A studio Rubín, Prague, CZ
13 November 2023
After the reading followed a discussion with the authors and directors (together with the creative team of the Happy End (Reconstruction) / Happy End (Rekonštrukcia) rehearsed reading) moderated by Dušan Poliščák.

A family. Mum, dad, son, daughter. The kids are all grown up, all the big goals – the family lineage, the upbringing, the practicalities of life – should be done now. But it looks like they’re not. Dad is sobbing on the couch. Mum is looking back at her life, wondering if it was really her who chose this existence. The daughter says she doesn’t wanna have kids and the son has a big secret. And to make matters worse, grandma and uncle are here. Just wonderful family fun. The proceedings are watched over by the portrait of “the nation’s daughter”, a 19^th century woman whose fate was guided none other than the entire Czech nation. And sadly, that fate did not end too well. But what’s the link between “the nation’s daughter”, Zdeňka Havlíčková, and a modern family, where all the women are called Zdeňka? Isn’t that a bit too much for one family, one fate? All that’s left is a veritable earthquake. And it will come…
A play about the struggles of playing the roles we reject, the difficulty of avoiding other people’s expectations, and about the 19^th century in all of us. Also about more than one daughter of a famous father, the nation’s daughter and the founding father, and about stories none can piece together anymore.