battle. A world in which divination defines reality with greater force than rational judgement. Fear, toxic relationships, and most of all an insatiable lust for power that will cause disaster, all accompany the protagonist on his final devilish quest. Oh, how timely.

Shakespeare’s famous tragedy poses disturbing questions that are relevant to our own times. Who is the Macbeth of the 21st century? How far do the boundaries of our fears extend? What high price are we willing to pay for relative peace and comfort? Are we even capable of rational thought anymore ? Is it even possible to stop evil ?

CAST :

MACBETH Marek Nemec
LADY MACBETH Lenka Krobotová
DUNCAN David Matásek
MALCOLM Filip Kaňkovský
BANQUO Tomáš Měcháček
MACDUFF Václav Vašák
LADY MACDUFF Klára Issová
LENNOX Jakub Gottwald
ROSS Václav Šanda
SIWARD Karel Zima
BISKUP, DOCTOR Hynek Chmelař
SLUHA Vojtěch Vondráček
THREE WITCHES Anna Bubníková / Anna
Schmidtmajerová
Kateřina Eva Lanči / Markéta Ptáčníková
Petra Červinková / Eliška Hurábová
KILLERS Jiří Kohout / Filip Richtermoc

Tuesday, August 1, 2023 at 8:30 p.m.

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6. COMEDY OF ERRORS

Shakespeare transcends traditional genres in this, his shortest play. At first it seems like a tragedy (one of the characters is threatened with the death penalty right at the beginning), but soon the play moves into the position of a farce. Especially the dialogues of the master and the servant are a lesson in what a modern circus clown show could look like.

The farce about two sibling pairs – identical twins – offers not only a breakneck pace of twists and turns and entertainment, but also an ingenious play with contradictions and paradoxes, which the author has always mastered brilliantly. He has also developed in it a brilliant reflection on the relationships between men and women, and the importance of their love and respect.

“In a way, The Comedy of Errors is a mad carousel of loss and discovery,” says Shakespearean scholar Martin Hilsky.

Director Roman Polák was inspired by the silent film era to stage this play and its comic grotesqueness – the black and white set and costumes are underscored by the musical improvisation of the pianist, whose music will at times manipulate the actions of the characters on stage. Many times even the speed of their movement will depend on his piano improvisation ?

Directed by Roman Polák
Set and costumes by Peter Čanecký
Music by Róbert Mankovecký
Creative producer: Janka Zednikovičová

CAST :

SOLINUS & DOCTOR ŠTIPEC- GREGOR HOLOSKA
ANTIFOLUS FROM EFEZ & ANTIFOLUS FROM SYRACUSE – Robert Roth
DROMIO FROM EFEZ & DROMIO FROM SYRACUSE – Martin Šalacha
ANGELO – Juraj Hrčka
ADRIANA Alena Pajtinková
LUCIANA Dominika Žiaranová
VIOLA & EMÍLIA Pavla Vitázková
KURTIZÁNA Silvia Soldanová
Jakub Rybárik
ZALÁRNIK Tomáš Stopa
CLAVERIST Róbert Mankovecký

4. August 2023 o 20:30 hod:

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Location: Courtyard of Bratislava Castle
Date: 05.07.2022 – 06.08.2022
Start: 20:30
Admission: 23 – 33 Eur

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