Prague’s legendary Semafor theatre marks 65 years since its first performance
This Wednesday marks exactly 65 years since the first production of Prague’s legendary Semafor Theatre, established by the song-writing duo Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr. The musical comedy, called Člověk z půdy or The Man from the Loft, was an immediate success, sparking a new era of Czech theatre.
The premiere of The Man from the Loft took place on October 30, 1959, at Prague’s Divadlo Ve smečkách and went on to have over 220 performances. Many songs from the production became instant favourites, including Včera neděle byla or Yesterday was Sunday, performed by a young Pavlína Filipovská.
Semafor is the Czech word for traffic light, but it is also an acronym for SEdm MAlých FORem or seven different theatre and musical genres Semafor had in its repertoire, including film, poetry, jazz, puppetry, dance, fine art and cabaret.
With its second play, Jonáš and Tingl Tangl, featuring Jiří Šlitr in his first acting role, Semafor achieved a cult status and established Šlitr and Suchý as a well-known duo.
Until Šlitr’s unexpected death in 1969, they produced a steady stream of hits, and helped launch the careers of many Czech singers and actors, including Waldemar Matuška, Eva Pilarová and Karel Gott.
Following the death of Jiří Šlitr, Suchý decided to carry on forming a new partnership with the actress Jitka Molavcová. However, he was forced to step down as Semafor’s director in the 1970s after he signed a document supporting the anti-Communist opposition.
Following the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, Suchý returned to the post of Semafor’s director to face all kinds of new challenges, from financial difficulties to a devastating flood in 2002, which destroyed the theatre’s new location in Karlín.
Now based in Prague’s Dejvice district, the theatre continues to thrive, with 93-year-old Suchý recently focusing on reworking some of the original plays, including the 1966 musical A Walk Worthwhile.
“I feel the need to work while I still can. Of course it's nicer to take what's already been written and maybe rewrite it a little bit, but mainly I do it because I realise that nobody knows that stuff anymore. I wrote it, say, sixty years ago, so how many people actually remember that?”
At the end of November, Semafor will present a new production of its most beloved play, Kytice or A Bouquet of Folk Legends, which Suchý wrote in 1972 under Communist repression and which has since been performed over 600 times.
