AUTUMN SPRING

“To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old,” wrote Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. That philosophy permeates this tragicomedy whose septuagenarian hero, Franti?ek, refuses to bow before the inevitable debilitations of age and being boxed in as a ?senior citizen.? He is an eternal dreamer and joker who behaves very differently from his beloved, bewildered and worrying wife Emilie, who would be content with a spouse as an ordinary old man, resignedly and serenely preparing for death. Instead Franti?ek meets every day as a new challenge and wonderful opportunity for adventure, carried out via a series of mischievous masquerades (with some invaluable assistance from a sympathetic friend with a flair for the theatrical and access to costumes and props). Franti?ek impersonates a ticket-taker, a mountain climber, a wealthy philanthropist, and an emeritus member of the Metropolitan Opera seeking to purchase a palace ? all in the name of frolic, whimsy and laughing, not raging, at the Dying of the Light. In a number of richly comic situations, replete with both gentle and dark humor, the unconventional hero amply demonstrates that living is an art, and that the burden of years mean little to an artist such as himself. (In Czech with English subtitles)