Self-helpless

The ever-earnest players at Švandovo have struck box office paydirt, if not theatrical excellence, with an adaptation of Bard Breien's black comedy The Art of Negative Thinking. Performances have been selling out, and the audience response has been overwhelmingly positive despite the problems with this ambitious production.

Breien's 2007 film directorial debut was an international success as well as a hit with the critics. Director Daniel Hrbek's theatrical handling of the story may indeed sell tickets, but it fails in a number of crucial respects.

Essentially a satirical look at the ceaselessly insistent positivity of the self-help industry, the tale focuses on the destructive but ultimately cathartic events that ensue when one relentlessly cynical cripple (Michal Dlouhy as Geirr) is introduced to a group of similarly afflicted souls administered by a disingenuous and plainly ambitious therapist (Apolena Veldová as Tori).

The group, such as it is, consists of the aforementioned man and therapist, a paralyzed woman and her husband (Eva Leimbergerová and Kamil Halbich), a psychosomatically afflicted depressive (Jaroslava Pokorná) and an only partially communicative stroke victim (Miroslav Hruška).

Tori's approach to healing is clearly intended as representative of current trends in health and wellness circles. "The answers to our problems are not in the problems," she unctuously admonishes the group. Instead, she claims the path to happiness is to be found in forced positivity. Think happy thoughts, the prevailing wisdom has it, and happy things will follow.

This vapid philosophy is thoroughly exploded when the group accepts an invitation to visit Geirr's home from his desperate wife (Kristýna Frejová as Ingvild). Veritably held hostage in his own house, an initially reluctant Geirr soon directs the full force of his negative world view and peculiar charisma on the assembled injured. Driving Tori from the house, he transforms the previously sedate patients into a mob of miscreants, indulging in intoxicants and generally wreaking havoc on both the surroundings and their respective relationships.       

It's an engaging scenario, but Hrbek fails to realize its potential. His ensemble largely misses the mark in their interpretations of Breien's characters. The typically stellar Leimbergerova and Halbich are off-key as an unhappy couple committed to keeping up appearances. Their performances lack the requisite dimensionality to achieve a convincing facsimile of a pair of tortured souls. Frejová is naturalistic and unrestrained as Geirr's ill-used wife, but Dlouhy, while intermittently charming, mainly indulges in an excess of hyperbole and overacting.

Petr Masopust's extravagant set design - complete with a handicap-accessible elevator - blurs the distinction between setting and set, needlessly confusing the transition of activity from inside to outdoors.

Most grievous is the absence of realistic blocking. In place of purposeful movement, Hrbek's cast runs amok with unmotivated vitiation, crossing back and forth across the stage hysterically whenever emotions rise, often accompanied by a jolting medley of Metallica or The Clash.

In any case, such quibbles are unlikely to diminish Švandovo's success with this production. Adapting Breien's screenplay for the stage (and translating it into Czech) has doubtless been a Herculean task, and none other than the author himself is reputedly pleased by the theater's efforts. When asked by Švandovo's Lucie Kolouchová about his response to the news that the company would be presenting his story to Czech audiences, Breien replied, "I just smiled a big satisfied smile. I have tried to get it on stage in Norway, but [the Norwegians] think Ibsen is better."

By premiering The Art of Negative Thinking fresh on the heels of its excellent production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Švandovo has at the very least proved that local audiences fancy both.

James Walling can be reached at
jwalling@praguepost.com