Gertrude Stein is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable yet controversial female figures of the 20th century Despite the fact that she was a supporter, promoter and patron of men such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Ernest Hemingway, Henri Matisse, Francis Scott Fitzgerald and others, not only in our context, her personality and legacy have remained more or less forgotten. Is it that we have long overlooked women and those in the arts in particular? Or the fact that she was in a lesbian relationship with her life partner, Alice B. Toklas? Neither is likely to be the reason. Rather, it may have been the fact that, as a Jew living in Nazi-occupied France, she was only able to maintain her lifestyle as an art collector and provide for her physical safety thanks to the protection of Bernard Faÿ, an influential official in the Vichy government and Nazi collaborator. One way or another, we will never know the true answer to this question. Our production does not aim to assess or make judgments but rather to explore the micro-details and motivations in the life of an American Jewish woman with German roots and a bilingual upbringing who has made a roundabout return to the old continent. What did the avant-garde poet, playwright, librettist, translator and author of novels inspired by Cubism, one of the most distinctive literary experimenters and a woman who helped many men become great, long for? Perhaps, after all, we have more in common with her than we think. Then again, she was also a human being. Flesh and bone. The original play written by Tereza Trusinova, from whom the SND Drama Theatre commissioned the text for the second time, will be directed by Jana Wernerová, an established director, a member of the middle generation, who has so far worked mainly at the Na Peróne Theatre.

 

 

Première March 29, 2025