The Aluminium Queen

“My grandfather used to tell me that when the Devil is done with us, he will flood the whole place with a sea. There is oil under us, all around. Once they extract it all, only empty spaces will remain. The Earth is going to start falling into itself.”

December 12, 2018, late at night. The American Mars probe InSight just took the first picture on the surface of the Red Planet and started to explore it. The long persisting famine in Yemen is escalating, and more children have been dying after Amal, whose death was widely covered by the media. Exactly 24 years have passed since the beginning of the first Russian-Chechen war and 920 years since the military plundered the city of Maarat al-Numaan in Syria. A Czech woman is alone in her flat in Prague, celebrating her thirtieth birthday. Elsa, who is originally from Grozny, is celebrating her fifty-fourth birthday, we don’t know where. There is sympathy with those who were born in the wrong time, at a wrong place, and one’s own toothache.

Aluminiová královna (The Aluminium Queen) is a play about consequences and the still lasting state of the Russian-Chechen conflict. It explores the feeling of connection with the forces that control global politics, resistance to the events in the East, and the level of responsibility for environmental changes. The play is based on a book of the same title by Petra Procházková.

Script: Matěj Samec a Apolena Vanišová
Director: Apolena Vanišová
Dramaturgy: Matěj Samec
Scene: Apolena Vanišová, Pavel Havrda a Johana Střížková
Costumes: Johana Střížková
Music: Michaela Švédová
Light design: Pavel Havrda
Production: Magda Juránková
Photography: Andrea Černá

Acting: Johana Schmidtmajerová, Sijeda Azarová, Johana Střížková

Premiere: 19. 3. 2019 

Media reactions:
Česká televize: report
Český rohlas Wave: profile

“The play primarily relies on the excellent performance by Johana Schmidtmajerová. The actress has exceptional charisma and plausibly moves from the comical moments of the play to the tragic ones. Her performance is natural (almost naturalistic in the first monologue) and its  candidness helps emphasize the symbolic features of the staging and music.” Marta Harasimowicz, A2 cultural magazine

“It’s a raw drama made of everyday situations in a place afflicted by pain and suffering approached with urgency, which, despite being subtle, persists and continues throughout the whole performance. Johana Schmidtmajerová radiates with womanly power which makes the experience pleasantly intense. However, it does not override the omnipresent hopelessness that the play communicates to the audience (...)” – Lukáš Holubec, iDivadlo

Do you want to present the theatre to somebody? All year round we offer you the option to turn your ticket into a voucher for theatre shows. 

Tickets: 
300 CZK
200 CZK for students and citizens with a permanent residency at Prague 5  

Reservation at rezervace.divadlo@meetfactory.cz.

Show length: 1 hour 5 minutes without intermission 

English subtitles 

Nadace život umělce supported the show on 13th October 2019 in Brno. 

The show is supported by Ministry of Culture Czech Republic.