The funeral of Karel Heřmánek in the Theater without railings: Who came?

Who would have expected that the last farewell to the actor Karel Heřmánek it will take place in a golden chapel, with an honor guard, moving eulogies and all the sentiment that somehow belongs to it, he would be very wrong. Those closest to him knew very well that he would not have wanted such a funeral. While his family had already said goodbye to him, a private cremation took place in Motola on September 2, the general public said goodbye only on Saturday.

The whole event lasted seven hours. At the entrance to the Theater without Rails in the Adria Palace, there is still a memorial place where flowers and messages can be left. On stage, during the pieta, his pivotal film, television and theater roles were shown in a specially edited video, running in a loop on the screen.

“Let’s go to Handsome Hubert, sir Poppera or to remember Lucifer together not with a tear in the eye, but with a glass of white wine, with which he would like to join us he tapped to celebrate life,” wrote Kouklová in the invitation, stating that the cafe will serve as the meeting place. The decision of this kind of piety was definitely a good one – the first visitors came to reminisce about his professional and personal life even before the opening of the theater.

As part of the event called A day with Karl is a theater decorated with posters and photographs from Chamomile roles. Among the many flowers were also wreaths from President Peter Pavle (62) and his wife Eva (59), Czech Television or the State Cinematography Fund. The stage with many artefacts from his theater roles was adapted to the style of Milan Kundera’s legendary play James and his master with Jiří Bartoška (77) and Heřmánek in the leading roles.

Although Heřmánk’s colleagues from the theater were supposed to arrive at the scene only in the afternoon, the actors already rushed in the morning Petr Kostka (86), Jaroslav Satoransky (84) or Zdeněk Dušek (81). “Karl, thanks for the beautiful moments on stage and in the movies, you brought a lot of happiness to people” Olga Černohorská (68) wrote in the condolence book located at the entrance to the theater in the Adria Palace.

Among the first guests was Heřmánk’s sister Marie Mixová, actress Sabina Králová (54), actors Zdeněk Maryška (77), Roman Zach (51) and Jan Kuželka (77) or moderator Marie Tomsová (72).

Dana Morávková (53) and Josef Carda (68) were among the guests during the day. After five o’clock, the guard of honor blew out dozens of candles for Karl, while the rest of the guests took refuge in the theater cafe, where some even composed a song in Karl’s honor!