A time to weep and a time for Birds!

There’s a man sleeping on the couch. A woman at the table writing, reading her narrative so the audience can understand what she’s thinking. She’s a bit mad, but then anyone in her situation would be--what, with the birds and all. The man sleeping suddenly wakes up, runs across the room and attempts to open the door.

But there are the sounds of birds outside. The sounds themselves aren’t menacing, but the reactions of the people make them terrifying. For the rest of the two hours, every caw and tweet becomes a cause to shiver.

“The Birds” was put on by Blood, Love, and Rhetoric last weekend at the underground Divadlo D21 in Vinohrady. As per usual, they haven’t failed to entertain. In their usual style of off-center tragedies, it’s one part melodrama and one part serious and the night we were there, Friday, it was properly pulled off.

The play centers around the same source material as the much more famous horror, “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock, which is a short story by Daphne du Maurier, set in a post-Blitz countryside. The birds have decided the Brits haven’t had enough of hell from the skies and have replaced the Luftwaffe as the cleansing chambermaids of the Isles.

Playwright Conor McPherson seems to have set the story somewhat after the one in Hitchcock’s movie. The time of raging violence has passed. Now people are held hostages in whatever shelter they can find. The birds come in at high tide and disappear at low tide, leaving some time to scavenge around and loot neighboring houses before their return. It seems a bit like life during war time.

Three strangers end up in an abandoned house, which gives it a bit of an Agatha Christie feel to it. A writer, Diane, is played by Angela Jane Kemp, who really fills the role with her almost natural creepiness. She’s able to pull off a weird Oedipus vibe that’s part motherly and part sexual, dominating over the ever-so-slightly mentally off Nat, played by Logan Hillier. Logan masterfully plays the alcoholic recovering from a nervous breakdown. The most surprising act though was the role of Julia, played by Victoria Hogan. Her weird and peppy, Bible-obsessed possibly-nymphomaniac—what Bible obsessed girls aren’t?—character makes her the perfectly insane balance to the much darker Diane, and the two have a bizarre tug-of-war over Logan’s character.

Strangely, the perhaps most normal character of the bunch is the lonely, drug-peddling farmer who lives next door, Tierney, played by Curt Matthew to the utter delight of the audience. When things have generally settled between the trio, Tierney comes in to add a bit of game-theory dementia to the plot. He promises Diane all the drugs, booze, and food she can handle if she’d just come and keep him company and riddles her with doubts of the other two.

The only problem I had with the presentation of the material I had was the set. Whereas at first, with the white walls and windows surrounding the audience, it seemed to draw you into the room with the actors like a black box might, the presence of too many bird decorations inside the rooms however detracted from the horror of the avian blood mongers. I feel as though it would have been better with no birds at all, rather than too many, allowing the sound to play the false antagonist of the plot. This is a small gripe to an otherwise good job.

Blood, Love, and Rhetoric ever manages a good show. They always choose a quirky play and have a good deal of silliness with a great deal of solemnity in their execution, nearly every time leaving you with a “huh?” factor, a feeling I always cherish. “The Birds”, directed by John Malafronte, was no exception. Check out their weekly Thursday night improv show at the Trick Bar in Malostranska Beseda, or check back at their website or facebook to see what they have next.

the course of krymska

Krymska Ulice

Over the past few years, Krymska has sprung from being on the border of Prague civilization, from being a hipster central, from being on the border of everything, from being hipster central, and so on. These days, it's back to being the center of it's own little mustachioed polka-dotted world, just after suffering a five year lull which caused the famous Shakespeare and Sons bookstore to close up shop (a decision they're probably regretting now). There really isn't much there for eating, shopping or other non-beverage activities, but the place is beginning to blossom - though from how most people talk, it has already blossomed and the underground appeal has gone on over to the Letna district.

Krymska is in an almost ideal spot for a cool underground neighborhood. It lies in the middle of the Vinohrady district, which itself is on the graveyard of a medieval winery, where as late as the mid-1800s the land was all covered with grapes. The grapes have since been cut everywhere except in the nearby Grebovka Park - aka Havlickovy Park - and have been replaced with most neo-Renaissance, art nouveau and modernist structures jammed together as close as possible. During the Communist years, it was known as a bourgeois, anti-Red hangout area, which is slightly ironic since now it's a bit of an anti-Capitalist area. 

