PÚCHOV – Milan Sladek until 1968
THE BIRTH OF A LOVE FOR MIMES
One day in the library, the bookworm Sládek discovered Kožík’s novel Největší z Pierotů (1939), which described the life and artistry of the great mime actor Jean-Gaspard Deburau from the first half of the 19th century. For the boy, the book was a true revelation. When he finished reading it, he was in a trance. „I was beside myself,“ he later recalled in an interview. He longed to become a mime. And so, as the story goes, his older sisters sewed him a Pierrot costume—one he had been begging for incessantly. They sacrificed an entire bedsheet to make it.
INSPIRATION
…the dance composition The Green Table… the Indian dance style Bharatanatyam… the thrilling scene Fight in the Dark from Peking Opera (where actors move as if in total darkness while the stage remains illuminated)… traditional Japanese theater… silent film comedies, which later inspired the young artist to internalize a certain Japanese wisdom: to understand through the body. At the time, he was studying dramatic theater.
It proved to be valuable: he developed his own method of acting self-reflection, shaping a distinctive approach to building a stage character—one that would later set him apart from his peers.
STUDY
Milan found his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts unfulfilling—he wanted something different. All the boys had to perform plays about revolutionary Russia. They all had to portray brave Russian Ivans, while the girls played fearless Natashas—or whatever their names were. But with Milan’s height and only sixty kilos to his name, who could possibly picture him as a Russian hero? He was out of luck; he didn’t fit the idealized image of the heroic socialist youth.
Sládek certainly didn’t have to leave the Academy due to a lack of talent. He reflects on this himself: “It may sound immodest, but I am convinced that I first had to sense for myself whether I had talent or not. There were many things I was uncertain about, but deep down, I believed in myself. If I had listened to all the opinions and advice from everyone around me, I would have quit theater long ago. At the beginning, when I passionately spoke about my plans to dedicate myself to pantomime, there weren’t many who believed in me.”
In the 1958/1959 academic year, he had the opportunity to continue his studies in Prague.
THE PIONEERING OF PANTOMIME
In April 1958, he was the first to present pantomime to the public in Czechoslovakia—more than a year before Fialka’s pantomime at the Theatre on the Balustrade in Prague.
The first public pantomime performance took place at the Dimitrovka company club in Bratislava. It was called Evening of Pantomime, and its concept was influenced both by Deburau-style pantomime and silent film comedy.
THE FIRST PANTOMIME PRODUCTION – BOULE
The first pantomime production of Boule premiered at the E.F. Burian Theatre on March 11, 1960, marking a great success for the future mime artist.
A reviewer from the daily news Mladá fronta, writing under the initials -zd-, remarked:
„It is impossible not to mention, on this occasion, the performer of the main role—piccolo Kefka—Milan Sládek, from whom we can expect a great deal given his movement culture, mimetic skills, and genuine inner engagement.“
Pavel Grym, writing in Film and Theatre, added:
„…With Milan Sládek, another mime of undeniable talent, unique expression, keen characterization, and great sensitivity has stepped onto our stage.“
Today, Sládek’s production of Boule is rightly considered one of the legendary performances.
JUPITER
„When I first looked through the large glass wall of the Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne at the beautiful Dionysus mosaic many years ago, my imagination suddenly conjured up a figure before my eyes. Dressed in Roman attire, it gracefully performed movements depicting motifs from Roman mythology. I was fascinated—Roman pantomime.“ — M. Sládek
IS THERE SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE PLAYED BY MIME?
„Essentially, it is possible to find expressive means to convey any action—whether of people, animals, or even objects. However, if I wanted to express, for example, that yesterday I had wanted to go to the theater, or that I don’t know whether I will go to the cinema tomorrow, I would have to be careful not to fall into the realm of mere gesturing. In reality, you can perform everything that happens in the present moment, as well as a wide range of characters, atmospheres, emotions, objects, and elements… But in fact, every form of art benefits from a certain limitation. A painter relinquishes three-dimensionality to achieve it on canvas, a sculptor omits the surroundings of the depicted figure… a writer or poet focuses solely on the written word. It all depends on the creator’s skill and talent—on how well they can transcend the boundaries of these limitations and even use them as a stylistic element. Sometimes I am surprised when I come across a writer’s description of a particular situation or a character’s inner emotions in a literary work. At times, it feels almost like a script for a mime. And that is where we, mimes, are more precise. Movement, gesture, and facial expression are irreplaceable—just as body language is irreplaceable in real life.“ — M. Sládek
KEFKA, KEFKA, KEFKA…
His significant character is Kefka, who, according to the creator himself, can be seen as a kind of Slovak Charlie Chaplin or an equivalent of Marceau’s Bip. He was born during Sládek’s time in Prague and was taken with him to Germany, where he named his theater Theater Kefka. And why Kefka?
