more about privatelives PUBLIC LIES


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A comedy in the style of Noel Coward by the Czech dissident playwright Dalibor Petru private lives PUBLIC LIES is set in1969 Prague. Radek returns to Prague from a successful exhibition of his paintings in Paris. He finds his best friend Jakub in his flat, but Sarka, his partner, is not there. Radek assumes she’s gone to stay with her mother in Přebuz. She was always threatening to do it. But why would she leave Prague for a town of less than eighty people? Jakub, a dissident writer, is surprised Radek came back. Jakub had previously lived with Šárka and the three of them formed an unusual bond, if not relationship. Maybe Jakub knows more than he’s saying. For Radek, his jealousy of Jakub derails his high from his Paris success. The men try to sort out their complicated relationship with Šárka knowing that in the end the government’s intrusion on their lives affects everything.

ABOUT DALIBOR PETRU

​There is not much known about his background in literature and theater but this play shows his keen interest in the social satire of Noel Coward, privatelives Public Lies captures the essence of Coward's plays Design for Living and Private Lives as if the characters' lives were placed behind the 1960s Iron Curtain where every aspect of their lives was dictated by the Communist Party. Most writers works were banned by the government in Czechoslovakia so writers like Petru were forced underground or had their work smuggled out to the West. Petru's work only surfaced recently after being found in the attic of his family's cottage in the small village of Bzi. This production is a WORLD PREMIERE in English.

(THE PHOTO IS THE ONLY KNOWN PHOTOGRAPH OF DALIBOR PETRU. IT WAS DISCOVERED IN HIS FAMILY'S CHATA IN THE VILLAGE OF BZI BY HIS SISTER IN 2008.)
THE VIDEO WAS SHOT BY CZECH FILMMAKER JAN NEMEC ON AUGUST20, 1968 AS THE SOVIET BLOC INVADED CZECHOSLOVAKIA