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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. THE ART OF REVOLUTION: THE POLITICAL IMPACT OF PLAYWRIGHT

VACLAV HAVEL

by

Rachel Melissa Hodges

submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

in

Arts Management

Chair:

/p tslo eMartin Lin . a

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Date

1999

American University

Washington, D.C. 20016

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This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann A rbor, M I 48103

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE ART OF REVOLUTION: THE POLITICAL IMPACT OF PLAYWRIGHT

VACLAV HAVEL

BY

RACHEL MELISSA HODGES

ABSTRACT

This thesis addresses the question: does theatre have political significance? This thesis

examines the development of theatre as a political force in Czechoslovakia from the Soviet

invasion in 1968 to the “Velvet Revolution” in 1989. The “Velvet Revolution” peacefully

overthrew the Soviet Communist government. Using playwright Vaclav Havel’s

involvement in the development of the “Velvet Revolution” as a case study, this thesis

asserts that theatre is a political force. An examination of Havel’s role in the events leading

the “Velvet Revolution” show that his work as an artist placed him at the center of the

struggle for democracy in Communist Czechoslovakia. Particular attention is paid to

Havel’s “Vanek Plays” which provide a back drop for much of his political and artistic

activities.

ii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... ii

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION...... 1

A President, A Man, A Hero

2. THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN...... 4

The Prague Spring

The Political Artist

3. THE VANEK PLAYS...... 21

4. CHARTER 7 7...... 33

Prison and Fame

Glasnost

5. THE VELVET REVOLUTION ...... 41

After the Revolution

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 47

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

To truly understand the political significance of theatre in the Czech Republic-

past, present, and future—would take volumes. The political significance of theatre,

however, was best exemplified by those crowning moments in Prague in 1989, when

Vaclav Havel’s Civic Forum peacefully brought down the Communist government, and

later when Havel was elected President. Those moments were the result of many years of

hard work by the artistic community in the former Czechoslovakia.

The political significance of theatre in the Czech Republic can be illustrated by

examining and understanding how Vaclav Havel’s career grew and culminated with him

leading the “Velvet Revolution,” the peaceful overthrow of 30 years of Communist rule.

I tell this story not just from author’s vanity, but also because it illustrates several qualities of the most delightful of all the year’s (1989) Central European revolutions: the speed the improvisation, the merriness, and the absolutely central role of Vaclav Havel, who was at once director, playwright, stage manager, and leading actor in this his greatest play.1

An examination of Havel’s role in the events leading to the “Velvet Revolution” will show

that his theatre placed him at the center of the struggle for democracy in Communist

Czechoslovakia.

1 Timothy Garton Ash. The Magic Lantern: The Revohition of "89 Witnessed in Warsaw. Budapest. Berlin and Prague (New York: Vintage Bodes, 1990), 79.

1

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A President. A Man. A Hero

Vaclav Havel was reelected President of the Czech Republic in January 1998 by only

a narrow margin. His past term as President had not been marked by the victories and

praise he had experienced during the “Velvet Revolution” or the early days of his

presidency.

And what has come of these hopes and intentions? They had their moment of supreme triumph in the revolution of 1989. Everybody agrees on that. But in the years since there have been-there had to be, it is a law of human behavior—set backs and even blunders, a whole series of them committed by Havel himself which have sent Czech society marching in every direction but his own.2

The years 1996 and 1997 were particularly difficult for Havel: he became estranged from

his brother, Ivan, in a very public family feud; his government was shaken by the scandal

and subsequent resignation of his prime minister, Vaclav Klaus; there was international

criticism of his handling of a bid for NATO membership; his wife died, and he quickly

remarried a younger actress.

Havel has kept his luster better than most. But he has his vices, and he has grown to enjoy power and proven himself willing to make unHavel-like compromises with his country’s right wing in order to keep his position as president. Havel thrived in a black-and-white world. He struggles with the compromises and gray zones of modem politics.3

Despite recent criticism, Havel has remained a Czech hero. Not even his critics can

deny the central role he played in the history of the Czech Republic or in the fell of

Communism in East Central Europe. Havel was also central to Czech theatre. Milan

2 Paul Berman, “The Poet of Democracy and His Burden,” New York Times. 11 May 1997, sec. 6,47. 3 Tina Rosenberg, “Playwright on the Stage o f History,” Washington Post. 19 September 1993, sec. Book World, X I.

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Kundera says of Havel, “He is without a doubt still the preeminent Eastern European

playwright of his generation and one of the most powerful and effective satirical voices

since Anton Chekov and Mikhail Bulgakov.” Regardless of his successes and failures in

political office, Havel was by all accounts the “central” player in the creation of the

“Velvet Revolution” and the ultimate overthrow of the Communist government.

When one thinks of the patriots who led the human tide which drove communism out of Eastern Europe five years ago, no name on the marquee blazes more brightly than that of Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia. Havel was not the radical activist or revolutionary. He was a dissident playwright and poet who inspired the imagination of millions as he endured the hardships of a Communist prison, eventually to lead the Czech “Velvet Revolution” and gain freedom from Communist oppression.4

Havel rose to political prominence because of his work in the theater in the 1960s, 1970s,

and 1980s. A look at the Czech history of the past thirty years shows that the pivotal

events (“Prague Spring” of 1968, “Charter 77”, VONS) leading to the “Velvet

Revolution” all began in the theatre and literary circles, with Havel participating and often

acting as the catalyst. This would suggest that the theatre scene which centered itself

around Havel was the fuel of the revolution.

4 Herbert G. Klein, “Czech Republic shines brightly as a free nation success story,” San Diego Union- Tribune. 18 December 1994, sec. Opinion, G-l.

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THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

Vaclav Havel was bom on October 5, 1936, to a prominent bourgeois family. His

grandfather was a well-known architect in Prague and his father was a successful engineer.

His family’s successes put them in the class known at the time of Havel’s birth as “first

generation capitalists.”3

In 1948, the Soviets invaded what was then Czechoslovakia and installed a

Communist government. It was considered “very unfavorable” under Communism to be

from a family of capitalists. The ideas of capitalism were contrary to those of

Communism. Havel says “He was often frustrated for ‘class’ or ‘political’ reasons from

obtaining a higher education.”6

After repeated attempts to attend several universities in Prague, Havel was finally

allowed to take economic classes in the evening. He took an avid interest in writing and

theatre and was inspired by a variety of artists such as the banned poet, Jaroslav Seifert,

playwrights Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco, and his favorite author, Franz Kafka.7

During this time, Havel began writing and publishing articles in literary and theatrical

5 Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, trans. Paul Wilson, (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 3-5. 6 Ibid.. 3-33. 7 Rosenberg, “Playwright on the Stage of History,” Washington Post xi.

4

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magazines. As a result, Havel began to socialize more and more with the artistic circles in

Prague.

It was 1952 or 1953—until the 1960s, various friends of my own age and I would sit with Jiri Kolar ( poet and visual artist exiled to Paris in the 1970s) at his famous table in the Cafe Slavia. Later we even collaborated with him: for example, we organized, with Kolar’s blessing, various semiofficial appearances in the Umelecka Beseda, or artist’s club. We even participated in the samizdat (underground publications of government banned writings) of the time.. . . (I) slipped into the company of those who were working on the borderline between what was permitted and not permitted and more often beyond those borders.8

His writing during the early 1950s helped gamer Havel an invitation to be part of a young

writer’s conference at Dobris. Havel made his first public appearance at this conference in

the fall of 1956. During the conference, the Soviet army landed in Budapest to crush an

uprising. As a result, the atmosphere at Dobris was tense and writers were apprehensive

to speak out. Havel commented in Disturbing the Peace that the conference was

disorganized and that there were a lack of speakers. When a conference leader asked if

there was anyone else who wished to speak, the young Havel caused quite a stir by

pointing out the “ambiguous relationship between official and suppressed literature” and

suggesting that the group, all members of the Communist party, should recognize banned

poet Jaroslav Seifert.9

My entry into public literary life, then, had a whiff of rebellion about it, and this has somehow clung to me: many still consider me a controversial person, to this day. Not that I welcome it: I am certainly not a revolutionary or a “rebellious bohemian” (Jindrich Chalupecky’s term); it just seems that given the logic of things, 1 always manage to find myself whether I want to or not, in such a position.10

* HaveL Disturbing the Peace. 72. 9 Ibid, 32-33. 10 Ibid

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In the case of Havel and Prague, theatre had a significant impact on politics and, as a

result, on the country. Understanding Havel as an artist is crucial to the understanding of

his philosophies. It was through his struggle to be a playwright in a Communist bloc

country that he attacked the totalitarian political system under which he lived. Havel still

considers himself an artist first and a politician second.