In the dormitory in Prague, where he lived during his studies, his roommates called him that because every morning he would search for his toothbrush, and they didn’t know what he was looking for. His blond hair, always cut in a hedgehog style, also resembled a toothbrush. So, he named the character of the janitor in the play Hrča after this nickname. That’s how Kefka was born… The mime was convinced that every mime must have his own typical character, his alter ego.
FIRST SOLO PANTOMIMES (1955)
Milan Sládek was still a student at the School of Applied Arts in Bratislava.
PANTOMIME EVENING (1958)
At the Dimitrovka club, Milan Sládek performed his first pantomime performance in Czechoslovakia, with Milan Lasica, Eva Maria Chalupová, and Darina Poldaufová.
BOULE (1960) – At the E. F. Burian Theatre, D34 in Prague.
The foundation of this script was written by Milan Sládek while he was still in Bratislava, and the final libretto for this full-length pantomime was written with Eduard Žlábek. It was the first time I appeared as the character Kefka, a young waiter in a garden restaurant.
HADRÁŘ, (1961)
At the D34 Theatre in Prague, inspired by František Kožíka’s book, The Greatest of Pierrots. Milan Sládek, as a young mime, considered it important to come to terms with the non-dramatic „The Dress Salesman,“ a work probably written by the great Pierrot Jean Gaspard Deburau.
CZECH COMEDY OF THE RICH MAN AND LAZAR (1963) – play by Pavol Kyrmezer.
This is the oldest play in Slovak theatre culture. The first performance of this play since its creation was directed by Milan Sládek, with acting students from the Academy of Dramatic Arts: Marián Labuda, Oľga Šalagová, Stano Dančiak, Ida Rapaičová, Jana Catarino, Pavol Mikulík, Karol Čálik, and others. It was later staged at the Small Stage (1964) and in German translation in Cologne (1981).
HRČA (1963)
It was restaged in a new form in Bratislava at the Malá scéna theatre. This production crossed the borders of the then Czechoslovakia for the first time. Hungary, GDR, FRG, India.
STARINAAAR, (1967)
This was a new adaptation of Deburau’s pantomime, and according to Milan Sládek, it was the first production with qualities comparable to European pantomime. It was first staged at the Small Stage in Bratislava and later in Cologne (1975, 1983).
POVAŽSKÁ BYSTRICA – Kefka Theater
He moved to Cologne permanently on April 1, 1970.
GIFT
For the author, the relationship between Big Brother and the ant that bothers him was an important ideological starting point. There was also a belief in change and in a positive ending to the tragic coexistence. The Cologne audience did not really perceive that this was a Czechoslovak story and the mime’s personal trauma.
The Kefka Theater opened on May 28, 1974.
In the 1974/1975 season, they had 310 performances at home and abroad in 10 months. The principal needed to pay off his debts first. He succeeded. Sládek was also the director of the theatre at that time, as well as the cleaner, stage technician, and lead actor. He distributed leaflets with his colleagues, organized all events, made masks, gave courses, wrote new scripts, and traveled with others to Germany, Belgium, and France. Sometimes, he performed three shows a day. For several months, he couldn’t pay his salary, had to pay rent, and remember that his young colleagues also had to live on something. They continued to work, and success followed.
After seven years of existence of the Kefka Theatre, which had 86 seats, the troupe moved to a theatre with 311 seats.
The Threepenny Opera
One of the first productions at the newly founded Kefka Theatre was The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay, with music by Pepusch, which originated sometime in the late 18th century. Bertolt Brecht, together with composer Kurt Weill, reworked it and called it The Threepenny Opera.
The Comedy of the Rich Man and Lazarus
Sládek staged the comedy five times in total. The first production took place in 1964 in collaboration with Eduard Žlábek as a year-long project with acting students from the Bratislava Academy of Performing Arts. The play achieved great success, especially abroad. It placed second at the festival in Erlangen, West Germany, first in Istanbul, and won the Grand Prix at the 1965 international festival in Nancy. This award was accompanied by a performance at the Theatre of Nations in Paris, where the Slovak National Theatre ensemble received a standing ovation. The second production was created in 1967 on the stage of the Small Stage of the Slovak National Theatre, and Sládek created the character of Lazarus in it. The final production was a performance at the Church of St. Michael in Cologne in 2006.
