A bit from the present

The new production of A Walk Worthwhile was premiered on 22nd April 2007 in the National Theatre in Prague. The thread connecting the „Semafor“ and the new production is not only Jiří Suchý as the author and enactor of the Postman, but also the stage director Miloš Forman, who, together with Ján Roháč, co-directed the television film. The new theatre staging in the National Theatre was directed by Miloš Forman together with his son Petr, while his son Matěj created the stage. The author of costumes is Jan Pištěk and choreography was performed by Veronika Švábová. The connecting link with the new era of Semafor is presented by Jitka Molavcová, one of alternating actresses in the role of Aunt.

For the new production, the creators decided to extend the musical numbers of A Walk Worthwhile to encom¬pass songs from another Semafor play, Sekta (The Sect). The libretto and music of this play was entirely the work of Jiří Suchý. It was premiered on 22 March 1965, had 36 reruns and directly preceded A Walk Worthwhile.

The National Theatre production assumes originality not only thanks to the extraordinary creative team and its sup¬plementation by the inserted songs, but also owing to a new instrumentation, i. e. the parts of individual instruments in the orchestra. The original 1965 instrumentation has not been preserved, therefore it was necessary to build it up again. This demanding task was undertaken by the young conductor and composer Marko Ivanovic. The music production was conducted by the leading Czech conductor Libor Pešek, recognized internationally.

Similarly to the original staging, also the new theatre production A Walk Worthwhile was filmed. The authors and producers originally meant to present A Walk Worthwhile only on DVD; regarding their contentment with the result, however, they decided to offer the unique film to audiences in cinemas.