He calls himself Vandam. As Jean-Claude van Damme. He’s a hero. A warrior. Continental. He knows all about the battles. In both personal and historical sense. He has an opinion about everything. Politics. Women. The world.
In the curial year of 1989, he stood in Prague on Národní třída, where on November 17 a demonstration leading to the fall of the communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia took place. It was Vandam, who with his first punch turned the wheels of history, as he says. That was a long time ago. And since then, much has changed. During the day he paints the rooftops of the blocks of flats on the outskirts of Prague. In the evening sits in the Severka pub. This is his world. Here they celebrate. Here they chat. Here is where they argue about politics. Here is where they swear. Here is where Vandam occasionally breaks someone’s teeth and teaches them about life, as he says. He likes Lucka, the tapster, a sympathetic, vigorous woman who is bruised like he is. He would like to be with her. And maybe she with him. But it’s not easy. Both of them have a lot of scars from the past.
In an impressive monologue, Vandam explains his heroic actions. Past battles and wars. Waiting for more wars and battles to come. He tells the story of today’s Europe. About his family. About his father, who built the blocks of flats, and who, one winter night, swung over the railing of their apartment and fell into the depths. About his grandfather, who had escaped from the bombed Essen at the end of the last war, and lost all his teeth on his way home. About his son, who he cannot see in person. Vandam loves to talk and likes to provoke. Perhaps by sometimes raising his right arm in the Roman greeting manner. And then he says, “Czech humour.”
Vandam is expecting a catastrophe. A great war that will blurs all around us. That’s why he exercises every day. But the war that will eventually come, is unexpectedly small and common. Before the tragic final comes to an end in the middle of a deep dark forest, which begins just behind the blocks of flats, Vandam and Lucka end up in his apartment. For a while it looks like everything could end well. Both of them lie naked. They do not pretend anything. They are just talking. They try to get closer. They make love to each other. But in the end, they’re just going to miss out on the opportunity.
The Narodní třída was first staged in 2012 by the Feste Theatre in Brno, directed by Jiří Honzírka. The production had forty reruns. In 2013 the text was published as a novel by Labyrint Publishing House. The book was translated into German, French, Polish, Spanish, Hungarian and Dutch.