Salome
After a performance of Salome, a young woman approached Sládek, upset that he could mock women. He had to explain to her that this pantomime was a reaction to the political situation in his former homeland. For him, this biblical character represented power that plays with human lives and destinies, and the character’s gender was not important.
Carmen
By the way, Carmen was the first opera the young student ever saw at the Slovak National Theatre when he was fifteen. He fondly recalls this performance. The actor playing the Toreador was unforgettable—he couldn’t get off his horse during the famous aria due to his enormous belly. The horse, in turn, to pass the time, and perhaps under the emotional pressure of performing on the stage, relieved itself in front of the enthusiastic audience. Both the actor and the horse were a big hit. However, he will also remember the dancer who, throughout his entire dance number, struggled unsuccessfully to catch the tambourine thrown to him. In pantomime, this is called the insidiousness of the object. He succeeded only at the final note of the music in his dance.
IT IS EXCITING TO LEARN TO SEE WHAT IS, NOT WHAT WE WANT TO SEE.
The Marriage of Figaro
The premiere took place on September 19 at the National Theatre in Seoul, which has a capacity of 3,000 seats.
The mime himself recalls: „Later, after the performances, I often heard from the audience that they felt as if the puppets were moving the actors, not the other way around. Figaro is still in my repertoire. The performances are always a great success with the audience. They are surprised by the musicality of my colleagues, the precise psychological characterization of the individual characters, but most of all, they are thrilled by the amazing cooperation in bringing the puppets to life. My friends Katka Aulitisová, Jana Skořepová, Ľubo Piktor, Beáta Hileková, Peter Tabaček, later Mirka Pavelková, Juraj Benčík, and Rado Milič still form the ensemble for The Marriage of Figaro (2010).“
After the world premiere in Seoul, this opera was presented with the same success at the SND Opera as the European premiere in the autumn of the same year.
CLASSICITY ON THE ONE SIDE AND INNOVATION ON THE OTHER
On one hand, Sládek is regarded as a classic of pantomime, but some advocates of traditional pantomime criticize him for breaking the old pantomime tradition. Isn’t that a paradox?
In his repertoire, you will find solo pantomime, works with masks, puppetry, visual happenings, and most notably group pantomime. He also merged pantomime with dramatic texts or opera…
His great strength is that he is a visual artist. This is evident not only in the pantomime arrangements of each production but also in the costumes and sets.
The Maestro believes that the popularity of an artist is often not solely a measure of their quality. This can often be seen with Western European visual artists. For some, popularity is achieved through the skill of managers who can create a media stir around their protégé. This, in turn, affects the artist’s financial evaluation. However, only in hindsight are we able to rank them based on their true quality. Determining quality based on television ratings doesn’t reflect the real quality of the program being broadcast. Likewise, packed theaters, achieved by transporting spectators in buses, do not speak to the quality of their performances.
Sládek’s founding of the pantomime theatre was an act of courage, not an experiment. At that time, he proved that even such an unconventional form of theatre has the right to a full-fledged existence.
GAUKLER FESTIVAL
Through his festival activities, Milan Sládek revived pantomime, which had been dormant for several years, particularly in Europe. The Gaukler Festival was one of the first European festivals at the beginning of the so-called wave of pantomime theatre, which later, largely due to Milan Sládek’s initiative, became well-established in Western Europe. It was meant to be something similar to the Amsterdam Fools Festival.
Don’t believe it?
Milan Sládek ordered a clipping service from German newspapers with the keyword „pantomime“ to see which areas it influenced. Not only were there many performances, but mimes appeared in advertising, pantomime was part of therapeutic practices, educational subjects in schools, opera companies hired mimes to help singers enrich their expressive capabilities, workshops were organized, mimes began to teach corporate managers body language, and so on. More importantly, many psychologists began to explore the phenomenon of physical eloquence. During the fifteen years Milan Sládek collaborated with the Goethe Institute, he visited over fifty countries and witnessed firsthand the immense global interest in pantomime.
