The article reevaluates the prevailing historiographical narrative about a crisis of Czech theatre after 1989 and argues that the situation in Czech theatre did not change as dramatically in the early 1990s as commonly assumed. Drawing on analysis of the theatre press of the time, the author discusses the 1990s debates on redefining (social) function of theatre. Using writings of the critic Václav Königsmark as a case study, the author reveals a so-far hidden continuity between the post-1989 Czech thinking on theatre and the Prague School structuralist theory, Jan Mukařovský's concept of the aesthetic function in particular.
