BLACK&WHITE

Iveta Horváthová

Genre: tragicomedy written from a view of a critical woman’ s experience
Cast: 2 – 3 women, 2 – 3 men, 1 man/woman

The play was awarded the 2nd place in the 2nd Czecho-Slovak competition  Zlatá divadelná žaba 2009 [Golden Theatre Frog 2009].

A tragicomedy about a strange Black/White training or a course in the field of employment interpersonal mediation. 

The course takes  place in a firm named Black&White. The young,  desperately rebelling Nina has to pass it in order to fulfil her mother´s last will. Nina comes across  two poles of behaviour  and treatment  – Mr. Blek [Black] and Mrs. Vajt [White] – to   find out who she actually  is and whether she knows who she is. At the end of the course she  discloses the shocking secret of  this strange  firm.

The play is not traditional in the way it seems to be  a normal, apparently realistic story of  teachers-students  relations;  a story of two people from different generations. However, on the background of the story,  games and patterns of behaviour played by us as men and women are uncovered. We play these games subconsciously, mostly not bearing a blame for it, fulfilling the  images of a real male/female behaviour.

The play is a story  with ambition to uncover  speech  patterns of male  – female  communication. It can lead us to questioning our roles in our life - how we react and whether we are right when following  constant  behaviour models of strong men and fragile women.

The play observes whether it is better to be a man wearing a skirt or a woman wearing a tie. 

  The play is available in Slovak original.