He (Havel) was doomed to become a political man. In this country it is difficult to be a writer and avoid politics. When the regime lies about the weather, when one is constantly swimming in official half-truths and dialectical-metaphysical statements that claim to constitute reality while denying it, anything that points to truth, any true statement becomes political.11

Havel feels that true art is an extension of self expression and is affected by personal

experience. Art that is purely political is not art but a political statement. Havel is not a

trained politician and he does not try to hide this fact.

I’ve never taken a systematic interest in politics, political science, or economics: I’ve never had a clear-cut political position, much less expressed it in public. I am a writer, and I’ve always understood my mission to be to speak the truth about the world I live in, to bear witness to its terrors and its miseries—in other words, to warn rather than hand out prescriptions for change.12

Havel discovered theatre and playwriting in 1957 during the beginning of his two

years of required military service.

It was in the army that I first came into active contact with the theatre and it just happened under rather serious circumstances—the army still strongly supported cultural activities: the regiments and the divisions used culture to gain greater legitimacy and were judged for their performance.13

Havel and Carl Beynda, who later became head of the Drama State Theatre in Ostrauvd,

directed a production of Pavel Kohout’s September Nights for the troops. The play was so

11 Rosenberg, “Playwright on the Stage of History,”Washington Post, xi. 12 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 8. 13 Ibid., 37.

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well received that Beynda and Havel then founded the Regimental Theatre Company.

Together, they produced and wrote a play called The Life Ahead for an army competition.

The play was an instant success with the men in the regiment. Their military superiors

were not as pleased; they condemned the play as “anti-army.” Havel concurred: “The

army took a close look at our personnel file (Beynda and Havel) and came, quite properly

to the conclusion that we were making fun of them”.14 Fearful of having a negative effect

on the morale of the men, the army decided not to cancel Havel and Benyda’s play. The

Life Ahead was performed at the regiment competition but was not judged. During the

competition the army added armed guards to the set.

The “Prague Spring”

At the end of his military service, Havel again tried to enter the university in Prague

and was again denied admittance. He then secured a job as a stage hand at the ABC

Theatre (Divadlo ABC), formally known as the Liberated Theatre of Voskovec and

Werich. The beginning of Havel’s career coincided with the “Prague Spring,” which began

gradually in the mid-1960s and ended abruptly in 1968 with a Soviet invasion. This

“Prague Spring” refers to a time when a group of intellectuals and Communists tried to

reform the Czechoslovakian government from the inside through a series of domestic

reforms. It was during this time, the mid-sixties, that the “political and cultural

atmosphere in Czechoslovakia began to relax.”15

14 Ibid, 38. 15 Lincoln Gordon, F.rnding Kmpirer Western Relations with Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987), 136.

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The theaters around Wcncelaus Square, the historic plaza and commercial center of the city, became showplaces for the plays of Havel, Ivan Klima and Milan Kundera. This was to be “Socialism with a Human Face.”16

Havel took advantage of this changed atmosphere and became part of the growing theatre

community in Prague by getting involved in numerous projects around the city. A

character, based on Havel in Pavel Landovsky’s play Arrest, described the “Prague

Spring” from an artist’s perspective: “in ‘68 I had the time of my life, and that was also

socialism.”17

Havel moved from the ABC Theatre to the Na Zabradli to work as a literary

advisor/dramaturg. He was able to “contribute to a number of stage shows” while

working the Na Zabradli.18 This work gained Havel significant experience and recognition

in the theatre community. This combination of experience and recognition resulted in the

premier of his first play, Garden Party at the Na Zabradli theatre on December 3, 1963.

The mid- and late 1960s were a time when Havel’s life as a playwright and a political

force became entwined. Havel was writing for various journals around Prague; this work

earned him a position on the editorial staff of the monthly literary magazine, Tvar, in 1965.

He eventually gained the position of Chairman of the Working Party of Young Writers, a

division of the Czechoslovak Writer’s Association, a state affiliated yet liberal

organization. That same year, 1965, Tvar was closed in protest by its editorial staff and

the Working Party of Young Writers. Havel “did not want to take instructions from the

16 Michael Dobbs, T h e Czech’s Long Dissent,” Washington Post Foreign Service. 22 August 1988, sec. Style, C l. 17 Pavel Landovsky, “Arrest,” in The Vanek Plavs: Four Authors. One Character, ed. Markets Goetz- Stankiewcz (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987), 163. 18 Vladislav, Living in Truth. 296.

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Communist Party and the Writers’ Association,”19 which had been controlling the content

of the magazine. Havel had made a serious statement against the government by shutting

down the magazine.

Havel continued producing plays that gave him a powerful voice against a suppressive

government. Havel’s play Memorandum premiered on July 26 of 1965.

Memorandum describes an organization that introduces a new ’scientific’ language to replace the ordinary language. The new language is useless as a means of communication but is a valuable political weapon in the hands of bureaucrats who want to depose the old ”humanistic” managing director.20

Memorandum won an Obie award in the United States in 1968, drawing attention to

Havel and the problems of Czechoslovakia. Absurdist theatre plays with the meaning of

words. That wordplay had serious implications in Communist Czechoslovakia when many

characters were in the government or dealing with the government. Absurdist theatre for

Havel meant showing the ridiculousness of the conditions under Communism.

As for the conflict between the world of my plays and my civic activities, if I ignore the trivial truth that art operates by different rules from those of life or from those of thought conveyed through essays, I have to point again to the complementary nature of sense and nonsense. The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning--in other words of absurdity—the more energetically meaning is sought; with our vital struggle with the experience of absurdity there would be nothing to reach for; without a profound inner longing for sense, there could not then be any wounding by nonsense.21

This use of absurdity is exemplified by the “new scientific language” that is created in the

play, Memorandum Lear explains that the “new scientific language” was unsuccessful

and that they have created a new language that is much simpler; all the words are so

similar that it is almost impossible to make a noticeable mistake

19 Havel. Disturbing the Peace. 200-201. 20 Dobbs, “The Czech’s Long Dissent,” Washington Post Foreign Service. C l. 21 Havel Disturbing the Peace. 201.

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LEAR: The basic mistake of PTYDEPE was its uncritical overestimaticn of the significance of redundancy. Redundancy turned into a veritable campaign, it became the slogan of the day. But it was overlooked that side by side with useful redundancy, which indeed lowered the danger of incorrect interpretations of texts, there existed also a useless redundancy, consisting merely in a mechanical prolongation of texts, in the pursuit of maximum redundancy some eager clerks inserted within PTYDEPE words-already quite long enough, thank you-even further so-called “empty texts”, thus blindly increasing the percentage of redundancy, so that the length of inter-office communications grew out of all proportion and sense.

Let me give you an example. I've heard of a case where a brief summons to military HQ filled thirty-six typed pages single space All these mistakes have served as a sound lesson in the creation of the new synthetic language—Chorukor—which no longer attempts to limit the unreliability of a text by a strenuous pursuit of words as dissimilar from each other as possible, but, on the contrary, achieves this by a purposeful exploitation and organization of their similarity: the more similar the words, the closer their meaning; so that a possible error in the text represents only a slight deviation from its sense.22

This idea of creating new languages to create “political control” is Havel using “the

absurd” to encourage his audience to search for meaning.

The “scientific” language in the Memorandum is a metaphor for Marxism—and the play a thinly disguised description of what happened to Czechoslovakia when the Communists took over the country after World War II.23

On April 11,1968 his play, The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, opened. Havel

was awarded the Austrian State Prize for European Literature that year, again drawing

international attention to himself and to Czechoslovakia. It was the same year that the

Soviet invasion crushed the “relaxed social and political atmosphere” that had developed

in the mid- and late 1960s.24 The “Prague Spring” was crushed by Soviet tanks sent by

22 Vaclav Havel. “Memorandum” in The Garden Party and Other Plavs (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 124-125. 23 Dobbs, “The Czech’s Long Dissent.” Washington Post Foreign Service. C l. 24 Ibid., Cl.

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Soviet President, Leonid Brezhnev, to a country that was felling out of its “Communist

mold.”25

The renaissance came abruptly to an end with the August, 1968 Soviet invasion.

Newspapers and magazines were closed down. Hundreds of thousands of dissidents lost

their jobs in purges or were imprisoned. Many of the country’s best writers and directors

fled, finding feme and fortune in the West.26 Havel spent the invasion in Libraec at a

hijacked radio station where he openly and loudly denounced the Soviet invasion. Havel

chose to remain in Czechoslovakia under strict reforms called “normalization” rather than

to defect like many other artists at the time. Havel’s reason for staying in Prague after the

Soviet invasion were clearly expressed in his plays and by his interviews. In Disturbing the

Peace. Havel explained his decision to stay in Czechoslovakia.

