Good But the End Sucks!
Luboš Mareček 15. February 2025 zdroj www.divadelninoviny.cz
(…) With the help of the author of the humorous novel about death, this dramatisation is the work of Miroslav Ondra, Jan Šotkovský and Stanislav Slovák, who also directed this new piece. The contagious joy of the tongue-in-cheek narrative and the author’s almost tangible pleasure in constructing a rather wacky story about a little girl called Luna is typical of Tomeš’s humorous style.
(…) The theatrical adaptation and elaboration have retained Tomeš’s playful, crazy narrative joy in creating a sometimes absurd and bizarre story in which the retro joking at the expense of our socialist past (so popular in this country) occasionally flashes through. The aforementioned theatre folk have tried to outdo and improve on the literary original, transposed into twenty scenes, right up to the very end. An original scene in a Prague hotel inhabited by the world’s first female cosmonaut has also been added.
(…) Otherwise, Slovák’s (theatrically relatively simple) production tries to reach the audience with story and words, humour and plot shenanigans in sharp time sections, with as many as three plots taking place side by side on the stage. The director also makes use of a dramatic solution in which only five main characters appear on stage, accompanied by a large chorus given the name Brno, alongside this juxtaposition of narrative details. (…) The given simplicity is also reflected in the visuals of the production, which deliberately contrast here with the highly interwoven story taken from the book. The de facto projected set by Jaroslav Milfajt makes extensive use of moving video wallpapers by Petr Hloušek, with niches with urns from a columbarium stylishly complementing the theme of the play by the front portals and the proscenium. A five-piece live band, sometimes supplemented by incidental jukebox music by Daniel Kyzlink, occasionally provides a commensurate commotion.
As for the acting on view in the production, nine-year-old Karolína Šildová in the principal role of Luna deserves well-earned tributes, and not merely because of the number of lines she has. The non-professional child actress has managed to wrap the character of a twelve-year-old girl in a mixture of peculiar childish naivety interspersed with the dark sarcasm of a schoolgirl trying to keep the Grim Reaper away from her grandfather. This role has been filled by Ladislav Kolář, who brings to the stage a kind of kind-hearted cynicism and the kind of kindness and perspective that comes with age as Granddad. It is Kolář’s gently melancholic performance that does not in the end shift the production into the genre of pure comedy at first glance, but also adds a touch of pensiveness to the result, which actually rather suits the almost eschatological (but in no way over-intellectualised) conclusion. Svetlana Janotová also guides the journalist Konečná from a purely comedy beginning to a more layered spectacle at the end, when she surprisingly takes Granddad as her husband. These more sophisticated acting performances are then reflected in the grotesque figures of the aforementioned Chorus.
The production Good But the End Sucks is actually an example of an original black comedy that does not, however, try to appeal to the audience in a purely consumerist manner through a series of simple, tried and trusted jokes about death. Slovák’s direction has backed up Tomeš’s humour and the author’s infectious way of telling the story, and Brno City Theatre has a title that will appeal to audiences to its name.
We all have to die, but it’s good for a laugh for now
Jana Soukupová 7. February 2025 zdroj MF Dnes - Brno a Jižní Morava
The existential angst stemming from our knowledge that we have been given only a limited amount of time in this world, and that one day everything will end for us in complete emptiness and nothingness, seems like an extremely morbid topic for the book Good But the End Sucks, which has now been brought to its Drama Stage by Brno City Theatre.
If that were the case, however, the book couldn’t have been written by stand-up comedian, former journalist and current writer Pavel Tomeš, who has elaborated his terror of inevitable finality into a humorous narrative that is neither morbid nor lacks a basic undertone of the author’s real fear of death. And it is precisely the tension between the depressing starting point and its humorous presentation that is clearly the most attractive and strangest thing for readers, including the production team, in this otherwise rather crazy story about a little girl who sees the Grim Reaper in a journalist from a regional newspaper, collects funeral notices, and tries to prolong the life of her last remaining relative, her grandfather, with the use of special charts. Meanwhile, this elderly scientist, who may once have had a thing with the first female Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, smokes Camels and goes for a beer with his contemporaries, with whom he decides to try harder drugs in his old age.
