1995 Professional sphere – Tomáš Dvořák
Artistic director of the Alfa Theatre, artist and director of e.g. RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI, Když se čerti ženili (When the devils married), Enspigl (Eulenspiegel), the surrealistc Don Šajn (Don Juan) and the particularly successful productions of Jéminkote, Psohlavci (Jeepers, Dog-heads).
You are the son of Honza Dvořák – a puppeteer, padagogue, a characteristic personality. How did this fact influence you and what advantages do you think this gave you?
All this together is probably felt by everyone who is born to a well known personality, which my father is primarily in the sphere of our puppet world. On one side, you inherit something, something you copy and above all you are very close to it. Father likes to pass on knowledge thus handing his experiences over to his son. This is pleasant for both sides and one also listens to it. It is also mostly done spontaneously – not as if you took a lesson and somebody spilled it on you. It is a sort of constant inadvertent pressure, as if you stepped into a river, the water around you flows, but you do not feel the pressure. Certainly it depends on the force of the current and it is something you subconsciously perceive throughout your life. To have such a father also naturally brings with it the fact that people look at you and start comparing. It is then up to the character of the people whether they are jealous, whether they feel that you had it easy or whether they want to understand what I am doing and want to do. My father is part of my puppetry life. His strong weapon is his ability to analyse matters and call it names people understand. He always finds something that could be corrected or worked on in my work. At times, it is a matter of a generational view, but mostly he is right. And I then try to correct it.
(Excerpt from a talk with Nina Malíková, “Loutkář 1996” (/150-151)