Lantern

In the drama repertoire, Lantern holds a position equivalent to The Bartered Bride in opera: a play thoroughly national, folk, a play that can pride itself on a rich staging tradition. Jirásek attained in it depth, humour and poetry, which we are hard pressed to find to this extent in his other plays. At the same time, it is a play surprisingly vivid and timeless, one that has traditionally enchanted adults and children alike. Lantern is a parable about the human’s natural right to his human dignity and freedom. Even though the story itself is set within a fairy-tale framework, where supernatural beings such as the Water Sprite or the Wild Man of the Woods appear amid the mortals, it deals with universal problems.