Our Uppish and Defiant Fellows

Date:	May 31, 2025 \| 19:00 (Sat)
Venue:	The National Theatre in Prague
Duration:	approx. 3 hours
Intermission:	Yes (20 minutes)
Status:	Available
Reviews:	(3)

Buy ticket
Ticket in your mobile device accepted

A gem of Czech drama celebrates its return to the National Theatre

In Czech with English subtitles

The councillors of Honice are to elect a bellman, the person responsible for security in the village. The task is formidable, with two strong candidates running for office – the veteran soldier Valentin Bláha and the tailor František Fiala. What is more, the mayor, Filip Dubský, and the first councillor, Jakub Bušek, obstinately sit tight, neither of them willing to compromise. The fraught situation is further aggravated by the municipal council receiving an anonymous letter threatening arson. A plethora of human types is presented on the stage – the “important persons” and their wives, young lovers, old-timers, lowlifes, pig-headed dimwits, tenacious truth-seekers and enthusiastic dupes. All of them live their little lives and great dreams, all of them desire, fight and argue, while the Red Rooster hovers above their roofs …

In 1887, Ladislav Stroupežnický (1850–1892), an ambitious unyielding dramatist with a restless poetic spirit, a brilliant observer of life in the Czech countryside, referred to his new play as a “contemporary comedy”. The premiere of Our Uppish and Defiant Fellows gave rise to uproar and disputes, provoking outrage due to the author’s uncompromising view, yet also admiration for its forcible and non-idealised depiction of life in a Czech village. Stroupežnický’s text would become immortal, and self-conceit and defiance would become symbols of the Czech national identity.

The National Theatre has presented a number of adaptations of the play, including highly popular productions by Miroslav Macháček (1979) and, most recently, J. A. Pitínský (2004). The theatre's new staging has been undertaken by Martin Františák, whose continuous work with rural subjects has earned him the reputation of a creator of impressive poetic folk images, as well as a satirist exposing the true reality of life in a Czech village.

Important:

Purchased tickets cannot be returned or exchanged
No discounts are provided
Theatre is a cultural institution. Please respect the common principles of appropriate behaviour and clothing
Suitable for audience from 12 years.
Strobe light used during the performance
The program may be subject to change
The price includes service fee of 3,7 € (100,- CZK)

Prague is full of opera and ballet!

Venue photo gallery

The National Theatre in Prague

Address:	Národní 2 , Praha 1
Capacity:	933
Type:	Theatre
Winter heating:	Yes
Wheelchair access:	Yes

The National Theatre is the most important and representative theatre of the Czech Republic

The Prague National Theatre was built from the desire of the Czech people for national independence. Its building was financed from the collections on which participated broad masses of people as well as important donators (including the nobility and the emperor himself). The theatre foundation ceremonial on 16th May 1868 became a national celebration.

The theatre was opened in 1881. In the same year the theatre burned down, and this tragic event caused a huge wave of new collections to support the restoration of the theatre. The Prague National Theatre was re-opened in 1883 by the opera Libuše by Bedřich Smetana and since then it has been serving as a place of Czech national identity and as a flagship of the Czech culture to these days.

How to get there:

Accessibility by Prague public transport:
metro B (yellow line) - Národni třída station
tram - Národní divadlo stop
Nearest car parking:
The underground car park of the National Theatre

Overall rating:

Tatiana Repková | April 03, 2025 | 19:00 (Thu)

A great performance. As if written yesterday and not in the mid-19th century.

Peter Dale | April 10, 2024 | 19:00 (Wed)

We were told there would be English and German surtitles for this production. There were surtitles, but they were so faint due to the glare from the stage, that they were unreadable. The production seemed to be fine, but without the surtitles tit proved to be futile. We left at the interval.