I would never dare to ask anyone to shed his blood for our freedom, but I have no hesitation in suggesting that it might make more sense to attack the aesthetic educational system here, rather than running away to the God in the West.27

His decision to stay and struggle against the government as a playwright would eventually

gain him popularity with the Czech people. The popularity of this decision was depicted in

the plays of his peers over the years. Jiri Dienstbier’s play Reception broaches the subject

of Havel staying in Czechoslovakia. (Reception is part of a larger group of plays known as

the “Vanek Plays” which will be discussed later in this thesis. The main character

Ferdinand Vanek is based on Vaclav Havel)

25 Gordon, Eroding Empire. 136. 26 Craig Unger, “Prague’s Velvet Hangover; After their Revolution, Czech Artists are Against the Wall,” Los Aneeles Times. 12 May 1991, sec. Magazine, 20. 27 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 170.

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VANEK: (Quietly)I was offered an exit visa to New York during the trial. BREWMASTER: No kidding. I ask myself all the time how you could be so stupid. (He looks at Vanek) Or is it ‘cause your plays don’t get put on much abroad? VANEK: The invitation to New York was for the premiere of one of my plays. BREWMASTER: Even in New York you get special treatment. VANEK: How could I go and leave my friends in prison? BREWMASTER: But now they’re out, you sure did them a lot of good! Who knows! Maybe if you’d left, the cops would’ve been satisfied, and the others would long be home. VANEK: But this is my home! BREWMASTER: The slammer? Jesus, I don’t think I can take this any more VANEK: No, I don’t mean that. I can go home from here but not from exile. It means that I’m more at home in prison than I would be in New York.28

The Political Artist

Havel worked under conditions much different and much stricter than those of the

“Prague Spring” when he was beginning his career. There was an ideological shift in

Czechoslovakia at this time. Rather than trying to fight the Soviets from inside the

government, the movement came from outside government and Communist circles.

The failure of the Czechoslovak reform created a serious setback to hopes that a comprehensive regeneration could be initiated within any East European regime in the future. The Soviet led invasion of August 1968 signaled that the Soviet Union would not allow self-regeneration. The only alternative, therefore, was regeneration from outside the system from society itself; and against the system.29

28 Jiri Dienbistier. “Reception” in The Vanek Plays: Four Authors. One Character, cd. Markcta Goetz- Stankiewicz (Vancouver: University of Brush Columbia Press, 1987), 198. 29 Gordon, Eroding Empire. 18.

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Part of this ideological shift included many artists leaving the Communist party resulting in

the remaining cultural community of Czechoslovakia being in open opposition against the

Soviet Communist government for the years to come.

Czechoslovakia in 1968 was the occasion for many intellectuals to break with the Communist party. Interest in East European culture has tended to follow these political events. The Prague Spring and its repression produced a great fashion for Czechoslovak cinema and literature.30

It was during this time (the years following the “Prague Spring”) that Havel came to the

forefront of theater, culture, and politics in Czechoslovakia.

Havel joined with a group of writers to create the “Writer’s Independent

Conference.” He became the chairman of the “Writer’s Group,” a sub-committee of the

“Writer’s Independent Conference.” 31 Havel’s next significant move was to sign a letter in

1968 to the Communist government. This letter was from “150 writers and cultural

figures” who commented on the present state of the ‘democratization of Progress’ under

Dubcek.”32 This proclamation was in direct opposition to that used by the “Czech

Writer’s Association,” the same association that Havel, along with writers Pavel Kohout,

Ivan Klima and Ludvik Vaclik, were expelled from in June of 1967 after the Fourth

Congress.

It was at the Fourth Congress that Havel made the speech criticizing the

“undemocratic procedures” within the “Czech Writer’s Association.”33 The creation of the

“Writer’s Independent Conference” appears to be the point where Havel’s political

30 Gordon, Eroding Eipire. 229. 31 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 83. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 85.

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activities cannot be separated from his artistic activities. His plays, as well as his writings

in various theatrical and literary journals, may have been political on their own but it was

the combination of his work and his activities that made Havel truly suspect and a political

force. Perhaps it was the nature of theatre or of the artist that propelled Havel into

politics, or it could have been Havel’s own moral and political convictions that drove his

art to have political significance. Havel’s plays gave him a prominent voice against the

government and international attention.

Havel’s activities after the “Prague Spring” also brought him to the attention of the

Communist government. Almost more dangerous to the government than his activities and

writings in Prague was his fame as an internationally acclaimed award winning playwright.

In Dienstbeir’s play Reception a foreign prisoner exclaims his delight at meeting the

playwright Vanek (based on Havel) in prison.

BAVARIAN: (he looks at Vanek) That him? VANEK: (Gets up and they shake hands.) BAVARIAN: I am Bavarian (He pushes Vanek back into his chair). I knew the pen would be good for something. Tell me,where else would a small-time district bureaucrat meet a celebrity like yourself?34

The climate had changed significantly in Prague since the “Prague Spring” of 1968. The

censors and police were tougher and more suspicious of cultural activities. The

government felt that if it could control cultural activities it could suppress another

uprising. Havel discussed this issue in his “Letter to Dr. Gustav Husak” in 1975.

The m ain instrument of society’s self-knowledge is its culture; culture as a specific field of human activity, influencing the general state of mind-albeit often very indirectly—and at the same time continually subject to its influence. Where total control over society is completely suppressed regularly is its culture; not just

34 Dienstbier, “Reception,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 186.

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“automatically,” but as a phenomenon intrinsically opposed to the “spirit” of manipulation, but as a matter of deliberate “programming” inspired by justified anxiety lest society be alerted to the extent of its own subjugation through that culture which gives it its self-awareness. It is culture that enables a society to enlarge its liberty and to discover truth.33

In a collection of his essays called Living in Truth, including “Letter to Dr. Gustav

Husak,” Havel defines art by its importance to society and then he continues to explain

how the Communist regime controlled and ultimately forbade art from society. He

contests in sue essays that the government gained and maintained control of the Czechs by

stripping them of their culture and their history. In an article for The New York Times.

actor Ian McKellen wrote: “I believe that a nation’s identity is rooted in its culture. To

that extent the Communists were right.”36 One of the basic themes in Havel’s famous

essay “Power and the Powerless” was the importance of literature and art to the health of

a society.

Just as the prolonged deficiency of a vitamin which is only a minute portion of a human diet can eventually cause serious, even fatal illness, so a society can sicken and even perish if what it is offered is not the true vitamin of culture but an ersatz manufactured by apparatchiks.37

In 1985, Havel discussed the role he thought the arts should play in a society in an essay

about the “Vanek Plays.”

I think what does or should occur with all art, namely that the work exceeds its author or is, so to speak “clearer than he is” and that through the meditation of the writer-no purpose he was consciously pursuing—some deeper truth about his time reveals itself and works its way to the surface.38

35 Vaclav Havel, “Letter to Dr. Gustav Husak, General Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party,” in Living in Truth, ed. Jan Vladislav, (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), 16. 36 Ian McKellen, “Theater, When Poverty Begets Pride,” New York Times. 11 August 1991, sec. 2, p. 5. 37 Francis King, “The Man Who Cried Freedom,” Sunday Times. 23 June 1991. sec. Features. 31 Vaclav Havel, “Light on the Landscape,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 238.

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Havel felt strongly about his beliefs. He not only spoke out against the repression of

artists—he spoke out against the repression of all the people in Czechoslovakia. Theater

was not his only means of communication and dissent.

On August 21, 1969, Havel joined other cultural figures signing a document called the

“Ten Points.” This document criticized the “normalization” policy of the Communist

government.39 Havel was subsequently picked up by police, held and questioned for hours.

He had been arrested for “subverting the Republic” but was ultimately spared when his

trial was “postponed indefinitely.”40 The government may have felt pressured by the

international community. In this instance, Havel’s plays may have saved him from prison.

Yet, this was the beginning of a series of arrests that would plague Havel for the next

twenty years.

Despite many close calls with the government, Havel continued to write plays and

essays. His plays were condemned by the government so they were published by

underground presses and circulated throughout Czechoslovakia in secret papers such as

“Edice Expedic” Havel’s plays were smuggled out of the country to be published and

performed. Although his plays received international acclaim (e.g. with an Obie Prize in

1970 for Increased Difficulty of Concentration). Havel did not see one of his plays

performed for over twenty years, until after the “Velvet Revolution.” By the late 1960s,

Havel had gained enough of a reputation from his plays and international awards that he

was considered “suspect.” Heinrich Boll commented:

39Dobbs, “The Czech’s Long Dissent.” Washington Post Foreign Service. 4 March 1980, Cl. 40 Graham, “The Drama of Dissent,” Washington Post Bl.

