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Devised / Theater of introverts (2019 – 2022)

The Theater of introverts project is mainly a reflection on the nature of the theater or on a form of theater that is close to us personally. Also it’s a search for a language to work together and for comfortable being on the stage, a way to perform. While working on it, we created dozens of rules for our theater and several manifestos.

Aesthetics of Absence

Heiner Goebbels outlines characteristics of ‘theater of absence’ in his book ‘The Aesthetics of Absence,’ which include, for example, the disappearance of the actor from the stage or from the center of attention, the fragmentation of the presence effect into all elements contributing to the performance, the separation of voice from the artist’s body, the detachment of sound from the instrument, the absence of narrative, and more. Theater of Introverts was also, to some extent, an attempt to create a theater of absence.

Ethics of cooperation

A reflection on the experience of working together on this project is described in an article ‘Etické charty Divadla introvertů. Pokus o spolupráci panikářů’ published in the anthology

Divadlo a etika / Karolina Plicková (ed.),
NAMU, 2024, Prague.
(in czech language)

'Theater of introverts or I don't know', 2019

My initial idea was to bring together a few obvious introverts from DAMU and create together a non-expressive, truly introverted sound concert. We formed a group where we all shared a similar temperament and had similar theatrical views.

Anna Gumboldt established the group with Tereza Havlová and Johana Bártová. We decided not to rely on any storyline and instead invented whom we would dedicate our concert numbers to. Our script looked like a set of drawings that indicated which of us would be seen and at what moment (the whole concert was to be performed under the table).

various objects, violin, voice Tereza Havlová

various objects, small instrument, and voice Johana Bártová

various objects, turtle, and voice Anna Gumboldt

duration 30 min

premiere May 2019

DAMU, "Proces" festival

'Theater of introverts' in parcels, 2021

During the year we’ve been preparing a few parcels for certain people and then sent them. Each parcel contained the carefully selected set of objects that worked in a certain way for that particular person.

'Theater of introverts presents: *** or
I don't know', 2022

The theater of introverts should always be talked about as little as possible. Maybe just send a letter or whisper in ear. The performance is like a sound and image composition and three female performers in it. What will happen is not certain. We want to show you some of our secrets. You might see almost nothing but a small clockwork turtle. We will not talk to you, but we will offer you a cookie and we will be happy if you come to rest with us. Boredom is welcome, maybe interrupted by a crazy concert and then peace and hot tea will follow again. And maybe also a guest will come. We don’t know.

Guests-introverts who participated in the reprises of Theater of Introverts: Ema Bártová, Berta Doubková, Anna Prstková, Lucie Pangrácová, Tereza Magnan, Dominik José Castorena Sanchez, Anna Zitová + Anna, Vojta Horálek, Alexander Kashcheev, Semion Kulikov + Tomas Kulikov