THE MINACH TRILOGY

Iva Klestilová

Cast: 3 men, 2 women

The Minach trilogy consists of three one-act plays with unrelated stories – Minach, Heads or Tails? and The Future of Myself. The first one captures Minach in the triangle between the Brother and Ludvík. The Brother is connected with Minach by a long-ago incest and murder of their parents. They are connected until they die, they cannot live without each other. The Brother is torturing his sister by being quiet and serving bread crumbs to birds that are attacking the flat from outside – it seems that the Brother is feeding them to invite “something”, although he does not know what, his constant begging for cocoa suggests that his mind got stuck in the childhood. Unlike him, Minach is a woman that never stops moving, she is always active and talks all the time, trying to rouse Brother to wake up from his lethargy. She wants their unnamed bond to be somehow confirmed. The relationship between the siblings is disturbed by the presence of Ludvík – the neighbour who always “Comes… repairs the taps, screws the doorsill in... the window blind. / Sometimes it feels, as if he comes from a different world... / He is sitting... listening... he stands up... fixes something... and sits down again...“ Ludvík means for Minach the last chance to get rid of the pathological past and try to live an ordinary life. But Ludvík does not know the answer to her question: “Could you do it to me so that... I could think... That you want to kill me?”  Minach cannot reply to his appeal either: “Could we live an ordinary life... / I cannot do it on the fucking shoe cabinet all the time. / We could at least try...“ For her this is an ordinary life, the most ordinary life she can imagine and she is asking him: “Live an ordinary life? / How do you do that? / What is ordinary?“  Minach’s strategy is actually very successful, she manages to rouse her brother, to provoke him, to force him to act, to repeat the past which will provide them with catharsis as she hopes. The incest has happened for real, if not then, so now for sure. How should the one who defends “normality” act is not said. Ludvík is left with two options – to kill the Brother, or to leave. The dilemma of deciding between the inner world and the outer world is still left to the Woman.

The second part of the trilogy is actually a feministic joke. Already the first sentence: “Those two hills over there remind me of an ass… / A big, fat, ass“, vigorously changes the atmosphere brought about by the first part. We find ourselves in a different world, the world of fantasy. The Woman decides what will happen and how. She has the Man next to her – a quiet puppet, her own materialized vision. She names her toy at first – Harold. “A man get his name and becomes real. / Suddenly much more acceptable. / A while ago you were here, nameless... abstract... man... / Nothing... / And now...? / Now you are...! Now you are a man! / Now you are someone!“ and she adds: “I will never remind you that this is actually thanks to me.“ In the beginning Minach is flirty, entertained … Later she starts to get bored, she gets tired of Harold. He is too compliant, too obedient. No problem: “This weird Harold has died... / And you were born / You are here / You are here / For me / With me / My / Edgar?“ But Edgar makes troubles from the very beggining. “You should comb your hair in a different way. / Do you have blue eyes? / Brown ones would suit you better. / Think about it.“ It’s still not right, he is not even able to kill his creator. What a disillusion. Edgar needs to go as well. „Remember, honey / Edgar does not exist anymore... / There is just Ludvík... left...?“ Is it a coincidence that this feministic joke ends with the appearance of Ludvík? Is Ludvík synonymous with an ideal man? Is an ideal man really the one who lives next door and always: “Comes… repairs the taps, screws the doorsill in... the window blind. / Sometimes it feels, as if he comes from a different world... / He is sitting... listening... he stands up... fixes something... and sits down again...“ Unfortunately there is probably nothing to do about it. This is the reality. Real men wear slippers, they have their own set of tools and they want to live an ordinary life. Their only advantage is that they are real.

The third Minach already lives in a world without men. Her husband left her in the country because of an unspecified, yet deadly illness and Minach has time to deal with fundamental questions. “A window is a window... / A plate is a plate... / A bed is a bed... / Things... They live without us as well. / Only human beings die... / And their name with them...“ or “Do you also feel that what is happening in the town makes no sense? / I mean a real sense / Here you look out of the window and when you happen to see someone / You can see what their goal is as well / Do you get it? / You can see a tractor and next to is there is a field / You can see children and then a river / Right? Do you get it?“ Anyway, loneliness is not a solution, „the desires are still there“, Minach is not satisfied with talking solely to her nurse, she yearns for a man, but her man, not just anyone. Her situation is hopeless and the only thing she can do for herself is to die as soon as possible. „There are so many ways of dying to choose from... / And in the end... / People almost always die stupidly.“ „Stupidly“ in the context of the play means naturally. In the end we will all be left scared wearing wet pyjamas.

There is no story lines connection in the Minach trilogy. The connection works only via the female feeling personified by Minach. The battle to keep the balance between life and death, loneliness and solitude, between what is wanted by our bodies and needed by our souls.

(Lenka Havlíková)

The play won the third prize at Alfréd Radok Foundation Awards in 2000.

The play is available in the Czech original and English translation.