EXCURSION TO UN-FREEDOM

Trip to the fictional world of un-freedom

EXCURSION TO UN-FREEDOM

Experience a totalitarian-like limitation of human rights and personal liberties

EXCURSION TO UN-FREEDOM

Live retro band and retro-catering directly on board of the bus

Play description

 

The unique theatre experience takes you on a trip to the fictional world of un-freedom. The two-hour street-bus play that allows the viewers to experience a totalitarian-like limitation of human rights and personal liberties first-hand via acted borderline situations. All of that with a touch of tongue-in-cheek humour in a Slovak one-of-a-kind retro-convertible Škoda 706 RTO bus, together with several hidden, real actors – guides. A part of the play features a screening of parts of the movie In the sunrays about life in North Korea as well as a discussion about (un)freedom. The play is formed by 9 dramatic situations at 9 different checkpoints in the city centre and outskirts. Another part is a live retro band and retro-catering directly on board of the bus. The Excursion into Un-freedom is directed at teenage and adult audiences between 15 and 99+ years of age, as well as specific audience communities (students, teachers, the unemployed, pensioners, rural public). The goal of the excursion is for the viewer, enriched by the experience with un-freedom, to reconsider the meaning of freedom in society at large as well as during the next elections.

Team of authors

Script: Jana Mikitková and coll.
Dramaturgy: Ján Fakla
Scene and costumes: Dušan Krnáč
Music selection: Pavel Mihaľák
Actors: Roman Večerek, Pavel Mihaľák, Júlia Kováčiková, Mirek Sýkora, Markéta Dulavová, Milan Lichý, Dušan Krnáč, Mário Bóna, Jakub Senéši, Andrea Loučičanová and Andrej Hinka/Tomáš Cíger
Director: Jana Mikitková

Premieres:

September 30th, 2017 at 13:00 and 16:00 – Banská Štiavnica

 

This play managed to set the AMPLIFIER FESTIVAL apart and defined it as a civically-engaged festival.

Andrej Turčan

theatre and radio director, theorist, teacher

The writing of the script was supported from public funds in the form of scholarship by Slovak Art Council.


The creation of this project was initiated by one sentence. “I haven’t visited the city centre for two years.” – said by a local at the Drieňová resident area at the edge of Banská Štiavnica when we were installing Exclamation mark – an audio-visual object for free expression. Later, we started focusing on the topic of the value of freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of speech, but also inner freedom. The excursion provides a first-hand personal experiences with simulated time in totality, which confronts the viewers and their liberties with rules and obstructions, typical for totalitarian regimes of the past and, sadly, possibly the future. This happens in a very subtle manner first, then becomes somewhat humorous, but ends very seriously. The viewer, enriched by the experience with (un)freedom can then reconsider the meaning of freedom in society at large as well as during the next elections.

My strongest impression of the Excursion into Un-freedom was the discussion on the retro-bus after the premiere, where quotes and reflections about how herd-like and indifferent we are, how we need a “leader” to order us to help the weaker…

Jana Mikitková

director