The theatre tradition in the city is dated back to the first half of the 19^th century, when roaming actors performed  in the city. A theatrical   association in Poděbrady was founded in 1861 due to initiative of Václav Hráský. Hráský, the burgomaster at that time, bargained with baron Sina, that the actors could use room of the former chapel in the Poděbrady castle – the first performance was played on a church harvest festival. Apart of the theatrical association “Jiří”, the castle chapel was used by youth, associated under the name “studying Poděbradsko“ for performances. Amateur actors from both the associations played in a hall of the inn „U zeleného stromu“ between 1879-1883. As a garrison of dragoons had been abandoned in the town on the beginning of the 1880s, the city decided to render a part of deserted military quarters with the adjacent plot to the theatrical association to building a theatre.  The city donated building material from the demolished parts of military quarters to   construction of the first building that represented a single storey corner building with stepped gables. A three bay front facade of the theatre, facing the present Divadelní Street, was articulated by pilaster strips and embossed frames.

A simple inner hall at first was enlarged by eight boxes in 1886, its ceiling was decorated by painted figures with names of Czech playwrights and a new curtain depicting a royal couple of the king George of Podiebrady with his wife Kunhuta on the background of the local castle with Labe river. The author of the entire decor was Prague painter Gustav Kubeš (the father of the actress Hana Kvapilová). Supporting columns in the  auditorium were replaced during another reconstruction of the hall in 1890 for new ones from cast-iron. Enlargement of the theatre background, including dressing rooms, props store room and other operational rooms was carried out in the first year of the new century. Foundation of Poděbrady spa brought an unprecedented blooming of the theatrical life in 1908. Theatre productions or concert or various events became a welcomed distraction of the spa guests. Apart of the Little  George Theatre, used to full capacity, the theatrical association occasionally rented a hall in the building of the Civic Saving Bank or they returned onto a provisional stage in hall of the Poděbrady inns. It became clear with the advance of years that the building of the Little  George Theatre was ceasing to meet the requirements of  the rich theatrical activity and culture life not only from the operational point of view: the auditorium could not be ventilated, the stage was too small and confined, but by its undignified appearance as well. For that the Group for Construction of the Little George Theatre was established in 1920 that set  an objective of acquiring finance for  construction of a modern temple of Thalia. Because money was gathered only slowly for this purpose, the theatrical association decided to accede  at least to modernization of the existing theatre that was carried out according to the design by Oldřich Kerhart.

For the association funds, combined with a loan from local financial institution (the total costs represented the sum of 123.509 Crowns), electric wiring was exchanged in the building, the theatre auditorium was newly painted and furnished with new seats,  the balcony and boxes were modernized, the stage was reconstructed and a new curtain was provided for it. The idea of the new theatre construction was vividly discussed from the beginnings of the 1930s, apart of the plot of the former maiden school, several variants of the theatre location  appeared as for instance its embedding more deeper into the spa park or its construction in the locality of the former brewery. Slow preparatory works were speeded up after a natural disaster – fire that swept through the Little George Theatre early in the morning on 22^nd February of 1937 and completely destroyed the entire building in spite of   intervention of numerous fire brigades. The city intervened into the preparation of the theatre construction in this state of affairs and arranged favourable loans to the theatrical association and the Group for Construction of a theatre with credit unions and municipal saving bank that enabled to promptly accede to negotiations of the actual project of the intended new building. A draft of the project was submitted by Poděbrady architect Jaroslav Hlaváč already in 1937. However, the theatrical association together with the city decided to select the author of the design in a standard procedure of public competition, which took place from the winter until August of 1939.  Thirty designs were submitted for consideration, ranging in style between Purism and modern monumental Classicism.

The competing designers – among which were for instance Emanuel Hruška, Max Urban (their joint design was awarded by the third prize), Milan Babuška, František Janda or Vilém Kvasnička & Jan Mayer – were especially solving the composition of the ground plan of the auditorium variously  (mainly with a strikingly high number of boxes). The first and second prizes were merged and the jury awarded with it the works of two author’s teams: Jindřich Freiwald & Jaroslav Böhm and Vojtěch Kerhart with Vojtěch Šembor. In spite of some hesitation of the municipal councillors, the authors of the design, selected for the realization,  – approved by municipal authorities on 29^th January of 1940 - became architects Freiwald & Böhm, one of the most productive Czech building firms of the 1920s and 1930s (Freiwald was responsible for the art aspect – as it is known- whilst his business associate was taking  care of operation of the firm) and that designed not only numerous residential houses or blocks of flats, financial institutions, congregations of the Hussite Church of Czechoslovakia from Duchcov to Slovakia and Užhorod in Ruthenia, but had experience  with implementation of projects of modern theatres in Hronov, Chrudim and Kolín. In their winning design, they designed  the volume of the building, spreading towards the stage, on a shape of an irregular plot, thus the auditorium with six side boxes acquired an unusual shape, but effective in the final result, of a trapezoid opening itself to the stage. However, the victory of the atelier Freiwald & Böhm was only symbolic for the definitive end of all the real expectations for commencement of the construction was brought by the beginning of the German occupation; all civil building was prohibited in the protectorate wartime.  

