Apple picker Studio Ypsilon prepared an unprecedented production in its theater. The performance "iJá" discusses Steve Jobs with an unusually abstract impression and provides an unusual insight into the "perfect" world of Apple.
After the death of Steve Jobs, his life story began to appear in almost all media. All sorts of relevant and completely irrelevant information filled Internet journals, television, radio and tabloids. The long-in-progress biography by biographer Walter Isaacson was hastily published due to the topicality and therefore the undeniable attractiveness of the topic and was also poorly translated worldwide. Currently, two feature films are also being prepared in the United States. In one case, it will be an adaptation of the already mentioned book Steve Jobs from the workshop of Sony, and in the second for an independent film jOBS: Get Inspired. We should wait for their launch this year. The question therefore arises as to what qualities such hastily put together projects can achieve.
When I heard some time ago that Prague's Studio Ypsilon prepared a play and I with the topic of Steve Jobs, I couldn't help but have numerous doubts. Won't this be just another descriptive story, of which there have already been a dozen? About the boundless adoration of the late CEO for pronouncing the words genius, guru, visionary? However, it is enough to look at the description of the mentioned performance on the Ypsilonka website and you will realize that this is probably something a little unconventional:
The story of a man striving for perfection. A story with a bug at the end. Can there be perfection without flaw? And is it still perfection? Where does the product end and where does the person begin? Do we know what we want, or do those who offer it to us? Do they sell? Was Steve Jobs a Marketing Superstar or God? And is there a difference? What about Adam and Eve?
Author's production inspired by the life and "work" of Steve Jobs. An attempt to gain insight into the operating system of today's world. An insight into the life of one user in the post-PC era. A world where it's not what you use, but how you use it that matters. A world where there is no right or wrong… Do you love Apple? And does Apple love you? And is it love? Yippee. It's not.
Video demonstration
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Even if, looking back, the impression creeps in that the show does not completely cover all the topics raised above, the authors still deserve admiration. They managed to introduce a game that doesn't try to be biographical, doesn't unnecessarily highlight or drop any of the stereotyped characters, and especially shows the world of Apple from a different point of view than many are used to. Director Braňo Holiček did not build the production around Steve Jobs; the main character from the handful that the author used for the sake of readability is an ordinary mortal (Petr Vršek).
And since he is a PC user, right in the opening scene we see him in a futile fight with Okny (Petr Hojer). After a desperate struggle, Jobs (Daniel Šváb) appears as the savior, handing our hero an Apple, brilliantly embodied in every way by Vendula Štíchová. It lacks nothing that the public is used to in Apple and its products: special appeal, beauty and intelligence. Around Jobs, you can feel a kind of elusive aura, which his representative managed to express very skillfully not only through perfectly imitated gestures. The aforementioned fluid remains throughout, but what changes is the view of the Mac as the embodiment of all Apple products. From a welcome release and an endlessly adored object, it slowly becomes an addiction, the effect of which is enhanced by a strong personification and a deep relationship with the protagonist-user.
He leaves his partner for Apple and the Apple becomes the center of his world. Next to that, there is still Jobs, a character with a friendly face, but whose smile brings financial profit most of all. With various "up-greats", the user's object of desire becomes more and more real and also more lascivious, which inevitably pulls him into the spiral of the Apple paradigm. The apple thus de facto replaces the woman left at the beginning of the game. At that moment, Jobs, confronted with his irreversible fate, takes a surprising turn and reveals to us how absurd and endless the pursuit of the perfection of a product is.
Despite the slightly shallow conclusion, which nevertheless depicts the perfection of man in his imperfection, it is a performance and I a remarkable feat that finally offers a radically different view of the phenomenon called Apple. When you finish Jobs's biography or maybe a book As Steve Jobs thinks, consider visiting Ypsilon Studios – maybe it will reveal to you how you think.
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I have a similar opinion as the auto article, the show was original and fun. I liked it, although I was very skeptical as a staunch "apple lover". But I am only evaluating from the point of view of an ordinary mortal, I am not such a theater expert as Mr. Žitný below.
I also agree. Mr. Zitny is apparently a theater expert... I just wonder what he thought was "theatrically wrong" and the other thing: it's like if you said that Shakespeare messed up in Richard III, his life, or his part... anyone can write such a "fake"...
The problem is that the vast majority of the performance was a copied and translated speech from Stanford.
Well...the overwhelming majority :). I won't argue. I saw it twice and what you write is nonsense. I think that word is there 2 times and it is cut down a lot. The performances themselves last a little over an hour. The original speech is about ten minutes long. So even if there was a whole, it's less than one-sixth...which you have to admit is not the overwhelming majority of you :) I'm looking forward to one of your productions. Bye.
I didn't like it, I find it embarrassing, that's my opinion.