Don Juan

In an old, dilapidated, and seemingly automated theater, life-sized marionettes stage a self-contained Don Juan legend without puppeteers or an audience. The air feels thick with dust and whispers as the stage machinery creaks to life, inviting the viewer into a world where fantasy and cautionary myth intertwine.

Within the play, Don Juan’s fiancée Maria is secretly seeing his brother Don Phillipe. From a shadowed balcony, Juan observes their closeted meetings, his jealousy smoldering beneath a composed exterior. He summons his Jester to intervene, hoping to orchestrate a wedding that will secure his hold on Maria, not by love but by control.

To finance the union, Juan sends the Fool into town to plead money from the Mayor—who is both their father—under the pretense that the funds are needed to pay medical bills. When Juan’s father learns of the ruse, he gives the Jester two coins and instructs him to buy rope so the two can hang themselves. This brutal demand sets off a chain of violence: enraged, Don Juan murders his own father backstage and marches toward the garden where Maria and Philippe had planned to meet.

Maria arrives to a shockingly altered scene: she finds Don Juan instead of her beloved Philippe. He presses her to return his love or face consequences, and the chase that follows ends only when her father, Don Vespis, intervenes. Don Vespis has come to the realization that Juan is unfit to marry his daughter and threatens to have him arrested. In a brutal act of violence, Don Juan disables Don Vespis, cutting his face as he lies dying, and curses the ghost that will come to haunt him for revenge.

Philippe discovers Maria mourning her father and vows to avenge both Maria and her loss. The two duel, a clash that ends with Philippe’s gory demise. The Jester then delivers word of a specter in the cemetery: a figure who wishes to speak with Don Juan. The visitor is the spirit of Maria’s dead father, who warns that Juan’s soul will be dragged to Hell at midnight.

In keeping with the moral tone of traditional Czech puppet plays, Juan is urged to reflect on his misdeeds and to teach children not to emulate his evil actions. The moment of reckoning arrives as Juan’s physical body collapses into an open grave, while his spirit is lowered through a trapdoor. Yet the fate of the lifeless puppet diverges from legend: instead of being dragged to Hell, the body slips into a hidden compartment beneath the stage. The Jester stands over the inert figure and questions how a pay­ment can be made when the master is dead, leaving the ending both surreal and morally fraught.

Last Updated: October 05, 2025 at 12:05