Grebovka Park (Havlickovy Park)

The Krymska district can basically be defined as the area around the tram stop of that name, down Francouska to the Ruska tram stop, then diagonally over to Grebovka Park, up to Donska and back up to the Krymska tram stop. Since it's on the face of a steep hill, it has some excellent views down Donska and Krymska, and within its not broad streets with no parking, there are some 20 bars. Not all the bars have markings on their doors, and some resemble more of a hippy's failed state of a living room, but they are there. Three of those bars are live music venues featuring mostly local acts, two are culturally interesting First Republic type places, there's an art house movie theater bar, a couple places are pseudo-dance clubs, and one bar doubles over as a vegan restaurant with great beer. So as you can see, there's no shortage of a good time revolving around fierce amounts of beer.

The Czech Inn at Krymska

Krymska is an especially great district if you're looking to avoid tourist trap bars, as the beer here rarely exceeds two euros and each place is a bit unique and none of them very clean, as they're all quite dive bar type places, though lacking the foosball and beer pong tables that typical American dive bars would have. At the top of the area is the Czech Inn (+420 267 267 612) hostel, which is in a perfect situation both for the more hip night life and for the touristic places that line tram line 22. It is also the owner of one of those live music venues slash dance clubs, the Basement Bar. One of the best non-smoking bars and live music venues (unfortunately, smoking is allowed in the live music basement section) Cafe v Lese is here too, near the bottom of the district.

During summer days, the district empties out and hits Grebovka park, with one of the better views of non-central Prague, and which has a beer garden and a wine garden, where the wine is made at the local winery, and you literally sip your glasses over the ancestors of your present drink. During winter days, most of the area is silent throughout the day, as regular cafes are pretty rare in the area. It usually picks up at dusk and carries well on into the night, with some of the bars staying open until the morning on the weekends - though this is always weird, since sometimes there is just simply nothing open after midnight, and if it is, it's usually just clouds of smoke and foul odors. This problem of regularity you don't have in the touristic districts, so you are taking a chance here, but if Krymska isn't a good place to end up, at least it's always a good place to start out.

Down Krymska Street during the Korzo Krymska

We live in the Krymska area, so as we were coming home from the African Food Festival, we ran into the Korzo Krysmka, the annual street festival celebrating all things Krymska. All the shops in the area - even the closed ones that haven't seen the light of day since the days of the First Republic - had decided to open their doors and have a big street party that day, inviting local bands and DJs to strike up the entertainment (curiously they didn't invite the best local artist, the Underground Man, but whatever). Mostly there were DJs who would play with a saxophonist or flutist, as that seems to be the party trend in the Czech capital these days - "Look, I can drop a bass beat four on the floor thud and have a guy play Kenny G over it, cool!" I suppose it's better than the Pink Floyd that a lot of the live music scenes here offer, but that all is for another blog. There were a couple of people who weren't no talent hacks, including a band that made Czech folk music into something dance-able and exciting. There were also a few places where hippy guitarists were strumming out their Jack Johnson vibes amidst clouds of patchouli and marijuana.

Most of the festival seemed bizarre and random - random especially since we didn't even know a festival was happening in our neighborhood until the day it happened! Though that was, to tell the truth, most of the excitement of it and of living in this area (Grebovka Park is constantly having a festival it seems). We dropped our stuff off at our house, then started with eating some Mexican tostadas dished out by the nearby Las Adelitas, who had a van parked outside of the Czech Inn. As we sat, a dog chose us to play fetch with, as he very excitedly kept bringing us a stick back and I kept kicking it away. Occasionally he'd bring the stick to someone else, who would ignore him, and so he'd bring it back over to me. 

The Korzo Krymska wrapping up

When the wife tired of me playing with the dog, we went down Krymska street itself, which was filled with masses upon masses of people, found some beer, and waded on down the street. Each of the bars and former bars or possibly still places that were bars but just weren't apparently open bars now had their doors open, taking in visitors, offering beer and weed, beaded jewelry, African novelties sold by Africans, and coffee and pancakes. After my beer ran dry, we went in to Incider Bar, a bar that only serves cider - imagine that! - and waited in line for some thirty minutes. The line was long as it was and some lady was trying to get the very precise flavor of cider and making the order very complicated and in English, which was causing quite the backup. Come on lady, if you're at a festival, the goal of the day is quick and fast so everyone can drink and the bar can sell quantity! Equally bad is when people are ordering cocktails of the Starbucks order at busy clubs, but I won't get into that. Just when you're at a bar or festival, think about what you're going to order and think about the line you're going to create. That's all I ask!

