“Ancha, look, I’ve got a knife,” warns the most famed line from the popular comedy. It is a piece that its author, the Protestant pastor Jozef Hollý has never written. The acclaimed Slovak actor Jozef Kroner brought it to fame, first in the production at the theatre in the city of Martin, as directed by the son of the author. Yet the title definitely entered public mind owing to the televised production directed by Martin Ťapák. Mr Kroner made his character of the village simpleton Kubo, the architype of a comic character. Kubo brings to laughter his fellow characters, but also the audience. This production of Hollý’s master somewhat omitted the other side of the story rooted in Slovak countryside: selfishness, cynicism, cruelty of the characters, the fact that Kubo is actually a trading commodity, a man whom they want to use for their own benefit. This is the angle that came to the fore in the production at the theatre in Martin, as directed by Ľubomír Vajdička. In the jubilee season, the SND Drama Company reached for this piece from the opus of Slovak classics. Astonishingly, Kubo has never made it to our prime stage before. The stage director Lukáš Brutovský staged at the SND a successful production of Midnight Mass by Peter Karvaš five years ago. Now he used, yet again, local source to offer a new take on Hollý and the story of Kubo … indeed, a story that is very much about us. It is likely to speak of the perils we face when fools and simpletons find themselves in the posts they don’t belong to.

Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes, no interval