The premiere of No Ship in Sight at the Cooltour multidiscipline arts center on 14 April had all the makings of a catastrophe when the troupe arrived at 1 PM to set up the stage. The front door was locked and it would be a wasted half hour before the cast was saved...by the cleaning lady walking by. The rush to get into costume was for naught. Work went on endlessly with the projection and stage lights, all the while the cameraman for the final dress rehearsal kept looking at his watch. Lines were easily forgotten under such conditions, so editing the film will be more like a salvage job. Things were definitely looking iffy by the time 7 PM rolled around and just under 100 people, most of them invited guests, took their seats to watch this other story of a big ship encountering disaster on its maiden voyage. Despite it all, the performance itself was flawless; brilliant was a word floating around in the comments afterward, though it must be said that the first big laugh didn't come until syphillis was mentioned.

No Ship in Sight

To mark the 100th anniversay of the Titanic, Vicarzhor presented its own story about a big ship that goes down under similar circumstances. Maybe it hit an iceberg, maybe a furnace blew up after an enraged stoker decided to teach the snobs in upper class a lesson. The lead snob in this production is the talkative, wealthy widow Agatha Magness, played by Ivana Kvitova; Ola Machacova is her sex-kitten niece Bertha, while Bara Blahova makes her stage debut as the other niece, the darkly virginal Beryl. Petr Cepelka and Petr Nilius (the "Petroshky") and Antonio Pedro Nobre are Daniel, Stan and Henry, the second-class passangers who keep crossing paths with these three ladies thanks to the "facilitation" service of fifth officer Robert, played by Darren Baker. Everything goes smoothly until a haunting, nameless passenger (Radka Baracskai) and two incredibly dirty and hairy stokers (David Gadula and Lada Galusek) intervene in the action. As the picture below suggests, viewer discretion advised.

Many thanks go to the stage crew who made it possible: Jarmila Pohlova, Jaroslav Tomisek, Milan Hrabec, Zuzana Grulichova and Ondrej Jaburek. Photos here.

It wasn't quite Titanic the Musical, but it was the first time Vicarzhor mixed music with drama. Two violinists Marie Hujerova and Marie Korpasova and a cellist Pavlína Soltisov from the local Janacek Conservatory lent a hand as the ship's band, playing in the restaurant scene and in the final moments of the ship's demise. Radka interrupted her mute performance as Death with an original song, An Unforgining Hand, sung to stoker Dave on the clarinet and stoker Lada on the guitar. Then there was Ivana and Darren in a pajama duet that surprisingly didn't contain any music or singing.