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“Valerie and Her Week of Wonders”
Laterna magika
The New Stage
Prague, Czech Republic
June 20, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

The Czech avant-garde author Vítězlav Nezval’s gothic novel, Valery and Her Week of Wonders, written in 1935 and published in 1945, has experienced a revival at home. It was first adapted for the stage in 1967, and a new production was shown in Prague only forty years later in 2008. In 2023, two Czech companies simultaneously presented stage versions of Valeria and Her Week of Wonders; the West Bohemian Theatre in Cheb (located between Karlovy Vary and the Czech/German border) and Laterna magika in Prague. I saw Laterna magika’s production.

The wonders that Nezval’s teenage heroine, Valerie, experiences during the span of one week are far from wonderful and are rather a sexually laden horror trip that torpedoes her into womanhood. Events unfold with a dream Valerie has on the night of her first menstruation. Only late in the novel does this dream verge into the realm of reality, which it soon forsakes for a Garden of Eden-like happy ending.
Seventeen-year-old Valerie lives with her sanctimonious grandmother, Elsa, some servants, and animals in an 18th-century town. Realistically, missionaries visit the town, and Valerie’s friend, Hedviga, is married to an old landowner. Everything else quite likely happens in Valerie’s dream. Valerie both fears and is magically drawn to one of her dream’s main protagonists, Richard. Richard’s irresistible appeal obscures that he is a one-hundred-twenty-year-old vampire who can assume various appearances, including a polecat, and is up to something nefarious. He was once Elsa’s lover but also had a romance with Elsa’s daughter and pretended to have fathered Valerie. Upon learning of his infidelity, Elsa forced her daughter to enter a convent. Decades later, Richard returns to claim Elsa’s and Valerie’s house and the earrings that he once crafted. These earrings contain a magic potion that protect Valerie as long as she wears them.

During Richard’s visit, the town’s henhouses gradually empty because he consumes fresh blood—from either humans or chickens—to sustain his vitality. He makes a deal with Elsa, who is rejuvenated in exchange for the house. Richard sucks Hedviga’s blood on her wedding night and passes it on to Elsa. Elsa becomes a young beauty again and eagerly revives her former sex life. Driven by her baser instincts, she tries to eliminate Valerie. Valerie is appalled by the true nature of her grandmother and has only one reliable friend, Orlik, who is initially under Richard’s spell but gradually frees himself and fights his master to protect Valerie. His love for and desire to marry Valerie, despite being her brother, complicates matters.
One of the missionaries, Gracián, also a former lover of Elsa, poses further danger when he lodges at her house. When his attempted rape of Valerie fails, he hangs himself, miraculously survives, and takes revenge on the resistant Valerie by delivering her to the stake. Thanks to her magic earrings, Valerie escapes from the flames in a cloud of smoke. Fate also saves her from being raped by Richard after a wise woman gives her (and Hedviga) an amulet that safeguards her from his vampire bite. Akin to Jeanne D’Arc, Valerie deprives Richard of his power, orders his death (he’s shot as he ravages the henhouse in the shape of a polecat), and facilitates the reunion of her family (including her true father).

Laterna magika’s stage director, Jakub Šmíd, and dramaturg, Hana Strejčková, dropped the happy ending and instead had Valerie (Aneta Kalertová) sing against the crackle of flames that ultimately consumed her home and the henhouse. Like an oversized doll house, the open front of the gray, one-story house permitted the audience to view the stairways and inside each chamber (set design by Petr Vítek). We had watched the animal-like Richard (Petr Stach) and young Orlik (Jakub Šmíd) sneak through the window to steal the earrings from the sleeping Valerie as well as the slimy, well-nourished Gracián (Filip Rajmont) deliver a homily about virginity from the first floor to the town’s virgins assembled in the yard. The only virgin among them was Valerie, who waited for Orlik to meet her. The rest were veiled men who readily beat up Orlik once Gracián singled him out as a traitor.

Elsa (Eva Leinweberová) appeared to be a stout matron, but beneath her black clothes and stiff crinoline (costumes by Eva Jiřikovská) was suppressed lust and the discovery of pleasure in whipping herself in front of Gracián. Once rejuvenated, she changed into a skinny, bright red strap dress and made her “chicks” (six guys in black leather straps) dance to her tune. The same six guys, this time wearing strapless, black pantsuits, danced with the self-assured Hedviga (Jaroslava Rameš Janeěková), who called the shots before her wedding. Afterward, her groom (Richard in disguise with his thick tongue sticking out as if he were a lubricious animal) stuffed her in a bulky, white plush coat reminiscent of a straitjacket and made her look like a headless chicken. Richard sapped her lifeblood almost completely, and, though she slowly recovered during a dance solo, she never regained her former energy.
Valerie, her hairdo resembling a plushy plume and wearing an ungainly dress, looked like a teenager whose shape had yet to mature. Wavering between fear and courage, she often observed the goings-on. Some events forced her to act, others to flee. Then she dematerialized into a ghost. Singing seemed to reassure her of her strength. When in need of a break from the turmoil, she hid in the henhouse, a small replica of the residential house, as if it were an incubator.

Multi-genre productions are a signature feature of Laterna magika, and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders combined play-acting (the Czech text was subtitled in English), contemporary dance (choreographed by Jiři Pokorný), and singing. Films and animations helped transform Valerie into a ghost, and the garden into an arcane wilderness, and set the property on fire. They magnified her frightened face to fit the wall and featured her bright red earrings and red bead chain. Both pieces of jewelry resembled trickling blood. An egg-shaped table lamp (the light of which warded off the covetous Gracián) and a headdress and necklace made of eggshells added to the overall chicken motif. The medley of sounds, which David Hlaváč combined with throbbing electronics, evoked the atmosphere of an eerie yet fascinating dark night.