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Beware, you who would take precipitate action for here speaks a rebel, one of the quiet dangerous kind, the gentle and courteous kind.41

Questions have arisen about Havel’s motivations: Was he politically motivated or

artistically motivated? Havel claimed in interviews conducted for the book, Disturbing the

Peace, that “he would consider his chief, original vocation—theatre.”42 The Communist

regime considered him more as a political threat. Havel claimed that he was “involved in

political activity in addition (to playwriting) because I feel it is my moral compulsion to do

so.” 43

The essays written about Havel and by Havel in the collection Living in Truth note

that his convictions in art and his “moral compulsions’ (his politics) were so deep they

became inseparable. This partnership of art and politics played itself out with his use of

the Theatre of the Absurd. “Absurdist theatre tends to concentrate upon the irrationality

of human experience,”44 which was a logical genre for plays about common man in a

Communist society. One of the themes in Theater of the Absurd is the belief that

“language is used as a major rationalistic tool.”45 Havel experimented with the meaning of

words; the dialogue in his plays often had two meanings or was so complex that it created

a sense of confusion for the characters and his audience. This is visible in his play

Memorandum. Another example of Havel playing with semantics while poking fim at the

Soviets comes from his first play, Garden Party.

SECRETARY: Listen-Large Dance Floor. A—when we look at it from the distance of time—

41 Heinrich Boll, “Courtsey Towards God” in Vladislav, Living in Truth. 212. 42 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 37-72, passim. 43 Jan Vladislav, ed. Living in Truth (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), DC 44 Oscar G. Brockett, History of the Theatre (Allyn and Bacon: Boston, 1968), 648. 45 Ibid, 648.

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CLERK: Yes? SECRETARY: Is in a certain sense really— CLERK: Yes? SECRETARY: Larger than Small Dance Floor C— CLERK: In the context of the new historical situation, certainly. SECRETARY: They concealed it from us, didn’t they? CLERK: But now let’s not be afraid to say openly: if we move Self- Entertainment with Aides to Amusement to Large Dance Floor A— SECRETARY: We shall thus enable a greater number of employees to entertain themselves with Aides to Amusement. CLERK: Today we no longer have to be afraid of Aides to Amusement! SECRETARY: Wait—isn’t it just another mouse-trap? CLERK: I beg your pardon! SECRETARY: I’m sorry. Large Dance Floor A is indeed large! I admire the courage with which it has been revealed to us.46 This technique was effective in revealing the conditions of Communist Czechoslovakia

through humor. Through his use of Theatre of the Absurd techniques, Havel was using

the regime as his foil. He explained the effect of this type of theatre in Disturbing the

Peace:

Even the toughest truth expressed publicly, in front of everyone else, suddenly becomes liberating. In the beautiful ambivalence that is proper only to theatre, the horror of that truth (and why hide it—it looks worse on-stage than it does when we read it) is wedded to something new and unfamiliar, at least from our reading: to delight (which can only be experienced collectively) because it was finally said, it’s out of the bag, the truth has finally been articulated out loud and in public. In the ambivalence of this experience there is something that has been a part of theatre from the beginning: Catharsis.47

Some of his plays appear to be a forum for Havel to expose the empty truths that he

thought Soviets based their government on. He was willing to use examples from his own

life to make his point.

2nd INTERROG.: Wasn’t it Havel, by any chance? It was Havel, wasn’t it? VANEK: (Shrugs his shoulders.)

46 Vaclav Havel, “Garden Party” in Garden Party. 14-15. 47 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 200-201.

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2nd INTERROG. Everybody knows that—Havel is a millionaire’s son! VANEK: Marx was also a millionaire’s son. All I know is that Mr. Havel’s lather built one of the most beautiful parts of the city and his uncle was the founder of the Czech cinema. 2nd INTEROG: And while they were at it, they were lining their pockets! So, you see, you remembered the author of the Charter! VANEK I never said he was the author- 2nd INTERROG. Why, would you stand up for him when compared to him you’re only a proletarian! Even today, he has enough to get himself out of any trouble! VANEK: So, why is he banned? 2nd INTERROG. Why? Because he kept asking for the capitalists to come back! VANEK: Were? When? 2nd INTERROG. He wanted to hang us all from lamp posts! VANEK: Show me! 2nd INTERROG.: Would you also like to see us hanging from lamp posts? That won’t happen, Mister Vanek! VANEK Just show me, when and how wanted that? 2nd INTERROG.: The comedy is over, Mr. Havel VANEK: Stop calling me Havel 2nd INTERROG.: What? VANEK: My name is Vanek! 2nd INTERROG.: And so VANEK: You are calling me Havel 2nd INTERROG.: You are all the same bunch!48

This quote shows how the Communist government would use semantics to twist what

some were saying.

Havel would find himself in similar situations with the police as his character “Vanek”

as his political activities escalated in the 1970s. Havel’s political activities reached a high

point on December 4,1972 when he signed a petition to the president with 35 other

writers requesting amnesty for all Czech political prisoners, many of whom were artists

themselves. This petition, combined with previous and subsequent activities against the

state, angered the Czech government. An uneasy relationship between Havel and the

48 Vaclav Havel, “Morass “ in Goetz-Stankiewcz, The Vanek Plavs. 125.

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government that resulted in sparse employment opportunities caused him in 1974 to seek

work in Northeast Bohemia. Havel spent nine months in Northeast Bohemia working at

the Tretna Brewery. He used that experience to write the play Audience and to create the

character Ferdinand Vanek.

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THE VANEK. PLAYS

The “Vanek Plays” are eight one-act plays by four different Czech authors written

over a period of ten years. The plays all “share” the same main character, Ferdinand

Vanek, created by Vaclav Havel in 1975 for his play, Audience. The four Czech

playwrights were all friends and contemporaries of one another. Havel wrote the first two

“Vanek plays,’’Audience and Unveiling in 1975 for the amusement of his friends. He wrote

Protest (1978) a few years later at the request of Pavel Kohout. Kohout followed with

Permit (1979), Morass (1981) and Safari fl 985), all written in German. Pavel Landovsky

wrote Arrest in 1981 and Jiri Dienstbier wrote Reception in 1983, based on his

experiences in prison with Havel.

Vanek is written as a quiet, clumsy, unassuming writer living in the totalitarian society

of 1970s Czechoslovakia. Havel created a character that both artists and everyday citizens

in Czechoslovakia could understand. Friends, writers, and actors of Havel’s “borrowed”

the character, feeling he exemplified the situation in Communist Czechoslovakia.

According to Havel,

The Vanek plays say--as a whole--something about the world in which it was given us to live our lives.49

49 Vaclav Havel, “Light on the Landscape,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 239.

21

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Ferdinand Vanek was used as a “dramatic principle” according to Havel in his essay

“Light on a Landscape”

He does not usually do or say much, but his mere existence, his presence on stnge and his being is what makes his environment expose itself one way or another. He does not admonish anyone in particular; indeed, he demands hardly anything of anyone and in spite of this, his environment perceives him as an invocation somehow to declare and justify itself.. . . The Vanek plays, therefore, are essentially not plays about Vanek, but plays about the world as it reveals itself when confronted with Vanek.50

In Havel’s play, Protest, the main character expresses his frustration at Vanek’s particular

style of interacting.

STANEK: Don’t you realize that your benevolent hypocrisy is actually far more insulting than if you gave it to me straight?! Or do you mean I’m not even worthy of your comment?51

The vast experiences of the writers provided the different situations and settings for

Vanek. Each situation as exposed by Vanek provides a different look at life in Communist

Czechoslovakia. Two of the Vanek writers resided in Prague (Havel and Dienstbier) and

the other two had been exiled to Vienna (Landosvsky and Kohout). Havel’s plays

(Audience. Unveiling, and Protest) have Vanek contact private citizens.

In Audience. Vanek is a writer forced to work in Trutnov Brewery as happened to Havel himself in the 1970s. During the play, “the brewmaster drinks himself into a beer-induced stupor in his office while trying to press Vanek into helping him be a police informer.”52

Pat Donnelley of The Gazette Newspaper in Montreal described the play

50 Vaclav HaveL, “Light on the Landscape,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 238-239. 51 Vaclav Havel, “Protest” in Goetz-Stankiewcz, The Vanek Plavs. 125. 52 Craig R. Whitney, “When the Playwright’s the President, Now That’s Really a Premiere,” New York Timer. 13 January 1990, sec. 1, 13.

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as essentially a conversation between two men, one of them a writer(Vanek) who serves as a foil to the politically incorrect other (the brewmaster). Layer by layer, spiritual desolation is slowly revealed.13

Pat Donnelley also offers a concise and accurate description of Havel’s play, Unveiling.

Vanek is again the writer, this time paying a visit to some friends—a glamorous, affluent couple who bore him to death with their lifestyle obsessions and cute stories about their kid. When he attempts to leave early, to go home to his wife, whom they criticize mercilessly, his friends become so pathetically distraught, he feels obliged to stay.54

This couple gained their affluence by compromising their principles and in a sense “giving

in to” the communist government thus allowing them many amenities denied to a writer

like Vanek.

MICHAEL: We’re only trying to help, Ferdindand! VERA: You’re our best friend—we like you a lot- you have no idea how happy we’d be for you if your situation finally got resolved somehow! VANEK: What situation?55

Michael and Vera continue to compare their life with that of Vanek’s.

