The Cycle of Prague

All stories are ghost stories in the end. Paper is dead, words are finite. All dies in the end, and all becomes naught but an echo resonating somewhere between your chest and your skull.

In August, I moved to Tabor, a small Bohemian city a 60-minute train ride south of Prague. Here I teach English in some of the regional schools and kindergartens, and for the most part, I do a pretty good job of it. Maybe I haven’t had as much time to write as I’ve wanted, and maybe I’ve been beaten up by 5-year-olds more times than I care to admit, but I’m happy where I am. Once a week, I head up to Prague, take an improv class, maybe sit in on a show. Recently, even, I began the process of applying for a PhD program at Charles University. Perhaps Prague is the city where—on weekends and scattered worknights—I will find my meteoric rise to power in the European improv comedy circuit (I’ve been in three shows already, and at least one of them wasn’t a total disaster!) or rise to prominence as a scholar of the Ukrainian modernist movement. However, let’s take a step back.

I had a moment this past week in Prague—a sense of nostalgia, perhaps. Prague is where I spent the summer of 2019, my first trip outside of the walls of America, where I wandered the streets of the Old Town until the soles of my shoes wore paper-thin. As I went on my morning walk just last weekend, wending through the alleys in my aimless sonder, I came across landmarks that moved me once five years ago. As I felt this pain of joyful memory, a thought came to my head: “Ghost stories are just love stories too late.” If Paris is the city of love, then Prague, to me, is the city of ghosts.

I’ve written a pair of one-act plays dedicated to the ghosts of Prague. The Iron Man of Prague tells the story of two former lovers reuniting on the Charles Bridge; The Well-Dressed Stranger of Prague recounts a jilted lover coming face to face with The Devil himself. And these one-acts have seen some success. The former premiered at the ProEnglish Theatre in Kyiv, Ukraine in October of 2023, under the directorship of Alex Borovenskiy—a genius, if you haven’t heard of him. It then was directed at my old university as a standalone project by rising star Samantha Goldman. The Well-Dressed Stranger of Prague meanwhile saw some excellent positive attention at my other old university, under the directorship of another rising star, Kiersten Weirich. Clearly, there is something about ghost stories that brings out the best in my playwriting.

Perhaps that it’s important to note that both plays center on a character named Max Wertz. Iron Man is partly autobiographical. His ex-lover is mine, whom he left, though invited, to answer the call of the Old World. I recently experienced a breakup that occurred for that exact same reason, because I wanted to flee to Europe and not stay in America. In Iron Man, this ex is called Elena, who he left to go find Jana, the woman he fell in love with his first go-around in Prague. Well-Dressed Stranger takes place before Iron Man, and in it, Max waits at the designated spot where he and Jana promised to meet five years after Max had to go back home. Jana never shows up, and in her stead, The Devil appears, promising a tourniquet to stop Max’s heart from bleeding out, which Max accepts. I do not have a Jana, only the dream of romance and adventure my move to the Old World promised me, only to be replaced with deep loneliness. Although now I have improv comedy, and that makes things significantly less lonely.

And so I have made a decision to expand upon the of Prague cycle as best I can. As I walked through the alleyways of Old Town Prague, I remembered the moments that formed me in my initial moments as a hapless romantic in the old world. My eyes lingered on the cacophonic collage on the Lennon Wall, traced up the tower of the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas where a ghost told me my future, pierced the cafe where I in my final moments lost had found brief respite and the best cheap garlic bread I had ever had. My former self played before me as a spectral puppet, extending his mechanical hand to me to lead me everywhere where I would say to myself, “Wait, I know this place.”

So here is the plan. I want the of Prague cycle to have at least six plays to it, maybe twelve if I find myself particularly inspired. I want them to flow together, flesh out a whole world, really reflect the experience of feeling the shockwaves, the scars, the echoes of love without the actual love to begin with. That is what makes a ghost story. And I have a couple ideas for additions to the cycle.

The Massive Clock of Prague will consider possessiveness, passion, the marking of territory. It will center the famous astronomical clock which hundreds of years ago was the crown jewel of the Old Town Square. Its creator was blinded by assassins when it was suspected he intended to build a second astronomical clock in a rival city.

The Great Wall of Prague will consider resilience, art, permanency. It will center the Lennon Wall, a great mural in Prague that began as a portrait of John Lennon (with the caption “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE”), which became an ever-building piece of communal graffiti for all the tourists and the locals. On it, you can find hashtags and advertisements and stickers and enormous hearts that read “BOY and GIRL 4ever.” Good lord, where do I even start with this?

Perhaps as I continue taking trips up there, I will find even more inspiration in the big and small things that can translate well into dramatic action. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe 2025 will bring you more ghost stories. Maybe it will just bring you more love stories. After all, a love story is just an undercooked ghost story.