The „Milevský House“ N. 209, in which the Theatre on the Balustrade has its seat today, has a complicated history. The medieval house, originally of two wings, was reconstructed in Classicist style in 1832 according to the design by builder Jan  Kristian Vítek  (Wyteck, 1766–1848). The modification was so large that the structure was actually completely new. Only the ground plan had remained from the original building, but the latter classicist building has been preserved in its appearance up to the present days. The new enlargement of the building was probably related to the fact that the owner, Rosálie Ledecká, decided to build a factory here – a printworks. Thus a four wing complex came into existence with an irregular plan with yard facades, connected to access balconies.

The two storey house is composed of two one-storey wings with a bevelled corner and of an yard, single storey wing (a workshop formerly), which is connected to the side wing with a short wing. The building is adjacent to the neighbouring palace of Pachta z Rájova (N. 208) by its north side. The owner at that time sold the house to the Catholic Journeymen's Union in 1892. The Union was based on the ideas of German Catholic priest and social pedagogue Adolph  Kopling  (1813–1865). There had emerged more than a thousand of these unions in the world, respectively Kolping’s houses at the end of the 19^th  and the beginning of the 20^th  century. These unions were established to provide a roof over heads and background for young journeymen coming to town for gaining experience. The Kolping’s houses became popular among young that were students, servants and craftsmen. They were united by Catholic education and joint interests as lectures, pilgrimages, amateur theatre etc. The Prague Catholic Journeymen's Union run a dormitory in the house and built a theatre hall here in 1903 for its moral performances according to the design by builder František  Hodek  (1870–1952).

František Hodek inserted a meeting hall of the union into the first floor of the front wing facing the Anenské Square. There was an elevated stage by the north side and a place for orchestra, on the opposite side, a cloak room that was accessible from the gallery was adjacent to the hall. The flat-floor  hall was arranged in a very simple style and occupied the entire wing, the remaining rooms of the complex served as a dormitory. The Nazi outlawed activity of the association during the Second World War similarly as later the Communist regime. A reconstruction of the building was carried out after 1948 still for the Catholic Journeymen's Union. Theodor Hainz renewed the yard wing of the house for a new meeting hall in the location of the present theatre. It was a hall without foyer, accessible through two entrances from the yard with the stage depth of 12 m and width of 6 m. It had a capacity of 150 seats, a gallery for 20 spectators and a stage that was 5,5 m wide, 6 m  deep and 7 high.

The complex was transferred into state ownership in 1954 and the Housing Enterprise of the Main City of Prague became its direct owner. The house served as a dormitory until 1957, when essential conversion into a theatre took place. The city provided the space to four artists – Helena Philippová, Jiří  Suchý, Vladimír Vodička and Ivan Vyskočil. These founded here the first professional stage and named the theatre Na zábradlí (Theatre on the Balustrade) according to a small side street leading from Anenské Square towards Vltava riverbank. They premiered a theatre show If Thousand Clarinets on 9^th  December. The drama ensemble was enriched by prominent Czech mime Ladislav Fialka with his pantomime group in March of 1959.

Conversion of the ground floor for theatre use was commenced in 1959. A part of a wing of the Pachtovský palace was acquired for theatre enlargement probably in this time, where  space for a foyer and cloakroom emerged. Thanks to this new space, it was possible to interconnect the structure with the front wing and the yard entrances to the auditorium could be used as exits. There was a cafe, offices and technical backstage in the opposite right wing in the ground floor.

The building was transferred to the ownership of the District National Committee in Prague 1 in 1967 and large conversion of the entire complex into a theatre building  was carried out in 1967–1968 according to the design by the Regional Design Institute in Prague under direction of Vlastibor  Klimeš (1924–2009), project was developed by Petr Kutnar. The dormitories in the first and second floor were converted into dressing rooms, store rooms and offices. A new rehearsal room came into existence in the second floor of the main building being used mainly by the pantomime company ( the present Library of Eliade). The designer respected the original interconnection of the wings with yard galleries during the reconstruction. The system of the auditorium with a single corridor on the right had been preserved, the authors united the rooms in front of the auditorium into one space – a foyer, a cloak vestibule was inserted into the location of the front wing ( a cafe in the present days). The investor succeeded in acquiring a part of another rooms of the neighbouring Pachtovský Palace for the technical backstage. The theatre established its storage facilities for costumes, props and decorations in the unused, non-residential rooms of the surrounding houses.  

The state of the theatre was changed at the beginning of the 1990s. The building itself was transferred  to the ownership of the capital city of Prague in 1993, but the theatre lost an array of store rooms, indispensable for operation of a repertory theatre, after the so called restitution. After a reconstruction of the stage (dismantling seats, a new floor) in 1996 that was carried  out by Technoart company from  Újezd  u Brna, a reconstruction of the building was carried out from 1998 under direction of Jana Vávrová as well. Its main aim was to use the attics rooms for a new rehearsal room and designer atelier. Costume storages were moved into the released rooms in the second floor of the yard wing and offices occupied the opposite right wing. Restitution claims of the Catholic Journeymen's Union delayed further reconstruction works in the following year. The theatre building has remained in the possession of the capital city of Prague after complicated negotiations. The investor reconstructed the loft, lift and heating. The third phase of complex reconstruction was carried out in 2007–2009 (again J. Vávrová) that concerned the attics area, where storage rooms, archive, guest room and other backstage, as well as the facade was renovated.  

The main building is entered from Anenské Square in the present, there is a cash desk in the entrance hall (a passageway to the yard before), a cloak room on the right side of the wing, a cafe on the left. A spectator is lead through the cafe into a spacious foyer and from here into the so called “streaked hall” of the auditorium, which capacity is 176 seats (40 on the balcony). There is only one side aisle and two exits into the yard in the hall with moderate elevation. The hall of the Library of Eliade (the first rehearsal room) is used for chamber theatre containing the area of 85 m², with a capacity of 50–70 seats – an open area with mobile elevation, equipped with sound and light system, which could be adjusted according to the actual needs. It is possible to use the second attic rehearsal room of 46 m² size and capacity of circa 50 seated spectators as well.

The Theatre on the Balustrade is connected from the beginning with important individualities of Czech theatre. Its development peaked in the 1960s – with arrival of director Jan  Grossman, stage designer Libor Fára and flay man, later dramaturge and playwright Václav Havel, when the ensemble started to develop a Czech variant of the Theatre of the Absurd under their direction. The theatre received considerable appreciation not only in Bohemia but in foreign countries as well. Grossman and Havel had to quit in the theatre for political reasons in 1968. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Theatre on the Balustrade became a shelter for some movie directors of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s , to whom the work on movies was disallowed by practices of the so called  Normalization. It was Evald Schorm in the first place, who produced an array of iconic production from 1976.  

Jan Grossmann returned into the theatre in 1989 as a stage director and later director.

Sources and literature:

–  Úřad Městské části Praha 1, archiv Odboru výstavby, spis domu čp. 209

–  Alfred Javorin, Divadla a divadelní sály v českých krajích II, Praha 1949, s. …

–  Pavel Vlček (ed.), Umělecké památky Prahy: Staré Město a Josefov, Praha 1996, s. 214

–  Martina Musilová (ed.), Kdyby 2000 klarinetů, Praha 1998

–  http://www.nazabradli.cz/o-divadle/historie-divadla/

Tags: Classicism, terraced house, theatre hall

Author: Markéta Svobodová

Translator: Jan Purkert