This is certainly also why Tomeš’s book received the Magnesia Litera Readers’ Prize in 2022, why it has been adapted by Czech Radio, and why it is also being made into a film. And now it has been dramatised by three experienced authors at the “City Theatre” – Miroslav Ondra, Jan Šotkovský and Stanislav Slovák, the last of whom is also its director. Their world premiere has handled the book’s intertwined story skilfully, although not even a performance lasting almost three hours, including the intermission, could hold everything contained in the book with the same level of detail and all the plot twists of the original. The theatre has other means at its disposal, however, of which it is worth mentioning the playful and attractive set by Jaroslav Milfajt comprised of windows from a columbarium and, first and foremost, the moving film “wallpapers” by local video wizard Petr Hloušek. Everything is, what’s more, complemented right on stage by a live “band” and incidental jukebox music by Daniel Kyzlink.
Another special feature of the production is the almost continuous presence of a grey “chorus” of residents of Brno, who often advance the plot with a stage commentary and who also take on episodic roles in the plot. The main characters also have a great deal of lines to recite, and it is worth mentioning here the premiere alternate Karolína Šildová, who is age-appropriate and who gives a remarkable performance in the role of the roughly twelve-year-old “strange little girl” Luna – if only in view of how many lines she has and how quickly she has to speak them. Ladislav Kolář gives Luna’s grandfather unfailing humanity, while Svetlana Janotová gives a reliable performance as the journalist, while the other characters tend to function more as satirical sketches. But because there is still the fundamental and essential existential angst running through all the “silliness”, it actually all balances out rather well.
Good But the End Sucks: the award-winning novel on the theatre boards for the first time
Miroslav Homola 5. February 2025 zdroj www.novinky.cz
Making fun of death? It’s skating on thin ice, but as many writers have already proven, if you know how, it can prove well worthwhile. The forty-eight-year-old writer, columnist and stand-up comedian Pavel Tomeš has also shown he knows how with his story Good But the End Sucks. His debut novel proved so popular with readers that he received the Magnesia Litera Prize in 2022 for it, and his book has already been adapted for Czech Radio. Now the story has also been taken on by the theatre.
(…) As the dress rehearsals have already shown, the audience is certainly not in for a depressing or gloomy spectacle, although the titular end that is part of every life is not hard to anticipate throughout the performance. There is no time for tragic thoughts, however. This is prevented, among other things, by the wonderful performances of the “old granddads” played by Ladislav Kolář, Petr Halberstadt, Patrik Bořecký and Zdeněk Junák.
(…) The performances of both main child actors are particularly admirable, given the amount of text they are given.
Theatrical stand-up or death is just a word
Libor Kalina 1. December -1 zdroj www.brnozurnal.cz
(…) The production team have managed to get the most out of the original, despite the necessary reductions. Where there was a threat of an actionless vacuum (the hospital dialogue between the Grandad and Mr Nováček), the director has wittily applied a puppet-theatre étude. He has innovatively filled the austerely simple three-scene turning stage (Jaroslav Milfajt) with a thirteen-strong crowd of “grey extras” (given the name Brno in the programme). Its members play small roles (though there are no small roles, as Pavla Vitázková reminded us as the Teacher), like stagehands transforming the stage, and also commenting on and presenting the circumstances and background of the action. Alongside the professionals – Ladislav Kolář’s genuine Grandad, Petr Halberstadt’s antiquated Karlos, Patrik Bořecký’s Pokorňák with Parkinson’s disease, Andrea Zelová’s straightforward Konečná (second premiere) – it is only to be expected that Karolína Šildová suffered from some first-night nerves as the closely observed Luna. Her performance, about which there was nothing childish, nevertheless garnered entirely deserved admiration.
The play comically and effectively encourages self-reflection. The audience gladly and gratefully shares in the experience of the various expertly related embarrassments and failures. Drawn into the humorous plot, it accepts its part in its rather unflattering destiny. It is truly cathartic when jokes still have their place, even when it comes to the inevitable finale of life. The sceptical amongst us might object that stand-up theatre of this kind does not actually solve very much. But who can laugh these days, at the world and at themselves, for two hours straight without the help of a good comedian?
