Photo from the performance
Artist Petr Nikl Shadow in the Shadow
The collaboration of artist and puppeteer Petr Nikl and the Archa Theatre began two years ago with the performance Opera La Serra, in which Nikl prepared the costume and stage design. Since that time, as they say, the collaboration has developed rather well. The latest project unfolded during the days of April when Nikl and his Mehedaha Theatre, and some of his other friends, performed in the second individual spectacle - this time entitled Present Cinema (Přítomné kino).
Nikl is above all a visual artist (last year, he received the Foundation of Jindřich Chalupecký Award), and the contents of the Mehedaha performance include colors, feelings, moods, as well as sometimes aroma, more so than the activity(which it is practically missing). Mehedaha's primary "means of expression" are light, shadow, fire and water. In various tempos and rhythms, these elements change, penetrate and influence. They use a variety of magic, effects and tricks, and they create a specific atmosphere of visual-theatre poetry. The second expression element of all performances of Mehedaha are the puppets, made by Nikl, from the remnants of object so well-known from our childhood. Dolls and shabby plush teddy-bears are and will probably remain Nikl´s trademark. Vojta and Irena Havels have almost become continual collaborators of Mehedaha. Their music is congenial to the atmosphere of the action on the stage. Like Nikl, they also indulge in the riotous liveliness of the rhythmic and interpretive ideas. The action and the stage can seem chaotic and nonsensical at first glance. But when one looks further, it is clear that everything has its own strict order and rules. The rules of poetry, and the order of memory, dreams and illusions,... they live their own life and create unexpected and invisible things. New people are added in every staged occasion of Mehedaha, and so Nikl can "afford" more and more. As he often appears in the Archa, he uses the local technical possibilities more, the audiovisual as well as the mechanical...
Jakub Škorpil, Denní Telegraf, 7. 5. 1996