Objekt Julek Elbel Ondej (2018)

This book, whose contents are in Czech, tells the story of Julius Varga, known as Julek. Ondej Elbel discovered it by chance in 2013, while working as director, dramaturge and artistic director of umperk Theatre and looking for locally rooted subjects. After productions about Berhof, Eskymo Welzl and Priessnitz, he and Jaroslav Rudi planned a new story about Alois Nebel, but a news report about a man whose illness had twisted his body while he remained unafraid of the StB led Elbel to an extraordinary figure with a powerful spirit in a completely helpless body. With the help of Dana Vargov, other witnesses and archival materials, he gathered enough information for an exciting, powerful and tragicomic play. When a bizarre political group in umperk decided to replace the theatre’s management, Elbel lost his position and the play was removed from the planned repertoire. He nevertheless completed the script and presented it several times as a staged reading. In 2014, he adapted the play about Julius Varga into a comic-book script, intending the illustrations for Martin Jabrek. After Jabrek died tragically in February 2015, Elbel invited several of their mutual friends, outstanding artists, to complete, each in their own way, what Jabrek had been unable to finish. The book is a tribute to two exceptional people who lived similarly short, difficult and nevertheless remarkable lives: Julius Varga and Martin Jabrek.