Milan Sládek sees pantomime as a royal sleight of hand that always emerges in times when classical theatre is in crisis—either being too literary or not theatrical enough… Through this festival, Sládek wanted to demonstrate the contribution pantomime has made to the development of modern dance art and dance theatre in general.
Don Juan
The mime approached this topic with a sense of humor, presenting Don Juan as an older man who, out of habit, still courted young ladies, but had forgotten why.
GIFT, (1971)
Milan Sládek’s first production in Cologne after emigration. Pantomime combined with black theater techniques. Milan Sládek presented the production in about 50 countries around the world.
KEFKA’S DON JUAN (1978)
Alongside his own scripts, Milan Sládek set himself the goal of acquainting his audience with the rich history of the art of pantomime. Ch. W. Gluck composed an incredible number of ballet pantomimes. Dancers were required not only to master ballet technique but also to depict the characters and the situations of the story through pantomime acting.
MASKS OF IMPROVEMENT (1982)
Milan Sládek’s first truly full-length improvisation experience in front of about 1,000 spectators during the GAUKLER Festival, in collaboration with the excellent German post-academic trombonist Albert Mangelsdorf.
CARMEN (1983)
Opera pantomimique, one of the most successful performances of the KEFKA Theater in Cologne.
UBU (1984)
Pantomime transcription of the famous play by Alfred Jarry, also considered one of Milan Sládek’s best productions. It was re-staged at the ARÉNA Theatre in Bratislava in 1999.
APOCALYPTICA (1989)
The production was based on the multimedia opera of the same name by Croatian composer Milko Kelemen.
TRENČÍN – the period after the Kefka Theater
DIDACTIC – PEDAGOGICAL PELE – MELE
„Sometimes it occurs to me that the art of pantomime can be compared to the position of a woman and a man on the social ladder. When a woman wants to achieve an important position in her job, she must usually be of higher quality than a man in the same position. And so it is with the position of mimes in relation to drama actors.“ (M. Sládek)
In Asian countries, Sládek was most impressed by the awareness of the unity of form and content. „That’s what I always realize when I have the opportunity to participate in a performance of traditional Asian theater,“ he says whenever the conversation turns to comparing styles. He believes that in his production of King Ubu, a connoisseur of Japanese kabuki theater will certainly notice the creator’s obsession with the artistic design of the stage, costumes, and acting, which he experienced in the Tokyo Kabuki-za theater. There, inspired by the performance of the excellent actor of female characters, Tamasabur Bando, Sládek gathered the courage to embark on Carmen. Japanese puppet theater bunraku was at the birth of The Marriage of Figaro and The Threepenny Opera. Indian dance art inspired the mime to the precise movement formulation of his solo pantomimes. But it was never about copying; rather, he managed to discover a kind of common basis of expression.
WORKING WITH AN ACTOR
How can you tell if someone has the talent for pantomime? Can you tell after the first meeting?
Teacher Sládek considers imagination to be the most important quality in an actor. To be a good mime, someone must also have the ability to empathize with various situations, the insides of the most diverse people, inanimate objects, and atmospheres. They must have a rich imagination. An obvious prerequisite for a mime is acting talent, and body flexibility is also important. But sometimes you make a mistake when choosing an actor for a troupe or a project. You can be convinced that someone is a great talent at first, and they will not succeed, and, conversely, someone is discouraged from pursuing an acting career… and they will eventually become an excellent actor.
MUSIC
Many of Sládek’s performances are based on music. When selecting music, he either chooses well-known classical pieces or selects lesser-known compositions. He often mixes the music and adds various sound effects. He frequently collaborated with musicians who composed music specifically for the performance. One such musician was Vašo Patejdl, who created the music for Grand Pierrot.
MASKING
When a mime performs in front of an audience of two thousand people, white makeup highlights the face and eyes, mouth, or eyebrows, allowing the audience to better read the facial expressions. At the same time, the mask helps the mime to depersonalize themselves and hide behind it. The audience does not perceive the mime as a private person, but as a stage, artificial character. This allows the mime to be bolder in their themes and, in solo pantomime, to credibly portray several characters of different personalities at once.
