Training on uncertain ground: Farma bez jeskyně/Farm without a cave

Abstract

The recipient of numerous honours including Edinburgh Fringe First, Total Theatre and Herald Angel Awards and the European Prize for New Theatrical Realities (2011), Farma v jeskyni is among the most successful theatre companies to emerge from the Czech new theatre (nové divadlo) scene. Despite, or perhaps because of, its success, Farma's reception domestically is fraught with ambiguity and a suspicion of the company's laboratory-based methodology, which emphasises the daily physical training of company members. This article considers Farma's work and its domestic critical reception and interrogates the disparity between the company's international renown and compromised working conditions in Prague. It demonstrates the extent to which Farma's reception and treatment is shaped by the artistic values and priorities established throughout the historical evolution of Czech theatre as a highly politicised and national art form. Farma's emphasis on training and ensemble practice will be explored as inflecting the company's critical perception and working conditions, with reference to communist-era scepticism concerning Grotowski's actor-training practices, as well as post-communist neo-liberal agendas that emphasise saleable cultural products over artistically rigorous processes.