A lot of actors don’t want to be awkward, but some of us enjoy it, says actor and comedian Tomáš Měcháček

I studied, Tomáš, what you did in your life, and I found one remarkable sentence: “Tomáš Měcháček was, among other things, at the birth of the movement of the mind for theatrical research Matapa.” Was that theater?

Well, just because it wasn’t quite a play, that’s why I came up with this great name. It was an invisible theater in the streets.

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Now it’s called mob acting or pranking, but we ran around Prague many, many years ago as part of the promotion of Zlomvaz, which is a theater school festival at DAMU, and there were about ten of us in prison uniforms at the law faculty.

A beautiful girl dressed as a policewoman was guarding us and we just walked and there were cobblestones and we kind of just started passing them around. There was a jam, people were watching and they were like, “Yeah, that’s how it works now.” And they don’t know that it’s theater until they get it, maybe at the end, which it should. Otherwise, it’s basically a simple manipulation.

There were three Tominis – long, wide and me. And we weren’t even dancers, but we got the third prize.

Or Tomina Jeřábek and I won the third prize in the international choreography competition at the Duncan Centre, which was also an embarrassing research, because we also danced with Tomina Bořil.

Coincidentally, Tomáš Jeřábek was recently sitting here, and he doesn’t quite have the figure of a dancer…

Not even big Tomina. There were three Tominis – long, wide and me. And we weren’t even dancers, but we got the third prize. Nina Vangeli said then 20 years ago that we held up a mirror to contemporary Czech dance.

Research sucks

I will come back to the Matapa movement. Perhaps you measured the movement of the audience with a video camera somewhere. I would be interested, because I sometimes perform in front of an audience outside of the radio, which will enrich me if I know how much or how little people screw up.

That was embarrassing research. We tried the most embarrassing skits. Of course, they should have been at least a little funny. But we also measured people’s blood pressure.

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There were a hundred people standing there with blood pressure monitors?

No, maybe sixty people were sitting there and the “nurses” were measuring someone’s blood pressure when a girl from Israel was saying a monologue with which she wanted to apply to DAMU. She didn’t get in – and deservedly so, because it was really embarrassing. The hair on a man’s back that he doesn’t have stands on end.

And if you measure the amount of audience fiddling?

Well, now you know what works – what and how. And you have a tool for that. Maybe a lot of actors don’t want to be awkward, but some of us enjoy it.

You are an extremely playful type. You probably still run it at DAMU, in the puppet theater department. How do you teach there? How do you operate there?

Now we agreed that I am most useful with the freshmen who come on, everyone is from somewhere else, perhaps from a different theater tradition or from no theater tradition at all… And I only teach them to stand on stage and not act, but play.

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I have the tools and equipment for it because I have been working with NIE, with that theater company, for 20 years and there is the theater methodology from Jacques Lecoq, which is clowning and actually simply being and being ready for what is happening. But coming on stage in front of people, doing nothing and just saying your first name is not as easy as it sounds.

Dying as a clown act

Tomáš Měcháček’s summer takes place partly with children and also at summer Shakespeare festivals…

Macbeth for the last time today and tomorrow, otherwise there will be other shows.

But you play Banquo, so quite a positive role actually.

Yes. And it is cut at the end of the first half.

Going back to how you teach people to act – are you going to teach me to die on stage?

Jesus, that’s my favorite discipline.

You can die in reality, but then you won’t do it again. Reruns don’t go there and it’s not worth it.

But I think it’s terribly difficult, isn’t it?

I don’t know. (laughs) It sure is hard because you don’t actually die. You can die in reality, but then you won’t do it again. Reruns don’t go there and it’s not worth it. It’s just a play.

But I have a dream role where I will die on stage for maybe fifteen minutes. It’s such a clown number, dying for a long time. And that can be a lot of fun, but also really sad. It is a discipline unto itself. And I certainly won’t teach you because I don’t know how to do it well enough myself.

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Is there a clown in you? I was wondering if I should say Tomáš Měcháček – actor, or Tomáš Měcháček – stand-up comedian. And maybe the word clown is quite accurate.

It’s true that I was already told that I was a buffoon in elementary school.

How did Tomáš Měcháček find out that he is an economic migrant in the eyes of Norwegians? Will he be working for film or television in the near future? And why did he run away from kindergarten down the lightning rod at the age of five? Listen to the full interview.