The theatrical association in Poděbrady  attempted to solve the unfavourable situation in 1942 so that it made an agreement with the new owner of the castle – a spa company, on an adaptation of a part of the wing of the buildings in the first courtyard, used so far as a garage and storage rooms for a theatre „Na kovárně“. The elaboration of this difficult project was assigned to Jindřich Freiwald again – a theatre hall had to be inserted into inconvenient space, inconvenient in layout for an auditorium, the preservation of monuments did not permit to establish an exceeded fly loft above the stage. The construction works, assigned to builder Noháček, were initiated in May of 1941 in the fore of the courtyard. The theatre was opened with amateur performance of the “Our loudmouths” at the end of April of 1942. The auditorium with a capacity of 315 seats in the stalls and another hundred of seats in a steep gallery was of an oblong rectangular shape (6 x 13 m). Other disadvantages of the interior layout of the theatre, enforced by external conditions, were inconvenient spatial characteristics of the stage and confined access corridors and communication system. Jindřich Freiwald (who had not survived the war as he heroically fell in the last days of the Prague uprising in 1945) did not authorize neither  tasteless historicising complements in the interior (glass walls, smithery elements) in the style of  a pulp “peculiarity”, of which authorship is probably possible to ascribe rather to builder Noháček – as Jiří Hilmera stated. Room of the on Smithy Theatre was used by Poděbrady theatricals, apart of minor repairs, until the year 1987, when the building was closed down due to critical condition (critical condition of the roof was observed by the Municipal National Committee already in 1984). The Institute of Language and Expert Preparation of the Charles University, which has the castle under its  care, initiated reconstruction of the roof in May of 1987. The north east part of the castle with the theatre hall was transferred to municipal property in 1994 and the city achieved to bring the reconstruction to a successful end after numerous turns of events. The present appearance was given to the castle ditch with a new entrance to the theatre in 2002.

Present state

The theatre is located in the north wing of the settlement round the castle separating the Palackého Street by its aperture to the main square with a monument of the king George of Podiebrady from the first castle courtyard. The wing is formed of an oblong brick building, covered by a mansard roof. The building is single storeyed from the side of the castle ditch, the area of the ground floor is separated from the first floor by a cornice with a semicircular profile. An array of Baroque dormers with profiled casings and triangular frontons protrudes from the roof. The main entrance to the theatre, indicated by a modern billboard, is located roughly in the centre of the wing in the left bay of a compound portal, framed by  rustication with a keystone.

Interior

Theatre room is accessible from the castle courtyard through three entrances, semicircularly arched, that are cut in the projecting portal, covered by stone slabs. The recessing  courtyard facade is opened by regular oblong windows with embossed window frames from the direction of the portal. A corridor, leading to the entrance of the auditorium, coming on the right side from an upper vestibule that is located behind the entrance door with a couple of cylinder columns. The central theatre staircase runs through the central part of the vestibule joining the upper vestibule with the lower one, that is accessible from the level of the castle ditch, located one storey lower. A spectator is led by a flight of the staircase that ascends upwards to a balcony and technical rooms in the attic of the building. The main entrance of the theatre is today directed to the lower vestibule, an oblong space with stone panelling of the walls and modern furniture, with a recess of a cash desk and with cloakrooms.  

The auditorium is of a prolonged rectangular plan and has an ascending floor with steps. The communication corridor, leading from the vestibule on the right side of the theatre hall, is opened into the auditorium by four rectangular arches. The left side of the hall is articulated only by a pointed niche with a female bust and two oblong windows with deep inner window lining and  wooden shutter. The auditorium is lit by a set of lights on a steel construction that is attached to the ceiling; the walls of the hall are executed in blue, the ceiling and recessed frames are in white. There are five elevated  boxes, mutually separated by partitions, above the last row of seats. A balcony rises over the boxes and is of a concavely twice pointed plan in the central part and with a wooden parapet. The proscenium arch is rectangular, framed by folded drapery. The stage has the total size of 7,63 x 8 m (with the acting area of  5,13 x 6,6 m). There is room for an orchestra pit under the forestage. The auditorium has a capacity of 189 seats, 20 seats are in the side boxes (respectively 12 and 2 seats for paraplegics in the box N. 20). There are 14 seats on the balcony.

Literature:

- B. Bouček - J. Hrdlička, Letopisy ochotnického divadla od roku 1861 až do roku 1879. Poděbrady 1879.

- Nový průvodce městem Lázně Poděbrady a okolím, Lázně Poděbrady 1934, s. 72.

- Jiříkovo divadlo v Poděbradech zničené požárem, Poděbradské noviny XXIII, 1937, č. 9 (26.2.), s. 1.

- Leopold Bašta, K požáru Jiříkova divadla, Poděbradské noviny XXIII, 1937, č. 10 (5.3.), s. 1-2.

- Milan Zadina, K historii shořelého Jiříkova divadla, Lázně Poděbrady XIV, 1937, č. 3 (1.3.), s. 2-4.

- Architektura I, 1939 (Příloha k číslu ze dne 24.8.).

- Milan Zadina, Nové divadlo v Poděbradech, Lázně Poděbrady XVII, 1940, č. 2 (2.3.), s. 1-3. - (značka J.R.), V zámku „Na kovárně“, Lázně Poděbrady XVIII, 1941, č. 5 (18.5.), s. 6.

- Od kovadliny k lázeňskému jevišti, Lázně Poděbrady XIX, 1942, č. 5 (1.5.), s. 4-5.

- Alfréd Javorin, Divadla a divadelní sály v českých krajích. I. Divadla. Praha 1949, s. ?.

- Jana Hrabětová, Poděbrady: průvodce po přírodních a historických zajímavostech města a okolí, po muzeích a místech, vztahujících se k významným osobnostem. Poděbrady 1999, s. 20, 28-29.

-  Jiří Hilmera, Česká divadelní architektura, Praha 1999, s. 121-122, 137-139.

- Poděbradské noviny 1-2/2001, leden (nestr.).

- Eva Šmilauerová, Poděbrady v proměnách staletí. Díl 2 (1850-1948). Praha 2005, s. 81-85, 163-164.

Tags: theatre hall

Author: Pavel Panoch

Translator: Jan Purkert