Getting Real with Tomáš Kubínek

Getting Real with Tomáš Kubínek

Tomáš Kubínek

Certified Lunatic and Master of the Impossible

Leeward Community College Theatre

Sunday, February 10; 2pm

Tickets at outreach.hawaii.edu/community

Tomáš Kubínek was born in Prague. When Kubínek was just 3 years old, his family smuggled him to safety as they escaped the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Kubínek family spent two months in Austria in a refugee camp before they were granted sanctuary in Canada. That's where Tomáš became avidly fascinated with clowns, circus, theater, and magic.

Kubínek is notorious for his eccentric personality and all around humorous soul. Let's find out a little more about the man behind the Certified Lunatic and Master of the Impossible.

UH Presents: 
What were you like in High School?

Kubínek:

Like a speeding bullet... I crammed my courses, graduated at 16, went to college for theater, dropped out after a year at 17 and started performing full time.

UH Presents: 

Tell us something about Prague, your birth place that we might not know.

Kubínek:

A hotbed for alchemists during the renaissance, amazing architecture and history, great food, beer, music and theater. Similarities to Paris but more soul and light and less arrogance. Prague was at one time the cultural center of Europe and has one of the oldest continuously operating Universities in the world since 1348. It is the capital of Bohemia and that officially makes me a Bohemian!

UH Presents: 

What is the first thing you want to do when you arrive in Hawaii?

Kubínek:

I wish to cast off my luggage and winter clothes as i race towards the water and plunge in. I am looking forward to returning to Hawaii so much. After my tour i'm taking a week off in the islands and then flying to Canada's Yukon to 40 below weather and a week of touring up there. I'm looking forward to that as well!

UH Presents: 

Having travelled all over the world to perform your one-man show, what do you think is the common thread in comedy that connects all of your diverse audience?

Kubínek:

I think that one element that ties us humans together is that in our development we learned a lot through play - playing and being irreverent and courting a certain element of anarchy as we were and are socialized. That joyous element of mischief and irreverence is understood around the world and is key in certain aspects of humor.

UH Presents: 

Share an embarrassing moment during one of your performances.

Kubínek:

When I was a teen and didn't have a driver's license yet I would travel by bus and by hitchhiking to do little performances in communities. Once I got the name of the town wrong and took a bus 3 hours in the wrong direction to a similar sounding town and I totally missed the show. I made it up to them a few months later.

UH Presents: 
You have engaged in master-classes with many universities and correctional facilities. Any lessons learned from the prisons?

Kubínek:
From my visits to prisons I've learned to have more compassion and less judgement for people in general. I try to keep reminding myself of that approach to seeing things.

UH Presents: 

What is bad comedy?

Kubínek:

I don't know, I try to only practice the good kind! (i.e. tune into that funny place, get everybody laughing, and do it with love...)

UH Presents: 

What is your favorite dessert?

Kubínek:

I've been laying off of sugar for the last year but I love many desserts - black forest cake, cheesecake, a fine Tiramisu in Italy, a special kind of ice-cream in a dumpling pouch from Japan. Various flavors of ice-cream. Dark chocolate. Hazelnut chocolate ice-cream. Czech dumplings with fruit and melted butter... I love desserts but now just dream of them most of the time...

UH Presents: 

Share a funny thought.

Kubínek:
Recently near my little village I drove past a parked police cruiser facing the road and sitting alone in the driver's seat looking out at traffic was a german shepherd. Without really thinking I thought - "Geez they're replacing people everywhere just to cut costs..."

Here’s a preview of Kubínekʻs performance.

Don't hesitate to visit http://www.outreach.hawaii.edu/community/ and purchase your tickets. Come have a wonderful time and a good laugh with us on February 10, 2019 at the Leeward Community College Theatre at 2pm or you can call us at (808) 956-8246.