Compensatory existence

"You can only save your soul—the light that is within you—by saying no, by spitting in their faces!"

How to escape the cruel reality of everyday life
in bondage and the stereotype of "house arrest" to the "free" world of creation? From a lifetime of eking out an existence
in the "certainty of the worst," only the magical world of literature and memories saves the aging writer. This substitute existence is the only light
in the darkness of his apartment in a Prague housing estate, in the darkness that has engulfed his entire world. However, the "wolfish" reality of routine, humiliation, and stupidity continues to pound on the door. Outwardly a premature old man, inwardly a lively and energetic author, whose only friend and companion is his wife Marie, he nevertheless finds enough strength to brilliantly identify the neuralgic points of the era
and the monstrous totalitarian system in which he must live
and die, with a good dose of perspective, humor, irony, and sober causticity.

An original production reflecting the entire life of Jan Zábrana. One long Christmas Eve. One human despair in one regime. One substitute existence for a life in bondage. One personal commentary on history.

The author of the text Substitute Existence, Simona Petrů, drew mainly from Jan Zábrana's diaries Celý život (The Whole Life), the short story Psovod Gerža (Dog Handler Gerža), Eva Zábranová's book Flashky (Flash Drives), Zábrana's translations of Sylvia Plath's Ariel, Curzio Malaparte's Black Wind, Allen Ginsberg's Howl
and others.

The production was created with the knowledge and kind permission of Eva Zábranová.
The production was co-produced by Divadlo 3+kk and A Studio Rubin.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)