Patrick Marber visits Prague to see production of his play
The Vinohrady theatre, or Divadlo na Vinohradech, as it's known here in Prague is currently performing the play Howard Katz. Directed by Jan Novak, it casts Martin Stropnicky - the former Czech ambassador to the Vatican who has returned to acting after a 13 year break - in the leading role. This week, the theatre welcomed a special guest - the author of the play himself, 38-year old British playwright Patrick Marber who visited Prague just to see the Czech performance. I met up with Mr Marber to find out more about Howard Katz and see what he thought of the Czech theatre scene:
This is the second time that Mr Marber has come to Prague. At around the same time last year, he visited the Czech capital to see a performance of his second play "Closer" which is still being performed at the Rokoko Theatre.
"I enjoyed it, I thought the acting was excellent. It's always interesting to see what people do with the play. I didn't agree with every element of the production, there were some bits of directorial interpretation that I thought were a little excessive. But that is always the case, certainly in European countries. The director is often imposing him or herself between the play and the audience. This seems to be the tradition. So, I didn't always agree with it but I admired it."
Within four years, Closer, a modern romantic comedy of sex and betrayal, was performed in hundreds of cities in some 50 countries. Having seen quite a few of the performances, Mr Marber was quick to distinguish the difference between eastern European acting and that of the western countries.
"I think the standard of acting is very high in both the Czech and the Slovak productions. Some of the actors were wonderful. I would characterise the Eastern European actors as perhaps less vain than their more western counterparts. They are fearless actors and they work in a very serious tradition of theatre, whereas the western actors are slightly fussier and a little bit more concerned about being liked by the audience. Eastern Europeans are darker, more brooding, perhaps a little bit more serious but very good. I've been very impressed with the acting. I think, perhaps they miss the humour of a western playwright, they miss some of the irony. One of the traditions of western play writing is that you can be very serious and humorous simultaneously, whereas my experience of Eastern European productions is that they either want it to be tragic or comic and they are slightly uneasy with it being both tragic and comic at the same time."
Dana Habova is probably one of the busiest women in the country as she's one of the Czech Republic's most renowned and admired translators. Coincidentally, she also translated Howard Katz into Czech. I spoke to her earlier this week to talk about the play and her life as a translator in general:
"I have translated a number of plays, some of them by Woody Allen. Maybe your listeners know me as a translator of Woody Allen films. I have also done some plays by Sam Shepherd. Sympatico, for example, and even some commercial plays like the Bernard Slade sequel to Same Time Next Year and also Entertaining Mr Sloan, which is still running in the Cinoherni club now."
So how does it work when you get a book or play to translate? Do you first read it and then decide whether you're going to translate it?
Now, how long did it take you to translate Howard Katz?
"Certainly about two months. But, of course, I didn't work every day because I also work as an interpreter. I must say I am very glad that Patrick Marber is a living author. We communicated a lot, sending e-mails, and I asked questions. I know that he is very strict and he cares about every word, so we had quite an interesting dialogue."
Plays or books from what countries do you like to translate the most? English language writers have different senses of humour, different ways of looking at life. So, which one suits you the most?
"I guess I prefer the British sense of humour, especially the irony. You can find a lot of it in what Patrick Marber writes."
What about the Czech audience and Czech readers? Which books or plays do Czechs understand more?
"I think they will understand Howard Katz but if we are speaking about humour, I have seen the production three times now and every time the audience responds in a different way. I find there are quite a lot of jokes in the play but I think the Czech audience is more serious and they regard Howard Katz as a serious play. Mr Marber thinks it's a comedy, so many Czech people would be surprised. I'm a bit disappointed that they don't laugh in certain places where they should or could but nothing can be done about it. I think it's a different mentality because people know they are going to see a play about the midlife crisis of a man who is fifty and they already anticipate it would be tragic and pretty heavy stuff. So, maybe they don't dare to laugh. They might recognise there is a joke but think if he speaks about suicide maybe one shouldn't laugh. But there are other places where they are quite happy. It's not all dark. That's not how the author intended it."
Which is quite surprising because Czechs are known to be ironic and sarcastic. They are actually known to have this bit of dry sense of humour as well.
"Yes. But in a big theatre like Divadlo na Vinohradech, they feel that they are going to see something very serious about our lives so they don't dare. The theatre is something different than some show on television or a cabaret."
