Even though it will last a week or two longer, everyone in the State Theater in Košice and definitely you, our audience, are looking forward to the moment when the curtain of our theater stages lifts in September and we will be able to bring you brilliant theatrical experiences every day. Actors in the drama department together with the implementation team under the leadership of director Júlia Rázusová are finishing up the preparations of production of the original Slovak play by Michal Baláž, Michal Ditte and Karol Horák Borodáč or Three Sisters, the postponed priemiere of which will take place on Friday, September 25, 2020 at 19:00 in the Historic building of the State Theater in Košice and it will be the first premiere of the new theater season 2020/2021 in your theater. After technical rehearsals, the costume rehearsal has revealed another part of the production puzzle. We were there and offer you a look behind the doors that are closed for now.
Name of Janko Borodáč is inseparably linked to the Slovak professional theater to which the whole year 2020 belongs on the occasion of the 100th anniversary. Premiere of the play Borodáč or Three Sisters is a part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Slovak professional theater which were interrupted by the corona crisis.
Borodáč belongs to important founding figures of the Slovak professional theater. He is inseparably connected to building of the Slovak National Theater but also with the State Theater in Košice (he was its first Director on 1945 since its establishment under the name East Slovak National Theater). Prešov’s native was originally a teacher and before the First World War, he taught at village schools in Pstriná and Kvačany in eastern Slovakia. After the outbreak of the First World War, he was recruited and sent to the Russian front where he was cuptured by the Russians. He learned Russian here and got introduced to the Russian literature. He also started to deal with the amateur theater and continued after returning to Slovakia in 1918. He was so enchanted by the theater that in 1915, he became to first ever acting student at the Prague’s Conservatory. After graduation, he worked in the Propaganda ensemble of the Slovak National Thetaer called Maršak during the season 1921/1922. In this ensemble, he met his future wife, actress Oľga Országhová. After short work in Sabinov, Slovak National Thetaer employed the Borodáč’s and Janko Borodáč has definitively signed up for the professional theater which he developed not only as an actor and later director but also as one of the first Slovak teachers at the drama department of the Musical and Drama Academy in Bratislava.
“Janko Borodáč has a significant influence on development and direction of the Slovak theater, he became a part of important political turning points. His life story is not only a story of an artist but also of a husband and a teacher. He is a creator and bearer of the heritage with which every theater generation had to deal with. During his period in Košice, production of Three sisters became his most significant one. It is the story plan of Chekhov’s play that creates the basic dramaturgic-directorial concept of the production of Borodáč or Three sisters which also reveals private aspects of Borodáč. Turbulent professional but also private life of Borodáč is also an important insight into the history of the Slovak theater, politics, thinking about culture, pondering about ethics and aesthetic in the 20th century. How was the Slovak theater developed? What moved it forward and what was in its way in its more European nature? What was the role of Janko Borodáč in it? And also: how a poor boy from Prešov became one of the founders of the Slovak professional theater?” dramaturgist of drama and the production Peter Himič says. As he adds, with this play,the State Theater in Košice continues in the dramaturgist line in which it examines history of the city and location and personalities from Košice.
The production team of director Júlia Rázusová comprises of Peter Himič, dramaturgist Miriam Kičiňová, professional consultant Karol Mišovič, author of the scene and costumes Markéta Plachá and author of the music Michal Paľko. Production Borodáč or Three sisters will also be a debut of guest actor Matej Erby in the Košice theater. Besides him, the audience will also see home actors in the production, Martin Stolár, Stanislav Pitoňák, Alena Ďuránová, Tatiana Poláková, Adriana Ballová, Ľuba Blaškovičová, Jakub Kuka, Tomáš Diro, Juraj Zetyák and Róbert Šudík.
