BrainDiarrhea

Don’t worry, you are not in the wrong blog. “Na skle malovane” is a Polish-Slovak theater play I saw over the weekend. Translated it means “painted on glass” and it is about the Slovak national hero Janosik, a Robin Hood like thief who lived in the 18th century. The theater play, actually a musical, was written in the 1970′s by Ernest Bryll (lyrics) and Katarzyna Gärtnerova (music) and is a lyrical telling of the life of Juraj Janosik. As the real thief lived (and stole) in the Tatra on the border between Slovakia and Poland, he is also partly a Polish hero as well, although he was born (and hanged) in Slovakia.

It was kind of a big thing in the seventies that the Polish have “stolen” our national hero and have written the musical first, but the high quality of the musical – great lyrics combined with awesome rock music – was enough to persuade everybody that it would be better to translate the Polish play rather than to create our own. And so it was that the original musical translated into Slovak premiered in 1974 … and was played for 30 years straight with each and every single night sold out. It is unbelievable how great an effect this play had on people, many songs are still widely known, and I think you couldn’t meet a Slovak who wouldn’t know what Na skle malovane is …

However, after 30 years the actor playing Janosik was getting too old to play the part (it had quite a lot of traditional Slovak dancing in it) and so the play was discontinued two years ago. And now they came up with a new version, which I saw over the weekend. To sum it up – it was good. It wasn’t the original play, they changed quite a lot of lyrics, re-recorded the music (probably a rights issue), changed the dance sequences and all the actors, but it was far from the catastrophe it could have been. The changed lyrics basically sucked, because when you know the songs by heart, like me, you are distressed by the fact that the actors are singing something else than you. The re-recorded music missed the target more often then it hit, but it was still the same music and two or three of the new versions of my beloved songs were actually better than the original ones. The play got better in parts where they didn’t adhere so strictly to the original – like the retelling of the death of Janosik was much better in the remake. Death was now played by a younger actress than in the original and what can I say … a sexy young Death with a great dance show is much better than a 50 year old Death that doesn’t really move on stage. Unfortunately the dances were now more modern dance than typical Slovak dance. All in all the whole play tried a bit too much to distance itself from the original – the best way to describe it is to compare it to a homework you are copying from somebody else. You try very hard to say the same thing but in completely different sentences so the professor won’t know you cheated. This way your sentences are bloated and unnatural, as you try too hard to be different. It was the same way with the remake – the new lyrics were different, but lost the rythm and poetry of the original.

So basically I was satisfied. It was so good I want to see it again. It will never surpass the original, but it had just two moments I didn’t like and once I get used to the new songs they will be allright as well. The songs had the same melodies I love to death and that is plus the play would have to try very very hard to lose. If we can’t have the original back we’ll have to do with the remake. And it is a worthy follower to the great Na skle malovane.