THE HOP PICKERS

Every summer, the socialist youth had to help out with the harvest out in the countryside – everyone joined the brigade. With THE HOP-PICKERS, this excursion gets Bohemian beery and very poppy. Ladislav Rychman’s musical tells the romantically rebellious story of eccentric Hana, Seneca-reading Filip and the model brigadier Honza. Filip and Hana’s individualism becomes more and more evident over the course of the hops harvest (during which an incredibly small amount of beer is consumed). With wonderful choreography and songs that have become Czech evergreens in the intervening years – including Milenci v texaskách – Rychman gets to the heart of the conflict between loners and social cliques in the middle of a pastoral Czech paradise.