Don Juan

I just came back from a play at the Estate Theater (a beautiful old theater, where Mozart, ironically, premiered, and personally conducted his opera, Don Giovanni). Ruth and I went to see Don Juan. We had originally gone to get tickets to Swan Lake, but, as we went at the last minute, it was sold out. So we got tickets to this instead. Oops.

First of all, the play was (not surprisingly) entirely in Czech. “That’s ok,” we thought. “It’s a famous story. We’ll just read a synopsis beforehand and we’ll be able to figure out what’s going on through the action.” Wrong. This play made entirely no sense – in any language.

First of all, Don Juan is a story about a ladies man. He seduces many women. That’s what the whole thing is about. In this version, Don Juan seduces no women. In fact, there are barely any women in the play. Instead, Don Juan spends his time standing around in abstract spaces, talking to old men – while wearing ridiculous outfits. Casanova he is not.

Secondly, what is this cavalcade of weirdos? The guy in the diaper? The old, shirtless man wearing a tie? The woman in white with the crazy platinum hair? And the wrestler, whose muscles are drawn onto his torso with magic marker, and who winds up being tased by one of the old men? Why are there sporadic, solo musical numbers? These actors can’t sing. Someone make them stop.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the second act begins with a multimedia segment. On the back wall of the stage, a video is projected. In the video, a man in a luchador mask is in a men’s room with a woman. After relieving himself into one of the urinals, he hands the woman a gun. She shoots herself. Then, he leaves. Yeah…

As we left the theater, we decided that, from now on, we won’t be going to any more plays.