MICHAEL: Life is rough and the world is divided. The world doesn’t give a damn about us and nobody’s coming to our rescue-we’re in a nasty predicament, and it will get worse and worse—and you are not going to change any of it! So why beat your head against the wall and charge the bayonets? VERA: What I can’t understand is how could you have got mixed up with those Communists? VANEK: What Communists? MICHAEL: Well, that Kohout and his crowd—you don’t have anything in common with but you’re defiantly strong enough to withstand that isolation! VERA: Just take a look at us—you could be just as happy as we are— MICHAEL: You could have a home with character o f your own— VERA: Full of nice things and good family vibrations— MICHAEL: A well-coifed and elegant wife— VERA: A bright kid-

53 Pat Donnelley, “Acting is superb in Vaclav Havel’s Stinging Double Bill,” The Gazette (Montreal'), sec. Entertainment, E8. 54 Ibid. 55 Vaclav Havel, “Unveiling,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 234.

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MICHAEL: You could have a more appropriate job— VERA: Make a few crowns— MICHAEL: Later they’d even let you go to Switzerland/6

Loyalty to the Soviet government during this time could provide citizens with many

amenities denied to those who protested against the government. This was a theme in

many of the “Vanek Plays.”

BREWMASTER: Want some coffee? VANEK: You can—You have— BREWMASTER: Yeah, sure, If you play your cards right, you get what you want- even in the slammer.37

While the first two of Kohout’s “Vanek plays” also place Vanek in the situation of

dealing with state officials, Dienstbier’s play Reception and Landovksy’s Arrest have

Vanek in prison, and Kohout’s Safari has Vanek living in Vienna as a “dissident writer”

and being “interrogated by the Western media.” The eight plays place Vanek in a variety

of other situations that exemplify the experiences of his authors especially that of his

creator, Havel.

No matter how different the life and style of the authors who have appropriated Vanek so far, each of their Ferdinands preserves symptomatic traits of his spiritual father. Invariably each and every one of them is in essence Havel portrayed by different painters, including himself.38

Most writing and criticism of the “Vanek Plays” focus on the shared character of

Ferdinand Vanek as not only reflecting the experiences of his authors but also those of the

Czech people. Vanek is not the only shared character in the plays.

56 Ibid., 234-235 57 Jiri Dienstbier, “Reception,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 185. 58 Pavel Kohout, “The Chaste Centaur,” in Vladislav, Living in Truth. 244.

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There are constant references in the plays to the other Vanek authors. Pavel

Landovsky has claimed to have written the first Vanek play not written by Havel in

response to Havel’s reference to him in the original Vanek plays as a drinker.

When in 1976 I introduced the Vanek-character in the play Saitami noc—his first appearance outside Havel’s one-act plays—I did it rather to get even with my friend Vaclav (Havel) because he had put me (name and all) into his play Audience. something which inflicted on me a remarkable popularity in almost all of the theatrical world . . . when the French “superstar” actor Daniel Gelen was on tour in Vienna, playing the part of Vanek (in the play Protest) he did not search out the man who at the time was the Austrian minister of culture, but immediately wanted to meet that guy Landovsky who on late-night binges had roamed through Prague with Vaclav Havel and prevented him from writing yet another work of genius.59

These continued references to each other in the “Vanek Plays” allowed for a cheerful

dialogue between the authors. Pavel Kohout first appears in Havel’s Audience.

FOREMAN Who’s this Kohout anyway? VANEK: Kohout? Which Kohout? FOREMAN I heard a feller called Kohout came to visit you.. VANEK: That’s a colleague of mine. . . FOREMAN Another writer?60

Kohout is mentioned again in Reception bv Dienstbier. Dienstbier also reintroduces

Vanek to the Foreman from Havel’s Audience. This time the two meet in jail and the

Foreman is simply known as the Brewmaster.

BREWMASTER: Look who’s talking. You and parole! Not unless you come up with a TV speech like that actor or director or whoever he was. But I know you, you couldn’t. Not you! You never change. Never listen. Even then, which that Holub or whatever his name was— VANEK: You probably mean Kohout. BREWMASTER: Yeah, Kohout, sure you didn’t even stop seeing Kohout. I kept telling you. And who was right? Me, and ordinary brewery stud

59 Pavel Landovsky, “Ferdiand Havel and Vaclav Vanek,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, 245. 40 Vaclav Havel, “Audience,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 192.

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with none of your schooling and your movie star connections. I was right. Where is your Kohout now? Well where is he? VANEK: He went to Austria on an official business trip. BREWMASTER: See? Spreads his wings over the beautiful blue Danube. And in the right direction, too. VANEK: Actually, they pushed his car over the border. He was returning home.61

The tables are turned on Havel when Kohout uses him in his play, Permit

SUPERVISOR: Psst! Do you remember how it was with Havel? CECH: So what's the problem? He had a schnauzer and got to pay lower taxes on account of it. SUPERVISOR: And I almost got a reprimand. CECH: Only almost, Comrade Trubacova. Because they asked you, you asked me, and that was that. They accepted the fact that schnauzers are reservists for the Ministry of Defense and that can’t be changed whether it’s Mr. Havel or Schmavel. SUPERVISOR: And what about Pavel? Kohout, I mean. CECH: What about Kohout? He transferred his champion dachshund to his wife and you accepted her when she used her maiden name. Who could have caught it?62

This example from Kohout’s Permit shows how adeptly the play made a farce of how the

government operated. The mention of Kohout’s wife is another common tactic of the

"Vanek Plays,” partly to honor their wives, who were also active in the movement, but

who suffered due to their husbands’ theatre activities.

2nd INTERROG.: So—question one. Disclose everything you know about the distribution of pornographic pictures showing you and Havel, Olga, birthdate, address, fill that in later. VANEK: Nothing. 2nd INTERROG.: I want to make it clear to you that making those pictures is strictly your and Mrs. Havel’s private affair. We might not like it—and, I would guess, our citizens won’t either-its disgusting, but not punishable by law. It becomes a criminal act only when it is distributed to two or more parties and that’s really the question.63

61 Jiri Deinstbeir, Reception, in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 194. 62 Pavel Kohout “Permit." in Goetz-Stankiewicz. The Vanek Plavs. 95. 63 Pavel Kohout, “Morass,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 139.

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Mostly though it was in response to the government’s attempt to discredit the authors by

announcing their infidelities.

1 he only secrets left to be told were private ones. Sometimes the result was marital troubles, but in most cases the police couldn’t even count on that. When during an interrogation they pointedly asked a friend of mine, “Mr. X, do you cheat on your wife?, X. without batting an eyelid, replied, “ And don’t you, major sir?”--which put an end to the issue.64

There were also a variety of minor characters that made appearances in many of the

plays:

Stanek, the well-adjusted playwright who manages to provide the most convincing arguments for not signing the dissident letter in Havel’s Protest is referred to in Kohout’s Permit as having attended a formal occasion in the Czech National Theatre; the gypsy Sherkezy, who rolls barrels in Audience and tends to arrive at work tipsy has ended up in prison in Reception, where he tattoos the prisoners with imaginative variations of the Hradcany Castle.65

Sherkezy is mentioned in both Audience and Reception but he never appears on stage.

BREWMASTER Come on, you wanted to quit! VANEK: No, I had to have an operation. For a hernia. BREWMASTER Those were good times, eh? Sherkezy is here too. VANEK: The guy who was on full barrels? BREWMASTER Yeah. That gypsy son of a bitch. Why don’t you sit down? VANEK: What happened to him? BREWMASTER Some chick. You know how it goes. He slugged a guy for screwing one of his personal cunts. Hit’im with a heavy chain, you know. And that bastard almost kicked the bucket. VANEK: Pardon? BREWMASTER: But they managed to pull him through. Luck for Sherkezy. VANEK: I see. BREWMASTER: (Gets up, unbuttons his shirt and reveals a color tattoo of Hradcany castle emblazoned on his chest) See this? That’s what I call poetry. Eh? Hradcany castle. And in living color! (he quickly buttons up his shirt). Sherkezy is good. Can’t drink here, so he discovered other talents.66

64 Jiri Dienstbeir,“On Reception,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz.The Vanek Plavs. 247. 65 Goetz-Stankiewicz, xxv. 66 Dienstbeir, “Reception,” in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 185.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. These references from one play to the next made the outside reader feel as if he were part

of a secret club, which very well may have been a welcomed feeling to the Czechs, who

did not feel as if they belonged in the society created by the Soviet government. Czechs

could sympathize with many of the characters in the Vanek plays. They could relate to the

situations of the characters. Dienstbeir’s Reception began with the following

announcement:

ANNOUNCER: The play you are about to see is fictional. It describes none of the thousands of prisons glowing like pearls on the diadem of our civilization. The imaginary characters of our chamber drama find themselves in the entrance hall to an exclusive institution. This place is unfortunately not yet available to everybody, simply because of its limited capacity. Do not despair, however: it will suffice to look out of your window onto the street on which you live, to peep through a keyhole into the adjacent office, or to put your ear against the wall separating you from your neighbor. The play you are about to see is fictional. It describes none of the thousands of prisons.. .67

The “Vanek plays” explored relevant issues of the day. The plays, however, were light

and humorous, allowing people to laugh with and at each other, but most of all at the

government.

