METAPHOR AND IRONY 2 - Divadlo.cz

Petr Matásek
Petr Matásek was born in Prague 1944 and is a designer of puppets, sets and
costumes, as well as a teacher. From 1962-66 he studied stage design for puppetry
in the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where in 1992
he became a teacher (in the department for alternative and puppet theatre). He
shared in the revival of modern Czech puppet theatre, beginning in the 1960s and
fully asserting itself in the 1970s. He did not conceive the stage as a flat picture
but as a space whose three-dimensional quality is fully used for a play for a puppet
and a live actor - the puppet-player, who is not a mere hidden string-puller,
but a partner of the puppet. Apart from the puppet, costume and mask was also
incorporated into puppet stage design. A central object was asserted as the basic
scenic element - a neutrally and concretely conceived construction, animated by
the puppet and the live actor, and by means of their actions capable of variable
changes. The use of authentic materials and objects, and then the actor's work
with the object - which is in this case the puppet - links it with the wave of action
scenography. To make the puppets he used, and still uses, various materials and
techniques. His favorite material is wood, which with its living essence and
individual structure has always been a magical material for Matásek. Many of his
puppets are inspired by the tradition of Czech folk carvers (expressive deep carving)
and created by the imagination, poetry and humour of the contemporary
artist, who knows how to print an individual expression on his products. Matásek
has been working in the field of straight drama since the 1980s and enriched it
with the resourceful approaches and liberated fantasy of the puppet theatre. More
recently he has involved himself in the use of non-traditional stages. For
Christopher Marlowe's Faust he adapted the underground stone hall Gorlice
(2001), used as a depository for the original Baroque statues from Charles Bridge,
and equipped this space with simple objects of an almost ritual nature. In 2003
he created a project called “Bouda” (The Hut - the affectionate term for the first
purposely built Czech language theatre in the early 19 th century). It was not only
a design, but also a conceptual initiative serving as a one season alternative stage
for the National Theatre Company. In a purist toy-brick structure, installed in the
square behind the Theatre of the Estates, actors and audience experienced the
performance as though “in the same boat”.
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