PIERROT’S PARABLE

The UJETO theatre group consists of five actors with intellectual disabilities. Their goal is not social inclusion, therapy, or leisure activities.  The members of the group want to offer the audience a full-fledged professional theatre, utilizing all the specifics and potential that their talents, training, and experience offer. Their latest project, Pierrot’s Parable, which the festival is presenting in its premiere, was written and rehearsed with the ensemble by Belgian director Rudy Goes.  It’s a story about the irresistible desire of a person to be part of a pack. Group life for Homo sapiens had many advantages in prehistoric times: people found partners faster, the search for food was more successful within the group, and individuals were better protected from danger. Over thousands of years, humans have evolutionarily developed an irresistible need to belong to some group. Pierrot is different, he is excluded and alone. After a long solitary struggle, he longs for a final transformation, he wants to belong to “normal” people.  At any cost.

The play is based on the life feeling of people with disabilities who long to “be normal and not stand out.”  At the same time, it also points to their sincerity and naturalness, which, on the contrary, is often longed for by so-called “normal” people. Rudy Goes created the project tailored to the members of the ensemble.  He based it on the knowledge of their personal and acting qualities. The production is based on movement, music, and stage images, and thanks to this, it is also intended for an international audience.

Scriptwriter and director: Rudy Goes
Assistant director, interpreter: Ilona Labuťová
Technical support, music: Štěpán Smolík
Technical equipment: Maarten Verest
Costume production: Silva Šustrová
Set design and props: Rudy Goes, Ilona Labutová
Production by: Ilona Labuťová

Actors: Pierrot – Erik Demko, Normal people – Dagmar Filípková, Jaroslava Krpálková, Martin Vejman, Martin Vošmik, Josef Fojt, Ilona Labuťová, Štěpán Smolík

The Ujeto Theatre started its activity in December 2014, thus building on the previous five years of work of the same ensemble under the banner of the Inventura Theatre.  The core is formed by Jaroslava Krpálková, Dáša Filípková, Josef Fojt, Martin Vošmik, Martin Vejman, Hedvika Hrychová, Anna Macková, Ilona Labuťová, and Štěpán Smolík. For 14 years, the ensemble’s home stage was the Kampa Theatre, which ended its activity on December 31, 2023, and the guest ensembles were forced to find new venues. The UJETO theatre group has performed at festivals in the Czech Republic (regularly, for example, as part of the Menteatrál festival in Neratov) and abroad (Belgium, Croatia).  The theatre has produced eleven plays, including eight for adults and three family performances.

Rudy Goes is an independent Belgian actor, director, and literary author.  He is a co-founder of the theatre group “Theatre from A to Z”, the theatre group “Le Mal Du Siècle” and the founder of the theatre group “Morrend Volk” (Noisy People). He has been in contact with the UJETO ensemble since 2021 when he led acting workshops at their week-long theatrer camp.