The empty room
A table, a chair, a bottle, a shot glass and a clock. The rest of the house exists only in the audience’s imagination. The empty space becomes a kitchen, a refuge and a place where an ordinary day slowly turns into legend.
Erben / Suchý / Weiss / 2020
THE NOON WITCH POLEDNICE
All it takes is a single word spoken in anger
and noon will never be the same again.
Scroll
“Whoever angers the Noon Witch
will pay dearly for it.”
The Noon Witch | mythical being
About the production
THE NOON WITCH is a darkly grotesque theatrical miniature inspired by Karel Jaromír Erben. Jiří Suchý, and later Otto Weiss, took the liberty of “gently” reworking his words, transforming the folk legend into an absurd cabaret about anger, guilt and one visitor who should never have been summoned.
In a tiny room, between a table, a chair, a shot glass and a clock creeping dangerously close to noon, an ordinary domestic argument turns into a mythical catastrophe. One sentence is enough — and the Noon Witch is standing at the door.
The production works with empty space, the audience’s imagination, fairground exaggeration and sharp humour. Horror meets farce, Erben meets Suchý, and the light of noon collides with dark purple absurdity.
Project dossier
Authors
Erben / Suchý / Weiss
Year
2020
Direction & text adaptation
Otto Weiss
Production
NA ROHU U NÁS z.s.
the original creative company from which the
WEISS ART PRODUCTION brand grew
Source material
Kytice (A Bouquet) / The Noon Witch
Genre
dark grotesque / fairground cabaret
The world of the production
Here, the folk ballad breaks apart into an empty room, imaginary characters, fairground exaggeration and a noon that arrives at precisely the wrong moment.
The invisible troublemaker
The child never appears on stage. It exists only in the music, the actors’ glances and the precisely choreographed interplay with empty space. Each audience member therefore creates their own image of the child who simply will not stop misbehaving.
Cabaret turned inside out
Erben’s ballad enters the world of fairground cabaret, where folk song meets dark grotesque and the harsh music of the invisible child. The horror never disappears — it simply learns how to become dangerously funny.
The Noon Witch
Instead of the expected spectre, an extravagant lady arrives, resembling a bureaucrat from another world. Purple elegance, self-assurance and a peculiar practicality transform the familiar mythical being into a perfectly absurd visitor.
Countdown to noon
A large clock dominates the stage, serving as far more than a prop. It measures the tension, sets the rhythm of the scene and reminds us that sometimes a single movement of the hand is enough for a spoken threat to become reality.
Gallery
Photographs from this production are unpublishable.
Therefore, this gallery contains not a single trace
of this gigantic miniature.
THE COMPANY
Two actors, one mother, one Noon Witch
and the audience’s imagination were enough to do the rest.
Creative Team
Source material
Karel Jaromír Erben
Script
Jiří Suchý
Direction & text adaptation
Otto Weiss
Set design
Otto Weiss
Costumes
Jitka Lukešová
Music
Jiří Suchý & Otto Weiss
Production
NA ROHU U NÁS z.s.
Behind the Stage
Sound
Jiří Urban
Lighting design & props
Pavel Šejna
Set construction
Lukáš Lukeš
Backstage assistant
Anna Prášková-Lukešová
Cast
The fairground singers opened the story, and those same performers then transformed into the central characters of the ballad they brought to life before the audience.
František | fairground singer / Mother
Barbora Rosenbaumová
Baltazar | fairground singer / The Noon Witch
Otto Weiss
Eduard | imaginary child
The audience’s imagination
Some words are better left unspoken.
PRESS KIT
Costume, prop and visual concept designs,
that helped shape the world of this modern adaptation of Erben’s The Noon Witch.
Poster
Costume Concepts
Fairground Prop Study
Every legend... never really ends.
Some stories are told for generations.
All it takes is to speak a single name…
and someone may come again.
Noon has struck.
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