TOMÁŠ HÁJEK: Maryša Vávrová

"My first wife died on me. Was I supposed to stay in the cottage alone? Everyone said that Maryša wouldn't be a proper match, but that it would all turn out so piggish? Maryša, how could things be any different with us?"

The play was created "on commission" for the first edition of the Prague festival Císařovy nové šaty (The Emperor's New Clothes), dedicated in January 2025 to the memory of Professor Jan Císař, an extraordinary theatre scholar. The organisers wanted Maryša (the professor's favourite play) or any play with plenty of apples (alluding to a theoretical problem the professor had explored: the overuse of apples as a symbol on stage).

Maryša Vávrová is an attempt to combine both assignments by an author who speaks neither Hanák nor Moravian Slovak dialect, so he will speak in his own way — thus the opening apology to the Mrštíks and an explanation to all who love the classical Maryša.

Despite the above, the production was crowned with the Erik Award for the most inspiring puppet theatre production of 2025.