Kyogen Comedy at Leitnerova

The Brno theatre collective Divadlo kyogen will present three traditional Japanese comedies: "The Sweet Poison" (Busu), "Stolen Water" (Mizukake muko), and "The Miraculous God Nio" (Nio). Divadlo kyogen was founded in 2001 at the initiative of Czech dramatist, director, and mime Hubert Krejčí and Okura Shigeyama Shime, a master of the Kyoto school of kyogen, as a company dedicated to studying, realizing, and performing Japanese kyogen farces in Czech — in an international context, this is a unique phenomenon. Kyogen (meaning "mad" or "artfully embellished words") is a comic theatrical form that developed, like noh theatre, from originally Chinese sarugaku plays. This genre flourished in the mid-14th century and continues in an unbroken tradition to this day. Short farces full of exaggeration and precise acting stylization emerge from everyday situations and, with subtle humor, depict human weaknesses and relationships between people. The theatre's work is built on long-term mutual cultural cooperation between Czech and Japanese professional theatre practitioners, within which a new play in Czech is regularly staged with the participation of a Japanese master.