Insects

A pub in a small town. Pub is closed, the chairs upturned on tables. On a coat-stand hang various insect costumes: a crêpe-paper skirt, cardboard butterfly-wings, and gleaming black and iridescent beetleshells. The six amateur thespians at the table are: the Director, Rose, William, mr. Forrest, Nettle, miss Jilly. Tramp is at home, laid up with sciatica. Mrs Dung-Beetle and Mayfly have not yet turned up. During the rehearsal the amateur actors’ own stories interweave with those of the Čapek brothers’ characters. The Director/Cricket bullies William, his wife’s lover, literally to death. Nettle, in the role of Parasite, devours Miss Jilly the Larva. Mr Forrest is so convincing as the Dung-Beetle that he actually morphs into an insect. As the rehearsal progresses characters are born and die without regard to time. All this happens against the background of the Čapek brothers’ drama, in which insects behave like humans and humans like insects. (official distributor synopsis)