„I will never forget the fascination I experienced when I painted my face white for the first time. And despite the fact that I have already applied kilos of white makeup to my face over more than forty years of activity, it still happens that, even after all these years, I feel the same joy when applying makeup as I did for the first time.“ (M. Sládek)
Andy Andy
„Andy Warhol… interests me not only as an artist, but also as a person whose roots also reach back to Slovakia. His parents come from Miková near Medzilaborce. That’s why I tell myself that I can understand him from this perspective differently than many others. The more I delved into Andy Warhol’s biography and work, the more I remembered a kind of dignified clownery capturing his life and work. I embodied my research in the libretto for the performance Andy Andy, which premiered in Bonn in April 2004 at the Kunst – und Ausstellungshalle.“ (M. Sládek)
ARENA
When Milan Sládek returned to Slovakia in 1989, the opportunity for a big stage was offered in the Petržalka Arena. As early as 1991, he began considering the creation of the International Institute of Movement Theatre.
Sládek’s passion was to continue the pantomime festival, which he had organized for twelve years in Cologne. He succeeded. The Kaukliar Festival was first introduced to Bratislava residents in 1996 and was held annually until 2002.
Another of his plans was to regularly invite mimes to the Arena outside the Kaukliar Festival. For instance, since 1979, Milan Sládek had been collaborating with an official German-French organization for young people. It seemed that a pantomime company could be established as early as 2003, funded by the European Union and based in Bratislava. Several productions were created, in which young German and French mimes and actors participated. As soon as the changing situation allowed, Sládek also involved young Slovak theater artists in the project, for the last time in 2004.
Saving the Arena for theater was not easy. Several people showed interest in it, wanting to „save“ it. There were plans for a large gaming hall with dozens of slot machines… A restaurant with dancing girls was envisioned by a certain nouveau riche businessman from abroad… Some people in the Bratislava City Hall and the Ministry of Culture are proud that they decided to return the building to its original purpose.
„The Lost Son of the Fatherland“ was finally glad that the Arena started its activities after all the ups and downs. Before the project began, František Mikloško, the Chairman of the Slovak National Council, called Sládek in Cologne and asked him if he could imagine establishing an institution similar to the one he led in Germany, here in Bratislava. He had about three months to decide, but a negative response from Sládek was out of the question. He felt that this offer opened an opportunity for him to participate in the great post-revolutionary transformation in Slovakia.
„I watched my friends and it seemed to me that they knew well how to navigate the complicated initial situation. But they didn’t. In Slovakia, it was as though there were no laws at the time; breaking moral codes was routine, and decisions were made by something other than decency, ethics, and seriousness. I also had a hard time orienting myself in the politics, which changed depending on who was in charge of the government. What bothered me most was that a man’s word didn’t count, and an agreement didn’t hold the next day. Laws were twisted, and people with them. Various political and interest groups formed, and more thought was given to who could privatize more and faster. This was what they called early capitalism in a cultured way. The only thing that comforted me was the realization that I had experienced what it was like under socialism, that I could see how things really were, and that I had already experienced the future, and that gave me strength.“
„When I look at the almost ten years I spent working here in Slovakia, I see that I’ve left behind quite a bit of work. The Arena Theatre, whose rescue is now credited to others, is still standing. The building was approved about six months before my departure, although the surroundings hadn’t been renovated, but the money for that was already allocated from the state budget. During these ten years, I staged several productions at the Arena, which were very well received, and I hope they will belong to the history of Slovak theater.“
And indeed, at the Arena Theatre, he carried out several significant projects: he led a troupe of young Slovak mimes, organized seven years of the international Kaukliar festival, and worked with a Franco-German youth organization. Additionally, he staged two operas at the Slovak National Theatre and presented the pantomime musical Grand Pierrot at the New Stage.
THE VOICE OF THE DISINTERESTED
When it came to Sládek’s decision to emigrate for the second time, a certain editor, who had lived in the West for a long time, told me:
„I’m not surprised at all. They respect him there. They love him there. I attended his performance in Germany, and they gave him a standing ovation at the end. And the audience there is usually cold. After all, everyone should go to an environment that will optimally allow them to develop their abilities. This isn’t some sort of globalizing fervor; it’s a truth that has held since ancient times. The local environment has not matured to his level. Here, he had to submit—both to the authorities and to the audience. He should go where they can truly appreciate him, where they can create the optimal conditions for him. Then, he will be more beneficial for us. Of course, on the other hand, it frustrates me. When the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung sent a reporter to write something positive about Bratislava, he found only three or four attractions worthy of mention. One of them was Sládek’s Arena. The poor have only become poorer.“
WHAT ELSE IS LEFT?
What remains of a person? Well, hope! Hope that successors will grow from the barren soil. It is not yet possible to point to them, but good things ripen slowly.
