In 1983, then twenty-one-year-old actress Vida Skalská spent ten days filming the fairy tale Three Veterans. Today, her name is Vida Neuwirthová and she has appeared in the films Faunovo very late in the afternoon, Vesničko má středisková and in the series Dobrodružstvi kriminilisticy and Věkštej z pierotů. Nevertheless, she combined her other artistic activity with puppetry. What made her change in her career?
Filming a fairy tale was essential for Vida Neuwirth Three veterans based on the literary work of Jan Werich. The director was Oldřich Lipský, and the actress starred alongside such ace actors as Rudolf Hrušínský senior, Petr Čepek or Josef Somr and Julius Satinský. Her character as the spiky princess Bosana became very popular among viewers. And that was mainly thanks to her long nose, which stretched out the more the princess lied. Director Jan Švankmajer was in charge of trick matters in the film.
Vida Neuwirth recalled: “The nose was two and a half meters long. I had to have it plastered all over my face and it was controlled by two puppeteers with rods. The nose was hooked on them and with their help they carried it from place to place.’ It took the make-up artist an hour to glue the nose to the face. After filming, the nose even got to a Hollywood museum with an exhibition of curiosities.
Thanks to the role of the princess, people remembered her well after the release of the movie fairy tale, and the young actress was often stopped on the street. “It was annoying at times,” Vida confided. In the present, forty years after the premiere of the film, on the contrary, she is pleased when viewers still recognize her and autograph collectors ask her for an autograph.
The path to puppetry
Vida Neuwirth she then appeared in smaller roles in several Czech films and series and starred in a film Jentl (1983) with Barbra Streisand and in the film Episode in West Berlin (1986). She did not get into Prague’s DAMU, but that did not change her decision to follow the path towards puppetry.
At that time, she already had some experience with him, thanks to which she found out that this work is much more interesting than drama. When she auditioned for Three veterans, she met Pavel Marko here. He became the one who brought her to the black theater Ta Fantastika, which she participated in founding.
With the black theater, she made it all the way to the Jarashi International Festival in Jordan. It was before the Velvet Revolution in 1986. In connection with her participation in the festival, Vida Neuwirth recalled the cultural attaché who was assigned to her by the State Security and who was supposed to monitor whether she wanted to emigrate.
Jewish roots and theater for children
Few people know that Vida Neuwirth has Jewish roots. She herself learned the truth about her family only when she was 14 years old. Her father Vítězslav Mojše Abeles went through the Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Flossenbürg concentration camps. At the end of the war, he managed to escape the death march and thereby save his life. Of the whole family, only he and his brother survived.
The actress also claims to be Jewish through her artistic work. In 1983, she founded the Prague Jewish community Feigel Children’s Theatre. During the previous regime, it was the only Prague activity for Jewish children. Before each performance, the theater had to ask the relevant authorities for permission for a cultural program.
Vida Neuwirth translated Hebrew songs into Czech so that the children would know what they were singing about. “I saw that this job has meaning. That this is exactly why I am here. To work for children, play with them and pass something on to them.” says Vida Neuwirth.
The puppeteer wrote two books for children in which she retold biblical stories and Jewish legends – The Abandoned Palace and Other Jewish Tales (1995) and Well Hidden Treasures or Stories from the Midrash (2003).
In addition to puppetry, Vida Neuwirthová also works as a guide in Terezín and around Prague’s Jewish town. Over thirty members of her family perished during the Holocaust, and the actress wants to point out that the horrors of war should not be forgotten and that people should learn from history and not repeat it.
Source: Pametnaroda.cz, iDnes
