Don Quixote. The Waste Land

About

Thomas S. Eliot wrote his poem – an opus magnum of the 20th century – as a reflection of the horrors of WWI and situated it in a landscape woven from the historical consciousness of humanity and voices of European literature. Through this open barren land, where town meets sea and desert and the state has collapsed, rambles Don Quixote, the wandering knight who upholds the values of chivalry and never loses his faith in the power of love. Is he obsolete, foolish? While Don Quixote’s acts are incomprehensible by reason, our hearts root for him. The production searches for the fundamental values in a country swept by the war. It is also a tribute to the naive adoration of Dulcinea del Toboso and to the thousands of heroes conceived by human imagination, the great spirits shining as a fulcrum in the moving world.

With this site-specific project, the SKUTR directorial tandem returns to creative metaphorical theatre – a theatre of poetry. On a journey through the land... Like the voices of the Waste Land. On a journey... Like Don Quixote, Faust, or Hamlet. The experimental production will take the audience on a journey, too – through the premises of the State Opera. The NT Drama thus wishes to attract the public interest in the building itself, which will thus again become a point of interest and inspiration for the production, like in Marian Amsler’s Mephisto.

For the Czech version, the creative team has chosen the modern and award-winning translation of The Waste Land by Petr Onufer, prepared in 2022 for the centennial of the first publication of the poem. At the same time, 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of T. S. Eliot’s death.