After we got the cider, we went on searching for live music. The aforementioned folk music had gone, and there, again, was only some hack DJ. Look man, you have no turntables, I know you just prepared all this stuff in advance, which isn't an overly hard thing to do given today's automatic beat matching technology. But again, that's what seems to be popular in Prague, and as such, we couldn't find anything really apparent and entertaining. We ended up at the vegan bar, Plevel, having our last call at 10, and then seeing the streets had been emptied out - no noise in Prague after 10 folks! - we went on home.

beware the african

Outside the Uptown

The weekly couchsurfing meeting was held at a place called Simply U Kravaty, now called the Uptown. The first time I had gone was with my wife and a couchsurfer friend, Maia, just to check out the scene and possibly meet some other expats or open Czechs. Making friends in Prague is like making friends anywhere else, except where the locals are fairly disinterested and are quite active already. Which is understandable, but it also means that you have to get out there and make something of yourself in order to meet more people. To go out on a limb, so to speak. At Maia's push, we decided to start with the couchsurfing meetings.

When the place was Simply U Kravaty, it was kind of a cool place. Located just below Riegrovy Sady, a bit out of the way from any main place, it had an underground, dive bar vibe to it. That night, there was live music played by couchsurfing hippie types - a long haired guitarist and a violinist, both sitting on a stage on the side, playing mostly "traveler's music", Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, that sort of American free spirit "gypsy" music. The beer was good and cheap, I think the bar had chosen Kozel as their standard, which means there was nothing over 30 crowns. Perfect for the type of crowd and the low-key location.

After coming back from one trip to the bathroom, we realized an easy way to meet people. When I came back, one guy had started talking with the two girls. If my presence - and the fact that I was married to one of the girls - didn't scare him off, then that would mean he was an all right guy. If I did manage to scare him off, then it meant he was only talking to my wife for a reason that I would automatically trump and not respect. In this manner, we met a Jordanian nuclear physicist - watch out Israel! - and a Polish guy who had lived in Czech for three years and still couldn't speak it. Considering how much more difficult and impossible to pronounce Polish is and how close of languages they are, it was a bit of a surprise. The night ended, Facebooks exchanged, and that was that.

That was the last day that bar was open though. Soon, it was restyled as the Uptown - already a name that invokes stale, warehouse-like bars common throughout American downtowns and "uptowns". The walls were painted a bright, pale color and an exposed ventilation pipe was hung up on the ceiling, as though that were the original ceiling work and it had just been uncovered. The stage was removed and the tables replaced. Of course, the place looked cleaner, but it also looked like any other "modern" uninteresting place that seems to be now the mainstay in Prague, only a simple step removed from Potrefena Husa, a Czech chain that can be compared somewhat to Rock Bottom Brewery in the States.
They at least had a clever marketing scheme - the inauguration of the place would also be the next couchsurfer meeting and they would provide the first drink for free for each visitor. That was something positive, but after that, the beer had been subject to a price creep and no longer fit the traveler's budget that is needed for a couchsurfing meeting. Or at best, it could only serve as a starting point and not an all-nighter place, especially lacking the live music element that livened the place up previously.

The night was going on, the crowd building and now people were forced to stand and mingle, since there wasn't enough seats for everyone - a good thing for a couchsurfing meeting, since when people stand up, they're naturally more open to talking with strangers. While I was with a friend talking, standing near the entrance, a small, thin African walked in. He was clearly African in all respects - dark skinned, carrying a bow, large wood carved African tribal masks and other wood carved instruments. He came up to me and started talking to me with a thick accent - musical almost and nearly impossible to understand.

Finally, I understood, "2,000 crowns." He was showing his bow and masks. Neither my friend nor I were impressed. But then he pulled out what appeared to be a plate which could apparently transform into a basket with the simple move of a lever. Now here was something interesting - especially since I was a bit tipsy at this point - but he was still going on about 2,000 crowns, which was about one hundred dollars.

"I'll give you 1,500," my friend offered.

The African refused.

My friend walked. That negotiation was dead. But the African was much more persistent with me, despite my bored, dead-in-the-eyes look. I hate to lose my ground when people have come into my territory - a habit that's really becoming a vice in Prague - so I stood there refusing repeatedly, telling him I wasn't interested.

"How much would you pay?" he asked repeatedly.

"I'm not interested."

"But how much would you pay?"

This tactic went on for about 5 minutes. I should have downed my beer and went off for a refill, giving me a good excuse to get out of the corner that I was in. But it was my corner! He then started dropping his price and finally he came down to 1,000 crowns. Well, that sounds like a good deal! From 2,000 crowns to 1,000 crowns, I was saving 1,000 crowns!

- on something I would otherwise not have bought. So the reality was I lost 1,000 crowns for a decorative plate slash basket, that now holds two apples and some fake coffee.

My new Africa basket with fake coffee