Many Czechs knew people who had been stripped of academic and cultural careers

only to become laborers, such as Vanek, who in Havel’s Audience was forced to work in a

brewery. Kohout presents another common situation in Permit. Vanek struggles with

authorities to get a dog license. Many seemingly simple things were much harder due the

bureaucracy of the time. Unveiling audiences related to a couple who gave in to the

demands of the Communist government in order to have a better life, a common struggle

67 Ibid., 182.

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of the time. Reception was set in a prison, which presented a very real threat to Czechs

under Soviet rule. In Reception. Vanek comments that ‘jail seems to be an existential

necessity for twentieth-century man.”6*

Vanek became a bit of a folk hero, whom a country without their own culture and

government could unite around and truly celebrate. Jazz musician, Martin Kratochvil, was

quoted as saying, “Art was like a magnet for people who disagreed with the regime. Unity

was having a common enemy.”69 People could come together with the Vanek plays,

relating to that portrayal of their life.

In this extreme situation people with entirely different personal histories and ideas discover themselves as well as each other. Without surrendering their own convictions, they learned to understand others; without losing the traits of their individuality, they found what they have in common.70

The experiences of Vanek and the “social context” in which he exists, in all the plays,

are situations that many Czechs during that time could relate to:

He (Havel) had discovered a vehicle for translating concrete information about concrete people and problems in a concrete period into a dramatic form capable of sustaining life on stage.71

In a society that repressed culture, the chance to see some version of reality on the stage

or even written about was exciting and affirming. A people with little culture were

looking for something or someone to relate to and they seemed to find that someone with

Ferdinand Vanek. The “Vanek plays” gave a voice to the people of that time.

Real figures and true occurrence thus merge with events on the stage in what seems a singular blend of fact and fiction of the world as a stage and the stage as the world

68 Ibid., 189. 69 Unger, “Prague’s Velvet Hangover,” Los Angeles Times, sec. Magazine, 20. 70 Pavel Kohout, The Chaste Centaur,”in Vladislav, Living in Truth. 242. 71 Ibid., 245.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reflecting in hs mirror images the complex, the personal, the political and the ethical issues of the contemporary world. 71

With the “Vanek plays,” Czech artists united and gave the Czech people something to

unite around. Theatre, by its nature, is a community art. This “community nature” had

appeal and power in Czechoslovakia. The power of the “Vanek plays” and ultimately the

power of Havel, laid in their ability to bring people together with shared experiences.

Thus, the artistic process had political impact.

In addition, the sub-culture of Vanek fans in Communist Czechoslovakia helped to

empower the citizens. Havel, in his essay on the Vanek plays, “Light on a Landscape,”

best described this phenomena in Czechoslovakia.

The play was successful not only with my friends but, also, having by various ways soon penetrated the relatively broad consciousness of the Czech public, also won its esteem. At times, it has even happened that total strangers, people in restaurants or casual hitchhikers I picked up, not only knew it but also had extracted from it pieces of dialogue they then used—in addition to short quotations or paraphrases—in various situations (in some cases as a sort of password among people spiritually akin) But what pleased me most is that something apparently happened which, I think, does or should occur with all art, namely that the work of art somehow exceeds it author, or is so to speak “cleverer than he is” and that through the mediation of the writer-no matter what purpose he was consciously pursuing—some deeper truth about his time reveals itself and works its way to the surface.73

Vanek made his “way to the surface” through secret recordings and scripts that

circulated throughout Czechoslovakia during the late seventies and early eighties. When

Audience was reprised in January of 1990 in Prague after the “Velvet Revolution”, many

Czechs, though they had never seen the play performed, were familiar with the themes

because of the recordings made by Havel and Pavel Landovsky.

72 Goetz-Stankiewicz, xxv. 73 Vaclav Havel, “Light on a Landscape”, in Goetz-Stankiewicz, The Vanek Plavs. 237-238.

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The two men, Havel playing Vanek, did a voice recording of the play in late 1978, before Landovsky went to Vienna. Many in the audience had heard the recording, and found Mr. Abraham absolutely faithful to the author’s rendition of Vanek’s subdued, intellectual tones.74

The plays were performed and known outside of Czechoslovakia due to the work of

Kohout and Landovsky. According to Kohout:

The world-wide acclaim received by the play (Audience! and when Vanek performed equally successfully in a second play Unveiling. I tentatively asked his creator for permission to use him in recording my own experiences. He not only agreed willingly but also actively endorsed the proposal. Out of this conversation grew the idea for a jointly composed evening of theatrical entertainment. In the autumn of 1979 the world premiere of his Protest and my Permit, collectively named Tests, took place in the Akademiethater in Vienna.75

The “Vanek plays” were particularly popular in neighboring Communist countries, such as

Poland, where they were performed in secret.

The stage was the living room of an apartment, the actors were some of the leading professionals from Warsaw’s best theaters, and the play was a work by Pavel Kohout, the emigre Czechoslovak playwright now living in Vienna The drama, Morass. concerns the interrogation of a Czechoslovak writer by the secret police, and the somewhat clandestine setting for the performance enhanced its impact. There was really not great danger that the Polish police would walk in, but the audience and the actors knew that it could happen, and that awareness linked everyone in the room with the author and subject of the play in righteous conspiracy.76

The plays became very popular internationally, drawing attention and informing the world

of the plight of citizens in Communist Czechoslovakia.

Havel is aware that his international reputation has helped him resist pressure from the authorities to fall into line. A recurring theme in his work is the dilemma faced by millions of his fellow countrymen: Compromise your principles or risk losing your job. In his play Audience, a typical faceless citizen turns on a soft-spoken dissident (Vanek) and shouts “You always got a chance, but what about me? Who’s gonna

74 Craig Whitney, “When the Playwright’s die President,” New York Times. 13 January 1990, sec. 1,13. 75 Pavel Kohout,” The Chaste Centaur,” in Vladislav, ivingl in Truth.245. 76 Michael T. Kaufman, “Poland; Illegal Drama in Living Rooms- And a Bit of Cultural Breathing Space,” New York Times. 29 March, 1987, sec. 2, 37.

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write about me? Who’s gonna help me? Who even gives a (expletive)? I’m just the manure that makes your fancy principles grow.”77

This international attention was one thing that made Havel dangerous and a threat to the

government; his power as a playwright.

77 Dobbs, “The Czech’s Long Dissent.” Washington Post Foreign Service. C l.

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CHARTER 77

On April 4, 1975 Havel wrote his “Letter to Dr. Gustav Husak.” Also in 1975,

Havel completed his version of the Beggar’s Opera, based on the Restoration play by John

Gay. An amateur production of Havel’s Beggar’s Opera was presented in Homi Pocmice

on November 1,1976. The production was discovered by police and used as “a pretext

for a major police drive against authors, actors, and some of the spectators.”78 More and

more in Prague, art and politics became inseparable. Havel’s Beggar’s Opera eventually

had its premiere abroad after the script was smuggled out of Czechoslovakia.

The Austrian Minister of Education invited Havel to attend the premiere of two of his

plays in Vienna (Audience and Private View). The Czech Foreign Ministry, however,

declared Havel was not allowed to travel because “he was not a representative of Czech

culture,”79 and because of his underground work with Czech artists.

These underground activities laid the groundwork for the creation of “Charter 77,” a

document which called for the government to follow its own laws. “Charter 77 created a

pluralistic solidarity committee for the monitoring of human rights.”80 The declaration of

78 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 124. 79 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 125. 80 Graham, “The Drama of Dissent,” Washington Post Bl.

33

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“Charter 77” on January 1 ,1977 and the events that followed brought the Czechs and

Havel closer to the “Velvet Revolution.”

“Charter 77 ” demanded the Prague government abide by the guarantees of freedom of expression in the Czech constitution and honor the human-rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki agreement.®1

The original group of “Charter 77” spokesmen included Havel, Jan Patoka and Jiri

Hajek, a former foreign minister. Havel, along with actor Pavel Landovsky and writer

Ludvik Vaculik were detained by police while delivering the original “Charter 77”

manifesto to the government. On January 14, 1977

Havel was taken for interrogation, held in detention till May 20, and charged with subversion of the republic as the author of the “Letter to Dr. Gustav Husak” and as the principal begetter and organizer of “Charter 77”. . . . Havel is sentenced to fourteen months’ imprisonment conditionally deferred for three years, for attempting to damage the interests of the republic.82

Havel described the importance of “Charter 77” in an interview in 1988:

The strength of “Charter 77”, he (Havel) said, is drawn from the truth it articulates, a truth which is on the whole shared by society. The Charter does not have the energy and the conditions to put what it says into practice. Nevertheless, the fact that there exists a crucial mirror held up to the times is extremely important. The importance of the mirror’s existence for exceeds the importance of the number of people holding it.83

“Charter 77” acted as a “mirror” by showing that the Czech government was not even

following its own laws, let alone international laws. “Charter 77” organized the Czechs

against the Communist government. This “pluralistic solidarity committee” continued

producing and publishing human rights documents into the eighties under the auspices of

“Charter 77. ”84

“ ibid. 82 Jan Vladislav. Living in Truth. 304. 83 Dobbs, "The Czech’s Long Dissent,” Washington Post Foreign Service. XI. 84 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 125-138, passim.

