advojka.cz // Review // Hallencourt Strikes Back (A Stage Adaptation of Édouard Louis)
Author: Štěpán Truhlařík // 10 June 2026
The ambitious Slovak director made his debut at Prague's Divadlo Komedie with an adaptation of the three most recent autofictional prose works by the French writer Édouard Louis to have been translated into Czech. Entitled "Change: A Method" after one of them, the production captivates through its directorial assurance and striking performances.
According to the most modest definition, autofiction is writing about oneself, about one's own life. The boundaries between author and narrator become blurred, and the text may appear to be a "mere" record of reality. Yet the more closely we seek to approach this ideal, the more clearly the inevitable constructedness of every narrative emerges. This is particularly evident in the work of Édouard Louis. In order to draw a definitive line beneath his bleak adolescence in Picardy, northern France, he adopted a new name, transformed the way he presented himself and wrote his own version of more than just his life story. He decided to become someone else.
The novel "Change: A Method" (2021; Czech translation 2023) begins with a metatextual reference to the act of writing, and its form likewise creates the impression of having been produced in a single feverish gesture. The narrator leaps between memories, while the text conveys the accumulated frustration driving the cursor forward across the screen. It is precisely this centrifugal energy, carrying within it both destructive and liberating potential, that director Dávid Paška and dramaturg Lenka Veverková harnessed in their stage adaptation.
Inside the Leech
The first performance after the premiere unfolded at a breathtaking pace, leaving the audience minimal space for reflection and instead drawing them into a vortex of emotionally charged situations. Vile insults, familial grievances and unrelenting hatred intertwine … read more.