WANDERVOGEL
Let My Coffin Be Carried by Our Six Finest and Most Beautiful Boys
A performance inspired by the book The Devil’s Wall by Mark Cornwall
"Let my coffin be carried by six of our finest and most beautiful boys. Before I must go, let me be alone with them for an hour—or all night. If I’m among them, I know I’m alive, even if my body is dead."
Heinz Rutha. Have you heard the name before? No? That’s alright. A hundred years from now, no one will remember you either—unless your story is discovered by the Wandervogel: a group of charming young men and their older leader, who have prepared a tale for you. A tale of love, friendship, and fascism.
It’s 1918. The Sudeten Germans find themselves in a state they don’t wish to belong to. Who will defend the sacred homeland from Czech aggression? Heinz Rutha takes on the challenge. He believes in national liberation through the education of an elite group of boys—a Männerbund, destined to become the ruling class of a future Sudeten German state.
The life of Heinz Rutha, a Sudeten German nationalist and an unwilling central figure in the First Republic’s largest homosexual scandal, forms the starting point for a stage composition that blends documentary and physical theatre. Intimate war diaries, authentic police records, and historical-political speeches intertwine with the personal experiences of the performers, creating tension between past and present meanings of the ideals Rutha built his vision upon.
What do sexuality, the body, the state, fascism, nature, and beauty mean today?
Concept, set design, direction: Jan Mocek
Created in collaboration and performed by: Tomáš Janypka, Philipp Schenker, Matěj Šumbera, Arseniy Mikhaylov, Václav Němec
Music: Matouš Hekela
Sound and lighting: Ondřej Růžička
Production: Táňa Švehlová, SixHouses z.s.
Dramaturgical collaboration: Sodja Lotker
Movement collaboration: Jaro Viňarský
Photography: Adéla Vosičková
Special thanks to: Mark Cornwall, Jan Hofman, Lucia Škandíková
The production was created in cooperation with the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Academia Publishing House, and the Prague German Language Theatre Festival.
Jan Mocek’s projects operate at the intersection of theatre and visual art. In his performances, he combines elements of pop culture, politics, and documentary, focusing on contemporary themes. His recent works include The Shining City(2015), Shadow Meadow (2017), Fatherland (2018), Virtual Ritual (2019), I Am the Problem (2020), Present: Perfect(2021), and Landscape with Pheasant, Hare and Deer (2022). These performances have been presented at both Czech and international festivals, including Fast Forward Dresden, Submerge Digital Arts Festival, 4+4 Days in Motion, and Use the City Košice, among others. Together with Táňa Švehlová, he produces his work through the SixHousesplatform. He is also a member of the In-Situ network.
https://janmocek.org
“Sexuality, the body, the state, nationalism, nature, and beauty—can all of this be packed into one evening without slipping into banality? Director Jan Mocek proves that it can. At Alfred ve dvoře Theatre, he delivers a formally fresh, thematically dense piece of alternative physical-political theatre that brings to life the story of Sudeten German politician and youth leader Heinz Rutha—and through him, a whole palette of issues.”
— Lucie Kocourková, Divadelní noviny
Supported by:
The City of Prague, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Prague 7 – Art District, Czech-German Future Fund, Czech State Fund for Culture.
Alfred ve dvoře Theatre is supported by:
City of Prague, Ministry of Culture, Czech State Fund for Culture, Prague 7 – Art District.
WARNING! The performance contains nudity.
The performance will be in Czech language.