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Havel continued to write and sign petitions despite police surveillance and

interrogation distributing essays about the various government cases against him. For

example, “Report on my case” (January 28, 1978) discussed how Havel was detained at

the Railwaymen’s Ball, accused of “obstructing an official in his duty as well as assault.”85

He also wrote “Reports on my house arrest” (November 7, 1978) which discussed how

the police constantly monitored his houses in Prague and northeastern Bohemia.86 He

appealed to the Federal Ministry of the Interior about “illegal restriction of his

movements.”87 Just as in his plays, his reports pointed out the absurdity of the

government. His observations of the absurdities around him, whether in his plays or in his

essays, were enough to keep the secret police watching Havel.

Havel also continued participating in “suspicious activities.” For instance he was

involved in 1978 in two meetings on the Polish border that foreshadowed the fall of

communism. Representatives from the “Charter 77” group and the Polish Committee for

Citizens for Self-Defense met on the Polish border to discuss their common causes. These

two historic groups successfully met twice before being broken up by a combined effort

from the Czech and Polish police.88

Havel’s activities with “Charter 77” and a splinter group of that organization, VONS,

or the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted, culminated in a trial which

85 Francis King, “The Man Who Cried Freedom.” Sunday Times. 23 June 1991, sec. Features. 86 Ibid 87 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 125-138. passim. “ Ibid

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was called “ the biggest show trial in post-Stalin Eastern Europe.”89 The New York Times

ran an article on October 23, 1979.

Six Czechoslovak dissidents go on trial on subversion charges. Six, including playwright Vaclav Havel, are members of self-styled Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted established last year to investigate alleged injustice and abuse of power by the state. Three defendants—Dana Nemcova, Jiri Dienstbier and Vaclav Benda—plead not guilty. Otta Bednarova refuses to plead on moral grounds. Petr Uhl and Havel have yet to enter pleas. Vlasta Chramastova, an actress who also signed “Charter 77,” is detained with her husband outside the court building and led away by police.90

News reports of the trial were late. The New York Times article was published about

a day late because the Communist government held the trial in the smallest court room in

Prague, which was not large enough to hold the reporters.91 Havel was given the longest

prison term, four and a half years. The government tried to prevent information of the trial

getting out to the world because of the threat these artists created. Havel had created a

large enough threat to the Communists through his work to be given a long prison term.

Havel went to prison (after repeated arrests and interrogations) in 1979 for four and a half

years because of his “Charter 77” activities. With his imprisonment, the government

momentarily silenced him.

Prison and Fame

Havel’s plays were performed abroad throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Czech expatriates

rallied around Havel giving him and his country international recognition. Pavel Kohout

was pivotal in having Havel’s plays smuggled out of Czechoslovakia and performed. A

89 Graham, “ The Drama of Dissent,” Washington Post sec. Bl. 90 23 October 1979, New York Times. 10 (Information Bank Abstracts) 91 Graham, “ The Drama of Dissent,” Washington Post sec. B l.

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group of expatriates who left Prague after the Prague Spring in 1968 formed a publishing

company, “68 Publishers,” that deah mainly with works about the condition of East

Central Europe, bringing Havel and other Czech artists to the attention of artists in North

America.

Havel’s plays were performed internationally during his imprisonment. Havel became

the hero of the international artistic community as well as of the Czechs. He was honored

often during his imprisonment. First, on December 19, 1979 AIDA (Association

Internationale pour la Defense des Artistes) created a “dramatic reconstruction” of the

trial that had sent Havel to jail. “The Charter 77 Trial” was originally performed in Paris

starring an international cast which at one point included Pavel Kohout, who played

Havel. The AIDA piece was performed repeatedly around the world, in Germany, New

York, and Switzerland. AIDA had the show filmed in Munich and played on German

television. At the same time, it beamed the show to Czechoslovakia.92

Havel was again honored during the 39th International Theatre Festival at Avignon

on July 21, 1982. Festival officials included a “Night for Vaclav Havel,” six hours of plays

including the works of Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.

In a letter to Samuel Beckett written in April 1983, six weeks after his release, the Czech dramatist Vaclav Havel described “the shock I experienced during my time in prison when, on the occasion of one of her one-hour visits allowed four times a year, my wife told me in the the presence of an obtuse warder that at Avignon there had taken place a night of solidarity with me, and that you had taken the opportunity to write, and to make public for the first time, your play Catastrophe. For a long time afterwards there accompanied me in prison a great joy and emotion which helped me to live on amidst all the dirt and baseness.93

92 Graham, “The Drama of Dissent” Washington Post, sec Bl. 93 Samuel Beckett “Catastrophe,” in Vladislav. Living in Truth. 200-203.

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Havel was also honored by the academic community during his time in prison, receiving

honorary doctorates from York and Toulouse Universities.

The international attention from academic and artistic communities drew the attention

of government officials. Havel had been invited to spend a year in New York as a literary

advisor on Broadway but he refused. The offer was attractive to Czech officials since they

saw it as a chance to rid themselves of HaveL But Havel knew that if he left

Czechoslovakia he might not be able to return as had been the fete of his friends, Kohout

and Landosky.

Havel would have remained in prison for his full term had he not become gravely ill.

According to Havel in Disturbing the Peace, he developed pneumonia and was transferred

to the prison hospital on January 23, 1983. On February 7th the City Court issued Havel a

suspended sentence for “health reasons,” and he was released to a public hospital. The

Czech government may have been genuinely concerned that this international hero was

going to die in their prison. Havel says of his release:

(It) seemed like abject capitulation to the campaign, and an admission that they didn’t know how to handle my illness and were afraid that I might die on their hands.94

Havel contends that the pressure put on officials by his wife, Olga, and friend Kohout may

have saved his life.

I wrote about everything to Olga, including my uncertainty, during those first two days, about whether I would live or die. I knew that the censorship at Pankrac was milder, so I risked it. The letter got through. Immediately Olga and Zdenek Urbanek went to Pankrac and demanded to see me. This was impossible, of course... So, she (Olga) got angry, went home, and called Pavel Kohout in Vienna. Pavel was wonderful. He’s always been able to react quickly and practically and correctly in crises, and that’s exactly what he did this time: he called everyone he could think of,

94 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 161

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including various chancellors of the Western European state. Interventions in my behalf began arriving and the fight to save my life began.93

Havel was moved home on March 4, 1983, and began granting interviews to the

international press and writing again less than a month later.96 Havel claims he kept his

sanity during prison because of the “several hundred-page letters Olga and his brother sent

him each week.”97 Olga circulated these letters among the cultural community in

Czechoslovakia. She also hid messages from fellow artists in her responses to Havel.

These efforts kept Havel active and in the minds of his colleagues despite his

imprisonment. Havel and Olga’s correspondence was published in a volume called Letters

to Olga, which chronicles Havel’s life in prison and his thoughts at the time.

Glasnost

Havel’s release from prison produced a variety of works such as the one act play

Mistake, the essays “Responsibility as destiny,” “Politics and Conscience,” “Six asides

About Culture,” and the play Largo Desolato. which premiered in Vienna. Mikhail

Gorbachev, former Soviet Premier, described the basic principles of glasnost as laid out by

the Soviet government.

It is an urgent task of the Party to consolidate and promote in every way the basic principles of glasnost: that every citizen has the inalienable right to obtain exhaustive and authentic infermation on any question of public life that is not a state or military secret, and the right to open and free discussion of any socially significant issue.98

95 Ibid, 160 96 Ibid., 162. 97 Tina Rosenberg, “Playwright on the Stage of History,”Washington Post. 19 September 1993, sec. Bookworld, XI. 98 Mikhail. Gorbachev. Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (Harper &Row: New York ,1987), 290.

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Havel was still enough of a threat to the government that his plays continued to be banned

despite the new artistic freedoms.

As glasnost spread throughout the East in the late 1980s, those who continued to criticize the regime became heroes. Groups of performers known as the Prague Five created plays based on visual metaphors and action, rather than words, to withstand the state’s increasingly restrictive censorship. Theaters such as the Drama Club and Theater on the Balustrade (where Havel had worked) once again came alive with political and cultural activity."

One of the effects of glasnost was a political involvement in the arts from young Czechs.

During the 1980s, Havel commented on this young energy returning to the theaters in

Prague.

