Petr Lébl (16 May 1965 – 12 December 1999) was a Czech

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

scenographer A scenographer or scenic designer, also production designer, is a person who develops the appearance of a stage design, a TV or movie set, a gaming environment, a trade fair exhibition design or a museum experience exhibition design. The term ori ...

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ...

and artistic director of the Theatre on the Balustrade. Lébl is considered one of the most significant personalities of the 20th century Czech theatre.

Beginnings

Lébl was born on 16 May 1965 in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. He devoted himself to theatre from an early age. At the age of 15 he became a member of the amateur theatre group ''DOPRAPO'' (the group was later renamed to ''Jak se vám jelo'' and ''JELO''), with which he performed in his first play, ''Kolotoč splněných přání''. He studied at high-school specializing in

graphic arts A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional graphics, i.e. produced on a flat surface,Slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as ...

'' by

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut ( ; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his Satire, satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfict ...

. The same year, he contacted Vonnegut by letter and received a reply. In 1985 Lébl adapted ''Slapstick'' as a theatre play. He directed the play and also performed in the lead role. Coincidentally, Vonnegut visited Prague at that time and attended the performance of ''Slapstick''. According to the Czech translator of ''Slapstick'', Jaroslav Kořán, Vonnegut was deeply impressed by the adaptation and wrote a dedication "to my sister Petr" to the Czech translation of the book. When Lébl asked him why he wrote "to my sister", Vonnegut answered that he already has one brother. Lébl's amateur theatre was reasonably popular in the second half of the 1980s. He met the US ambassador Luers and attended parties organized by the US embassy, where he met

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

Edward Albee Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as ''The Zoo Story'' (1958), ''The Sandbox (play), The Sandbox'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), ''A Delicat ...

and William Styron. In his free time, he worked as a designer of shop windows for the company ''Textil-oděvy'' Prague. As an amateur, Lébl attempted to study at the FAMU (film and TV school of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague), but he wasn't admitted due to ''"lack of talent"''. In 1986 he began to study directing and scenography at the Faculty of Theatre, however, he didn't finish his studies.

Professional career

From 1992 up to his death in 1999, Lébl worked as a theatre professional. His first professional theatre experience was a direction in the ''Theatre Labyrint'' (1992). A year later, in 1993, he became the artistic director of the Theatre on the Balustrade. He was 28. Lébl's first theatre direction in the ''Theatre on the Balustrade'', '' The Maids'' by

Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...

, won the second place for the best theatre production in the poll of Czech theatre critics. In 1994 he became a pedagogue at the Faculty of Theatre, although he never finished his studies there. In 1995 Lébl received the Czech theatre prize, Alfréd Radok Award, for the production of ''

The Seagull ''The Seagull'' () is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 in literature, 1895 and first produced in 1896 in literature#Drama, 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramati ...

'' by

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

. He gradually became one of the leading personalities of Czech theatre and significantly influenced the face of the Theatre on the Balustrade. During his engagement in the theatre he directed twelve plays, designed stage decorations and programs, organized rehearsals, sometimes he even pasted playbills. His creative and original approach to theatre, absorbing influences from culture, literature, society or politics, repeatedly attracted the attention of theatre critics and public. Two years before his death, in 1997, he received his second Alfréd Radok Award, this time for the production of Chekhov's play '' Ivanov''. The same year, the

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Habima Theatre The Habima Theatre ( ''Te'atron HaBima'', lit. "The Stage Theatre") is the List of national theatres, national theatre of Israel and one of the first Hebrew language theatres. It is located in Habima Square in the center of Tel Aviv. History ...

invited him to a guest production of '' Cyrano de Bergerac''. Petr Lébl was known as a sensitive and complicated personality. According to testimonies provided by his colleagues, he suffered from depression and often spoke openly about his suicidal tendencies. He attempted to fight with his

depressive disorder A mood disorder, also known as an affective disorder, is any of a group of conditions of mental disorder, mental and Abnormal behavior, behavioral Disorder (medicine), disorder where the main underlying characteristic is a disturbance in the per ...

