Prague Crossroads Festival

The Prague Crossroads Festival was established in 2016 to honor the memory of former president and playwright Václav Havel, thus starting a tradition of a theater festival that addresses human rights issues, socially urgent stories, and political implications through what is closest to the National Theater Drama and what the first post-revolutionary president grew up with both personally and artistically—namely, theater. The eighth edition will take place this fall, and for the first time, due to its reconstruction, it will not be held at the New Stage of the National Theater.

The festival presents productions that address current political issues or open up discussion on broader social topics.

This year, the festival will present three exceptional productions: The Secret Life of Old People (La vie secrète des vieux) by Mohamed El Khatib at The Prague Crossroads – St Anne’s Church, Haribo Kimchi by Jah Koo, and Beyond Caring by Alexander Zeldin at the DOX Center. Each of them explores sensitive topics such as interpersonal relationships, care, and identity.

The opening production of this year’s festival is La vie secrète des vieux directed by Mohamed El Khatib, who is visiting the Czech Republic for the very first time. El Khatib is a renowned French contemporary theatre director known for his distinctive style, which is characterized by focus on humanity, simple form, and the ability to view major issues through the lenses of seemingly mundane stories. Each performance of his is an encounter – with the authentic people on stage, as well as the world they come from. El Khatib weaves powerful stories with subtle political undercurrent out of the small details of our common lives. His peculiar approach builds on empathy, humour and pure trust in his protagonists, whether they are children, football players or, as in this production, elderly people living in nursing homes. El Khatib’s latest production breaks one of the social taboos, namely the sexual life of the elderly. He tackles the topics of intimacy and desire in older age with sensitivity, adding a spark of humour. 

South Korean performer and director Jaha Koo is the second artist who will present his latest production to the festival. Known for his original style combining visual humour, movement and personal narration, he is both the creator and protagonist of his productions, where he mingles his personal life with the imaginative and visual world of theatre. The Czech audience may remember him from previous Prague Crossroads, where he presented to great acclaim his brilliant performance Cuckoo, featuring talking Korean rice cookers. In his new project Haribo Kimchi, Jaha Koo comes to Prague with a street-food stall, where he will cook for the audience while narrating his personal and intimate story about an immigrant’s feelings.

Director Alexander Zeldin — also a first-time visitor to Prague, like Mohamed El Khatib — will present the third festival production, a French adaptation of his famous play Beyond Caring. Zeldin’s specific quality is that he is both a director and an award-winning playwright, so he writes the scripts for his productions himself. Zeldin employs realistic style in his works to tackle social issues with great empathy for the fates of common people. Beyond Caring tells the story of several temporary workers who meet during night shifts at a meat packing factory. The realistic setting of the play uncovers the true life of precarious workers-cleaners, who share their personal and professional worries during the short, just ten-minute-long breaks they are entitled to during their shifts.

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