Early in your translation career, could you imagine receiving awards from theater people?

Absolutely not. I really appreciate the award from the Czech Academy of Theater Artists, it’s from a number of outstanding personalities, not only actors, but also writers and translators, so I consider it both recognition and honour.

This is not a tribute to acting, but you have entered the ranks of actors with your popularization event. Do you feel like that?

I definitely would not dare to say that I am an actor, although my public performances on stage sometimes tend towards one-act theater, they cannot be compared with those of real actors.

Because I am not only an actor on stage, but also the writer and usually the director of my performances, so the acting component is not the most important part.

When you receive your prize, you send most of it to Stratford-upon-Avon to William Shakespeare. Do you feel it belongs to him?

Of course. My first translated play was Kennedy’s Children by another American playwright Robert Patrick and Amadeus Shaffer, but then, thanks to Karl Kříž and then other directors, I signed on William Shakespeare, and that was really a fateful encounter.

One of the roles of translators is to keep Shakespeare young for each new generation of creators and audiences. This has been done by translators of all ages, and I am very happy to join this society, which serves Shakespeare and keeps him young, even though we ourselves are old.

How do you feel tonight among the theater people themselves?

Very good. I realized that my friends were more than the older generation, that I found myself in the middle of my life’s journey, just as Dante would say. I felt tonight had a lot of power and dignity and had a bit of fun at times, which was really good.

I thank you for all the meetings with the personalities of all theatrical people, actors, directors and other professions that fate has given me in my life.