Suddenly, she was startled. She heard a plaintive cry. The voice was calling:
– Jana Střihavková!
It was her sweetheart Miloš Střihavka! He crawled out of the bushes.
– It’s me, Jana! I’m Miloš Střihavka. Are you as important as boom barriers in a tunnel?
To what would you compare your mum? Hardly anyone would come up with something as original as boom barriers in a tunnel… Such is Denisa Střihavková’s mum. Denisa is a writer with Down syndrome. The common writers cannot imitate spontaneity, artlessness as well as certain original inappropriacy and disarming naivety of her texts. In the same way, acting and movements of the performers with Down syndrome cannot be imitated.
A theatrical celebration of mothers compiled from the texts of writers with Down syndrome.
The production documents the way how society views this disability and, at the same time serves as a testimony of people with Down syndrome. Let’s enrich ourselves by their unconventional thinking and perception of reality!
Length of the performance: appr. 60 mins.
For whom is the production intended:
- We will gladly play for anyone aged 5 to 150, regardless of their chromosome count, nationality, or skin colour.
- We will happily welcome audience members that come into contact with Down syndrome daily, be it people with Down syndrome and their families, medical professionals, teachers, or therapists.
- We will be equally happy to welcome audience members, that have never heard of Down syndrome.
- In short, we will gladly meet anyone, who’s willing to play, laugh and think.
“The title of the play is as unorthodox as the whole hour-long performance in the barrier-free theatre Barka. (…) Spontaneity and artlessness interweave the whole hour-long performance and the disarming naivety of the text and acting moves the audience.”
“Movingly natural, childishly playful and stylistically polished bustle of joyful happiness, through which important topics flash unobtrusively, yet intensively (…)”
“The precise work with temporythm and lights, as well as Pavel Čadek’s musical accompaniment (violoncello), is a proof of director’s sense for theatricality. The main impression of the evening is, however, the disarming commonplace with which the acting students and non-actors with DS enthusiastically coexist on the stage in front of the excited audience.”
Theatre Aldente created this production in cooperation with v. a. Úsměvy (Smiles), a group, which helps people with Down syndrome and their families.
