Marysha Vavrova / Faust

“My wife died, Perni. Was I supposed to stay in the cottage alone? They said that it would be no piece of cake with Marysha, but that it would mess up like this? Marysha, can we live together any other way?” Freely adapted from the play Marysha by the Mrštík brothers, with motifs from the works of A. Bierce, F. M. Dostoyevsky, A. F. Losev, and perhaps others.

The play was commissioned for the first edition of the Prague festival Císařovy nové šaty (The Emperor’s New Clothes), dedicated in January 2025 to the memory of Professor Jan Císař, an extraordinary theatre scholar. The organizers wanted Marysha (Císař’s favourite play) or any play with lots of apples (in reference to his theoretical problem of the overuse of apples as a symbol on stage). Marysha Vavrova is an attempt to combine both assignments by an author who knows neither the Haná nor the Slovácko dialects, so he will speak in his own way. So much for the introductory apology to the Mrštík brothers and an explanation to all those who love the classic Marysha.