, and shortly before his death he visited a

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

. On 11 December 1999, he hanged himself from the

flies Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwin ...

of his home stage in the Theatre on the Balustrade. He left a short message on the door of his office: ''"I'm on the stage"''. The theatre technicians discovered his body only after the performance of Werner Schwab's play ''The Presidents'' (''Die Präsidentinnen'') a day later. He was 34. In a message found after his death, Lébl assigned Czech publicist Radka Denemarková to write a book about him. (''Její napsání uložil Radce Denemarkové sám Lébl ve vzkazu, který byl nalezen po jeho smrti.'') She worked on it for eight years in Lébl's abandoned flat. In 2008, the book was published under the title ''Smrt, nebudeš se báti aneb Příběh Petra Lébla'' (Death, thou shall not be afraid alias the Story of Petr Lébl), and a year later it received the Magnesia Litera Award for Journalism. In 2009, Lébl was voted the most significant Czech theatre personality of the 1989-2009 period in the poll of the Czech magazine

Reflex In biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action and nearly instantaneous response to a stimulus. Reflexes are found with varying levels of complexity in organisms with a nervous system. A reflex occurs ...

Works

Theatre direction

Lébl as a director of the theatre group JELO *''Horečka'' (

Slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as ...

) (1985) –

*''Tauridus'' (1986) *''Polepšovna'' (The Reform School) (1986) –

Christian Morgenstern Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern (6 May 1871 – 31 March 1914) was a German writer and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on 7 March 1910. He worked for a while as a journalist in Berlin ...

*''Had'' (The Snake) (1987) – Mircea Eliade *'' Mata Hari'' (1988) *''Proměna'' ( The Metamorphosis) (1988) –

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

*''Zpěvačka Josefína'' ( Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk) (1989) – Franz Kafka *'' Wesele'' (1989) – Stanisław Wyspiański *''Výběrčí'' (1990)– Milan Uhde Lébl as a guest of the Theatre Labyrint *''Vojcev'' (1992) – Egon Tobiáš; *''Fernando Krapp mi napsal dopis'' (Ferdinand Krapp wrote me a letter) (1992) – Tankred Dorst Lébl as a guest of the Theatre on the Balustrade *''Pokojíček'' (1993) – Jan Antonín Pitínský Lébl as a director of the Theatre on the Balustrade *''Služky'' ( The Maids) (1993) –

*''Naši naši furianti'' (Our Our Swaggerers) (1994) – Ladislav Stroupežnický *''Racek'' (

) –

( Alfréd Radok Award) *''Revizor'' (

The Government Inspector ''The Government Inspector'', also known as ''The Inspector General'' (, literally: "Inspector"), is a satirical play by Russian dramatist and novelist Nikolai Gogol. Originally published in 1836, the play was revised for an 1842 edition. Base ...

) (1995) –

Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the Grotesque#In literature, grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works "The Nose (Gogol short story), ...

*''Hrdina západu'' ( The Playboy of the Western World) (1995) –

John Millington Synge Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909), popularly known as J. M. Synge, was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, essayist, and collector of folklores. As an important driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, Ir ...

*''Cabaret'' - musical (1995) *'' Ivanov'' – Anton Chekhov (Alfréd Radok Award) *''Matka'' (Mother) (1997) – Jan Antonín Pitínský *''Wesele'' (1998); *''Kočičí hra'' (Catsplay) (1998) – István Örkény *''Plukovník Pták'' (1998) – Christo Bojčev *''Strýček Váňa'' ( Uncle Vanya) (1999) – Anton Chekhov Lébl as a guest *'' Cyrano de Bergerac'' - Edmond Rostand –

(Israeli National Theatre) (

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

) – 1997 *''Braniboři v Čechách'' ( The Brandenburgers in Bohemia) – Bedřich Smetana – National Theatre (Prague) – 1998

Television

*''Studio Kroměříž'' (1992–93)

Notes

External links

*
Staging works of director Petr Lébl (Abstract)

Lébl's Ivanov - review at theatre.cz

Petr Lébl se svými filmy vrátí do Divadla Na zábradlí - České noviny

Každý čtvrtek se Petr Lébl vrací do Divadla Na zábradlí - Czech Television

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lebl, Petr 1965 births 1999 suicides Artists from Prague Artists who died by suicide Czech theatre directors Suicides by hanging in the Czech Republic 20th-century Czech male actors 1999 deaths Academy of Performing Arts in Prague alumni