In the audience of one of those small new theatres that are springing up everywhere, you would feel that the young people you see there live in their own world, a world very different from the one that breathes on us from the newspaper, from the t.v. and the Prague radio.100

Havel was nominated to be a spokesperson again for the “Charter IT movement. He was

stopped by the police and held often during the nineteen eighties for the content of his

plays and his role in the new activities of “Charter 77.” These “underground” activities

and his reputation placed Havel in a perfect position to lead the “Velvet Revolution” in

1989.

99 Unger, “Prague's Velvet Hangover,” Los AngelesTimes. sec. Magazine, 20. 100 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 52.

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THE VELVET REVOLUTION

“The Velvet Revolution” began on November 17, 1989, with what was supposed to

be a peaceful student demonstration. The students received permission from the

government for a demonstration to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the death of student,

Jan Opletal, who had been murdered by the Nazis. This “peaceful” demonstration quickly

grew and the students were met by riot police as they marched towards Wenceslas Square

in Prague. The police beat the demonstrators including men, women and children. The

demonstrators chanted “freedom” and sang “We Shall Overcome” as they were attacked

by the police. A beating resulted in the death of one man.

The theatre students of Prague quickly organized a strike. By Saturday afternoon,

they were ‘joined by actors already politicized by earlier petitions in deference to Vaclav

Havel and drawn in directly by the very active students from the drama and film

academies.”101 Havel was called from his home in northeastern Bohemia to Prague by his

striking theatre colleagues and admiring theatre students, whose peaceful demonstrations

had erupted in the “Revolution” a day earlier. Thus, the quick and peaceful overthrow of

the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia began with the theatre community at the center

of the conflict. “The theatre people responded with a declaration of support which not

101 Ash, Maeic Lantern. 81.

41

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only brought the theatres out on strike but also turned their theatres into policy debating

chambers.”102 The theatres in Prague quickly became the “soapboxes” from which the

resistance movement flowed.

Soon after Havel’s arrival in Prague, the Civic Forum was created as “a coalition

representing all nonviolent and nonpartisan opposition groups,”103 and “a formal political

opposition group to the government.” The Civic Forum quickly became the official

spokesgroup and headquarters for the “Velvet Revolution.” Havel set up headquarters for

the Civic Forum at the Magic Lantern Theatre in the National Theatre Complex in

Prague.

On December 10, 1989, Gustav Husak resigned as president of Czechoslovakia and

Havel read a list of the names of the new cabinet members to the people waiting in

Wenceslas Square. This represented the end of the general strike of protest, the “Velvet

Revolution,” and Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. On December 29th, Havel was

elected president of Czechoslovakia and “in June of 1990 other artists and intellectuals

were brought into the government through parliamentary election.”104

To talk about the “Velvet Revolution” and not to talk about Vaclav Havel is to talk

about the American Revolution and not talk about George Washington. The major

difference between the two men was that Washington was a general who won his

revolution in the battle fields and Havel is an artist and an intellectual, who won his

revolution with words and on a stage. “It was extraordinary to the degree to which

102 Ibid.,81. 103 Ibid. 82. 104 Joanna Rotte, Scene Change: A Theatre Diary (New York: Limelight Editions, 1994), 47.

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everything ultimately revolved around this one man,” observed Timothy Garton Ash about

the future president, Vaclav Havel, during the “Velvet Revolution.” 105 Joanne Rotte, in

her book, Scene Change: A Theatre Diary, reflects on Havel’s election as president of

Czechoslovakia:

I have for quite a while been eager for the company of theatre practitioners from the only country on earth with a playwright (and not a lawyer or a military officer) as head of state. That a modem, diversified nation would vote an artist-intellectual who was, moreover, a dissident, into the leadership is entirely inspirational and nearly unimaginable to me. I muse on the extent at the improbability of Edward Albee, Maria Irene Fomes, David Rabe, or Ntozake Shange even being nominated for candidacy to the highest office in the United States.106

Vaclav Havel described the role of artists in Communist Czechoslovakia in an interview

during 1988.

A writer here has more functions than a writer in an open society. People have entrusted their hope into our hands. A writer is forced to play a political role, to express the will of society. This is an extra responsibility for writers, but it is also dangerous. A writer has to write the truth, he cannot be an instrument of someone else.107

The political activities of artists led directly to the “Velvet Revolution” in 1989 and to

the overthrow of the Soviet government. The Soviets, perhaps understanding the actual

power of the written, spoken, danced, sung, and acted word, enforced rigorous

regulations on anything artistic produced by the Czechs. Books and plays, past and

present, were banned for being considered “a threat to the Republic.” Everything written

or performed had to pass through uncompromising government censors.

105 Ash, The Magic Lantern. 81. 106 Rotte, Scene Chanee: A Theatre Diary, 9-10. 107 Dobbs, “The Czech’s Long Dissent,” Washington Post Foreign Service. C l.

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The “Prague Spring” was ignited by ’’artists and intellectuals who struggled openly in

favor of “Communism with a Human Face or real socialism.” The work created by

“Charter 77” helped to fuel the “Velvet Revolution.” The “glasnost” years, in the 1980s,

resulted in the growth of many small theatres throughout Prague, leading up to the

“Velvet Revolution.”

After The Revolution

The vibrant theatre scene in Prague may or may not have ended with the “Velvet

Revolution” but the story of Havel did not end with his election to the presidency

according to articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Havel is still

heralded as the country’s hero and savior, yet many of his closest advisors and friends

have distanced themselves from him. Most notable, is a recent dispute with his brother,

Ivan, over a piece of inherited real estate. The brothers are no longer speaking and also

publicly criticizing each other. Ivan was one of Havel’s closest advisors during the

“Velvet Revolution,” according to observer Timothy Garton Ash. Ivan Havel, like many

of Havel’s former colleagues, has been frustrated with many of his brother’s personal and

political decisions. A New York Times Magazine article by Paul Berman explored some of

the complexities that have developed between Havel and the intellectual and cultural

community he used to work in.

Almost every one of his (Havel) specific ideas went down to partial or total defeat... . I looked up a number of Havel’s old friends and allies, from before the revolution, and found them nursing some very mixed emotions on the topic of his successes and failures. Their irritation surprised me. They railed against Havel’s egomania, selfishness and imprudence. They complained that high office has gone to

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his head—that he had lost his easy democratic air. But then, having vented their resentments, these old friends would catch themselves and conclude that after all Havel has been crucial to their country’s progress. . . Havel has been the “main force” that keeps Czech democracy going, the “glue” that holds it together.108

Havel’s government is suffering under the pressures of creating a democracy in a free

market economy. Havel’s lack of statesmanship has been blamed for a “Velvet Divorce”

in 1993, when Czechoslovakia split and formed two separate countries, the Czech

Republic and Slovakia.109 In late summer and early M of 1997, the Czech government

was criticized for its apathy towards NATO membership.110 This combination of criticism

and adoration of Havel has created questions about the long lasting political significance

of theatre to a society. Can theatre remain significant in this new society it helped create?

What has happened to Czech theatre now that its main player is a politician? Has theatre

foiled Havel and the Czechs? Or has Havel foiled the theatre? Or, is it possible that both

the theatre and Havel have foiled the Czechs? Or, is the country just suffering the

“growing pains” of a new democracy?

Theatre, as with all industry or business in Prague, is fighting to survive the transition

from communism to democracy. Theatre is no longer a state supported institution.

Theatre is also no longer the working voice for a strong underground arts movement to

free a country. Theatre practitioners in Prague had been shielded for years from the

developments and trends in their field. How do they catch up? Most of the artists from the

“Velvet Revolution” are now devoting their time to careers in politics. What is the

mission of the remaining artists or new artists? How do the artists and the politicians

108 Paul Berman, “The Poet of Democracy and His Burden,” New York Times. 11 May 1997, sec. 6,47. 109 Ibid "O rv .v i

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preserve the significance of theatre in Prague? Do they criticize the government, their

friends and former colleagues? How will theatres in the new free-market economy of

Prague support themselves? Will there still be a prominent place in society for them? What

is the role of theatre now that the communists are no longer in power?

The fate of theatre in Prague could indicate what direction theatre should take in

modem democratic societies. No matter what the fate of theatre or of Vaclav Havel and

his government, the “Velvet Revolution” and the events preceding it have taught the

world that theatre can indeed change a people, a country, and even win a revolution. In

the words of Vaclav Havel, “Drama, in a unique way, always mirrors what is essential in

its time.”" 1

111 Havel, Disturbing the Peace. 200.

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Brockett, Oscar. History of the Theatre. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1968.

Brook, Stephen. Vanished Empire. New York: W. Morrow, 1988.

Drakulic, Slavenka. How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.

Goetz-Stankiewicz, Marketa, ed. The Silenced Theatre: Czech Playwrights Without A Stage. Toronto: University o f Toronto Press, 1979.

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