Many years ago, a slender young man from Streženice near Trenčín met the director E. F. Burian. A spark was lit. The renowned avant-garde artist gave the young man an impulse that launched him into the orbit in which he still moves today. And perhaps, just recently, another young man, still unknown, met the famous globetrotter Milan Sládek. Did it spark? Did he give an impulse that will one day allow him to see the world?
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (1991)
The premiere took place at the National Theatre in Seoul, South Korea. Milan Sládek was invited to take over the direction. The requirement was for the singers to perform this famous Mozart opera in concert, while Sládek was to present the story with his troupe. He proposed staging the play with puppets approximately 1.40 meters tall, with three actors manipulating each puppet. The production sold out 10 times at the 3,000-seat Seoul National Theatre.
THE CORONATION OF POPEYE (1993)
Milan Sládek received an offer from the Slovak National Theatre following the success of the Figaro production. The combination of singing and pantomime was immensely successful, and the interpretation by the singers of the Slovak National Theatre Opera was met with great enthusiasm. The scenography was designed by Albin Brunovsky.
GRAND PIERROT (1994)
A pantomime musical with lyrics by Ľub Feldek, music by Vašo Patejdl, and pantomime scenes by Milan Sládek. Later, in 1997, it was staged in a shorter form at the ARÉNA Theatre. The production celebrated the great Pierrot Jean Gaspard Deburau and his significance in the development of this art form.
THREEPENNY OPERA (2001)
A famous play by Bertolt Brecht, staged similarly to The Marriage of Figaro, with large puppets. It was performed several times in German in various cities. This occurred during the play’s anniversary celebrations and was the only production of its kind in Germany at that time.
MAGIC NIGHT (2003)
Kurt Weill wrote this pantomime when he was 22 years old. Its rediscovery was equally magical! While the music had been preserved, the libretto was lost. Milan Sládek wrote a new libretto for it. The pantomime was again featured at the Dessau festival, where it received the Festival Award and was invited to a festival in Italy.
ANDY ANDY (2004)
In honor of the great Andy Warhol, this production was performed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Medzilaborce.
THE THREEPENNY OPERA, Tokyo, Japan (2005),
After Milan Sládek’s performances at the KAZE Theatre, which focuses on European dramatic literature, especially Brecht, Sládek was invited to direct this play. It was a wonderful experience to collaborate with Japanese theatre artists.
PANTALON und COLUMBINE, KV 446 (2006)
This pantomime is based on Mozart’s music, of which only a 29-minute fragment remains. The libretto was lost, leaving only occasional notes under the notation, which served as a guide for Milan Sládek in writing a new libretto. This project was created for the Mozart Festival in Vienna. It was also successfully presented at various festivals across Europe.
STAGE OF THE CROSS (2007)
This was created at the initiative of Düsseldorf organist Wolfgang Abendroth. Based on the music of Marcel Dupré, Milan Sládek crafted and realized the individual stations of Jesus Christ’s final journey to crucifixion. The latest performances were held in 2023, at the SRTv concert hall – it received an 11-minute standing ovation! – and at the Bardejov sports hall.
JUPITER AND THE OTHERS (2007)
The performances were held at the Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne. This museum was built around a mosaic floor, the so-called Dionysus Mosaic, which was discovered before World War II. For almost 300 years, mime dancers, who primarily performed mythological stories, enjoyed immense popularity in Rome. This inspired Milan Sládek to perform pantomimes on this rare mosaic (insured for €5,000), which he performed several times.
ANTIGONE (2015)
In the Dialogue on Dance, by the ancient Roman author Lucian of Samosata, Milan Sládek read that some mimes, with the help of masks, interpreted this ancient Greek tragedy. Similarly, with the help of masks and four assistants, Mr. Sládek interpreted this play, in which he represented all the characters in the plot. The premiere took place in Cologne, and with the production, they were also invited to Paris at the UNESCO building.
DUBČEK’S SPRING (2018)
A kind of scenic poem in celebration of this great man and Slovak, who influenced our lives in many ways, and whose ideas are still recognized in the world today. The premiere took place at the State Opera in Banská Bystrica.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING LEAR (2021)
The prominent German director Hansgünther Heyme adapted this monumental dramatic work of Shakespeare for Milan Sládek. A kind of scenic collage was created, and Mr. Sládek was even forced to speak. Heyme himself was his verbal partner.