MAD CUP OF TEA

There is an abandoned place, somewhere faraway, where things don´t work quite as well as anywhere else…

Welcome to the extraordinary tea-party where familiar meanings of space and safety are turned upside-down. Welcome to the weird wonderland of buried hopes.

Black humor and absurdity together with the magic of theatre, the fascination of circus and the longing for thousands of tangos from Finland.

MAD CUP OF TEA was at first a strong vision and was built piece by piece around this vision. It was also a combination of wonderfully coincidental meetings of different artists. While a circus audience is afraid by somebody high high up, in this performance the fear is of the actors being down on the ground, among hundreds of cups. Safety might only be up on the trapeze.

Some inspiration is drawn from the chapter „Mad Tea Party“ of Alice in Wonderland, it’s weird logic, as well as from the stereotyped statistics of the country of Finland. There they drink most the cups of coffee per person, commit the most suicides, and deeply love the finnish tango. Also we picked up some elements of atmosphere during our travels – there are some unexplainable impulses from a sea-side town in Latvia. These days there is a lot of talk and fascination about the new circus, having elements of theatre. We wondered why there couldn´t also be a new theatre, having elements of circus!

created by: K R E P S K O
basic concept and directed by: Linnea Happonen
performed by: Mayim Alpert, Linnea Happonen, Jan Kalivoda, Lukáš Teklý, Pau Zabaleta i Llauger
music: Mayim Alpert, Guy Dowsett
costumes and visual co-operation: Radka Mizerová
light-design: Janek Rous, Martin Špetlík
consultation with tango: Marek Štefan, Radka Šulcová
special thanks to: Jakub Hybler, Sylvia Idelberger, Petr Lorenc, Alfred ve dvoře Theatre
co-production: ROXY NoD
supported by Czech Ministry of Culture

premiered in April 2005