Is it possible to put up with the idea that one human life is but a drop in the ocean of the great story of humanity? But what if you are a mother of five extremely courageous sons? Aren’t five drops too many after all? Čapek’s magnificent drama is staged again in Brno after thirty-seven years!
The mother of five sons has rebelled. Despite being the proud widow of a commissioned officer killed in a battle years ago, she doesn’t want to see her offspring perish in the same way. Unfortunately, the eldest one – a medical doctor – will never return either. Victim of scientific research, he died in a tropical country when developing a treatment for yellow fever. Young boys grow into men who long for adventure. One day, an aviation misadventure cost her second son his life. She now only has three children left! She cannot lose them! In disputes with her dead – her husband, her father and her two sons – she stands up for the right of mothers to intervene in the fates of their children. Regrettably, more victims – all killed in a bloody revolution – flow into the gloomy house. The mother’s only son who is still alive is her youngest, most sensitive and least ambitious son named Tony.
By his anti-war drama Karel Čapek (1890–1938) responded not only to the Spanish Civil War, but also to growing fascist tendencies in Europe. The force of this phenomenal play resides in the still heartfelt confrontations between a woman and a mother, and men who yearn to make great differences in the world.