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A Stage Comic Strip

Alois Nebel is a dramatization of a successful eponymous comic strip trilogy novel byJaroslav Rudišand Jaromír 99. The three parts (A White Stream, The Main Train Station and Golden Mountains) are linked by the principal character of Alois Nebel, a train dispatcher who dedicated his life to railways that „can lead you both to the Balaton Lake and Auschwitz“. The protagonist was born in the „strange year“ of 1948. Both his father and his grandfather had served in the small village train station Bílý Potok [White Stream] in the Jeseniky Mountains border area. Mr. Nebel is a victim of History – a Communist, a Catholic, and a small-scale hero (in his attic, he was hiding a deserter from the Soviet army for a year or so). The height of Alois Nebel´s dreams is to see the Central Train Station in Prague... His life is monotonous and lonely. He smokes, changes signals, talks to the signalman and dealer Wachek, who´s able to survive under any regime, and who sometimes is able to see things coming out of the mist other people don’t or refuse to see. So, under Nebel´s eyes the events of the 20th Century come alive again: the war, the Sudeten German transfer, the Soviet occupation in 1968. His mind is clouded by the misty trains. Alois Nebel is now in a psychiatric asylum where the story of the play is set. He tells his tragicomic stories from the Twentieth Century to a sadist doctor and to punks waiting for paperwork to be released from armed force service. The starting point of the play structure is the comic strip principle, ie. short scenes that are concise and end with a punch line. The story develops on two levels – Nebel´s storytelling is confronted with the scenes from his past. The play was developed at the Drama Authoring Workshop. More information at: www.aloisnebel.com.