Prague's cabaret tradition

A city with its own variety stage

Prague did not simply import cabaret. In the decades before the Second World War the city built its own tradition of revue, song and comic theatre, much of it in Czech, mixing jazz, clowning and topical humour. Visitors meet very little of that history directly today, because so much of it depended on the language. But it explains why the idea of an evening of songs, sketches and dance at a table feels at home here. Two names matter most: the Liberated Theatre of the interwar years and the Semafor theatre founded in 1959.

The Liberated Theatre

Osvobozené divadlo, the Liberated Theatre, was founded in 1926 as the theatre section of Devětsil, an association of Czech avant-garde artists. Its early work drew on Dadaism, Futurism and the Czech movement called Poetism, and it placed new emphasis on lighting and on contact between actors and audience. It staged modern authors such as Apollinaire, Jarry and Cocteau alongside its own plays. The theatre ran until 1938 and was an important part of the cultural scene of Czechoslovakia's First Republic.

V+W and the Vest Pocket Revue

In 1927 two law students, Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich, appeared with their own show, the Vest Pocket Revue, a montage of Dadaist gags, intellectual humour and jazz songs. It was a sensation, and the pair joined the ensemble. The pianist and composer Jaroslav Ježek joined the same year, and his jazz-influenced songs became central to the theatre. Voskovec and Werich, known simply as V+W, wore clown masks inspired by the Fratellini clowns and later ran the theatre themselves.

Forbíny and topical humour

One of the Liberated Theatre's inventions was the forbína, an improvised dialogue performed on the forestage in front of the curtain, often reacting to political and cultural events of the day. Early programmes were loose, built on improvisation and on the audience's reactions. From 1932 the plays turned openly political and warned against Nazism, which brought censorship and complaints. The theatre was closed in November 1938, and after a brief post-war revival it did not return.

Semafor and the small forms

A new generation of Prague stage entertainment arrived with Semafor, founded in 1959 by Jiří Suchý and Ferdinand Havlík. The name is an acronym of Sedm Malých Forem, seven small forms, covering musical comedy, poetry theatre, song history, jazz, fine arts, film and a free genre. Semafor was the starting point for many Czech musicians, among them Karel Gott and Hana Hegerová, and Suchý performed there for decades. It shows the same mix of song, comedy and music that defined the city's interwar stages.

Neighbours in Vienna and Kraków

Prague's scene grew up among close relatives. In Vienna, the French model inspired the Jung-Wiener Theater zum lieben Augustin, housed in the Theater an der Wien, and in the 1920s performers such as Fritz Grünbaum and Karl Farkas worked at the Kabarett Simpl. In Kraków, the literary cabaret Zielony Balonik, founded by local poets, writers and artists in the final years of the Partitions of Poland, is seen as the origin of the Polish kabaret. Each city took the Paris idea of song and satire at the table and made it local, as Prague did with V+W.

From satire to spectacle

Today's international shows in Prague sit at the other end of the spectrum from V+W. Where the Liberated Theatre depended on Czech wordplay and politics, a decades revue depends on costume, choreography and music everyone recognises. That makes it accessible to visitors, at the cost of the local bite. If the history appeals, look for archive recordings of Ježek's songs, which are still reissued; for the night itself, the dance guide explains the styles a revue borrows.

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