V+W: The Letters

„An actor’s life is terrible – and sometimes it isn’t at all.“

Voskovec’s and Werich’s correspondence is a powerful story about the lives of two extraordinary people going through uneasy times. Letters of the legendary founders of the Liberated Theatre, whose lives were separated after February 1948, are a fascinating testimony of their originality and artistic maturity. The correspondence reveals the private lives of these extraordinary personalities in a bipolar world made of iron curtains and cold wars. These letters are a unique evidence of the intellectual and spiritual world of V+W and they represent the peak of Jiří Voskovec’s postwar literary period. “The form of abbreviation, short connections, theatrical allusions, plus the private codes and brilliant stylization, incredible addressings and signings” – these are the apt words the critics used to describe the production.