Jan Lorman

* 1946

  • "Actually, a simple thing happened when we finally concluded a twenty-five-year contract with the City of Prague in the year ninety-five, that was in September. And there we got a condition that we would renovate the house at our own expense. I guess I'm a bit of a suicidal person, I signed it. Because I guess there was no other option. Of course, the influence that we had there at that time... I still thank Mrs. Dana Martinovská, who was the deputy mayor, but Mrs. Jiřina Jirásková brought me to her. Who was sitting there with me when the city council was deciding on the lease. She was sitting with me, next to me. You know, these things are not trivial. It's like, it's just the way it is. It's all right for a good cause. It was amazing."

  • "The situation was strange in terms of personnel options and just who to cast and who not to cast. Because the situation was that nobody said, 'You can't do that'. That's not how they were... that there were blacklists of who not to cast. No. There was a list of actors that was used and some of them weren't there. I mean, that's what was used. It's true that there were simply situations where there would be discussions about whether to use someone who wasn't there or who couldn't be there at the moment. Because again it was only said verbally, 'Well, we're not going to cast this one now', we were instructed. So things like that. And on the other hand, again, when we needed... we needed to put Mrs Galatíková back on the list, so I asked the director of Czech Radio to do it and there was no problem. He simply said 'Yes'. In other words, the situation was very unclear, it was just in the way that everyone was supposed to be self-censoring."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha , 11.05.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:38:30
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha , 12.07.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:29:02
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The effort to match the others has remained with me all my life

Jan Lorman
Jan Lorman
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Jan Lorman was born on 1 June 1946 in Prague. His parents came from wealthy business families, but after 1948 the family fell into material poverty. His father Jiří‘s great hobby was puppet theatre and he was also the director of the Central Puppet Theatre. His mother Libuše, née Brožová, was a puppet maker for Dílo association. Little Jan was strongly influenced by his childhood in the 1950s, when he perceived that they were uwanted as a family and tried to match the others, to belong somewhere. He excelled at recitation in primary school, and although he later studied engineering, he remained faithful to this hobby. Thanks to this, he also got into the Viola Theatre Café as a secondary school student and later worked as an actor in the Theatre Behind the Gate. He saw these acting years as the best school of his life. In 1969 he was admitted to the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, where he studied directing. He then joined Czechoslovak Radio as a director. Here he also accepted an offer to join the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which he took as a concession for the opportunity to do his profession. He still blames himself for this move. After the change of management at the radio station in 1988, the atmosphere became unbearable for him and he perceived himself being unwanted there. He took a job as director of the S. K. Neumann Theatre in Libeň, but even this job did not bring him much satisfaction. He gratefully welcomed the events of the Velvet Revolution, even though he had to leave the theatre. After the restoration of the Theatre Behind the Gate, he returned to its ranks and at the same time, together with his wife Blanka and friends, they founded the civic association Život (Life) 90, which aimed first of all to improve the lives of the elderly through volunteering. Later on, they managed to acquire and renovate a house in the centre of Prague, where a number of services were offered. The association became professional and Jan Lorman was its director until 2018. At the same time, he was and is active in a number of governmental and non-governmental institutions focused on the topics of social and health care for the elderly; from 2006 to 2020 he was a member of the Government Council for the Elderly and Ageing Issues. He has received numerous awards for his activities in the Czech Republic and abroad; in 2020, the Silver Commemorative Medal of the President of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic for his indomitable, visionary, educational activities and assistance to the elderly and socially disadvantaged. At the time of recording (2023) he was living in Prague.