Dennis Kelly’s dark comedy play Love and Money opens at Na Prádle in Prague

A new English-language production of Dennis Kelly’s comedic play Love and Money will have its Czech premiere at divadlo Na Prádle on February 4 and have four encores until the end of March. Tickets are available via the GoOut network.

The new Prague production is staged by an international group of nine actors led by Slovak director Milan Sebo. The original production was nominated in 2007 for the Laurence Oliver Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre.

The play analyses consumer society and deals with topics like love, addiction, dark desires, and debt.

The story of a debt-plagued marriage is told backwards from its tragic end to the joyful proposal.

“It’s a cruel and dark comedy that puts consumerism and debt under the microscope in seven vignettes, seven portraits of dysfunctional relationships that are somehow connected. The audience has to figure out how,” French-Czech actress Ariane Semrádová said. She appears in the role of Natalie and is also one of the producers of the play.

The play centers on Jess and David, a poor couple in love. But Jess also loves luxury goods and credit, while David has to deal with the consequences. The flashback vignettes capture various aspects of David’s struggles to get money as their relationship grows worse, or better as time runs backwards in the play.

“Set in the present, Dennis Kelly’s play is a clever analysis of our consumer society based on a ‘live-now, pay-later’ scheme. However, there seems to be an urgent need to redefine happiness because the one we get from things has a short life. And although our heroes try hard (they really do), an alarming mixture of lust, envy, and greed makes the search for a decent way of life futile,” director Milan Šebo said.