about production
„Blood Brothers” is a melodrama but also a little bit of a ballad of a lyrical-drama character, interwoven with catchy tunes. Adaptation, full of musical-like movement, is the trademark of its Bratislava protagonists, apart from the director and choreographers Libor Vaculík and Miroslava Kovářová.
In this case too (for the third time already, Jozef Bednárik has employed the arsenal of his proven and always effective techniques and methods of his style. With time he is gaining such confidence that he is able to mould every piece in „a la Bednarik-style”, but also to the forms, adequate to the notion of musical, although in principle it is „only” a play with singing.
Main expression of this fact is the dynamics of the stage process, the detailed attention to each visually-choreographic element, every entry of the soloists and choir exactly on time, every, even the smallest item in the hands of a soloist or an extra.
Nothing is left to a chance. So-called „obsession with professionalism” is remarkable with Bednarik, as is his limitless imagination. Thanks to this, we observe on the stage huge number of precise and meaningful symbols, which an attentive viewer „gathers" and in his emotional memory he can finalize the experience long after the night...
Stage set artist Ladislav Vychodil in very inventive way and in total symbiosis with Bednarik solves the manifold changes of the space in such an ascetic and ambiguous fashion that he manages to create a room for circus symbols in the stage background... Costume designs by Ľudmila Várossová create an illusion of childness, youthfulness and they' form the character and social background of the players...
Musical direction by Rudolf Geri is based on half-playback, however the conductor has selected almost soloistic ensemble of musicians. He is conducting with help of two screens directed towards the stage.
Even though, the Music Hall has lived through its first great musical era in the 1960's, now it has embarked on a new journey towards this genre. Bednarik's style, however, offers new type of musical. It contains a sentiment, mixed with the spice of religious – social rhetoric, which is exactly what emphasizes humanity in the consciousness of a viewer.
With permission from Terézia Ursínyová, Večerník daily, December 28, 1993
creators
directed by Jozef Bednárik
libretto, music, rhymes: Willy Russell
translation: Alexandra Ruppeldtová
adaptation, dialogues, rhymes: Peter Petiška, Ján Štrasser
script editing: Gabriela Vacková
set design: Ladislav Vychodil
costumes: Ľudmila Várossová
choreography: Libor Vaculík, Miroslava Kovářová
choir master: Naďa Raková
conductor: Rudolf Geri
cast: Zdena Studenkavá, Ján Gallovič, Maroš Kramár, Marián Slovák, Eva Matejková, Štefan Kožka, Zuzana Skopálová, Miriam Hirnerová, Peter Dobrovodský, Hana Gajdošová, Zuzana Kapráliková, Lenka Žampáková, Pavel Topoľský, Marek Ťapák, Helena Húsková, Teodor Piovarči, Dušan Szabó, Samuel Slovák, Alfréd Swann