Kultura

Theatre director Pavla Dombrovska has long been fascinated by Romany culture; inspired by the vigorous, joyful and often tragic tone of Gypsy music, and enthralled by this people's storytelling tradition. So she set out to adapt for the theatre a collection of Romany folktales: they were compiled - or rather, lovingly transcribed - by the noted scholar Dr Milena Hubschmannova, in the '60s and early '70s. But the play got off to a difficult start: Dombrovska was shocked to find how little she really understood of these "naïve" fairytales, and how opposed Dr Hubschmannova was to the project.