Czech playwrights take on establishment over communist past

By Michael Heitmann Feb 7, 2012, 2:06 GMT

Prague - Czech audiences are facing tough questions about their communist past, in an increasing number of plays by politically active playwrights.

Many consider themselves to be following in the footsteps of Vaclav Havel, the country's former president, who also made his mark as a writer.

Amid the national mourning that followed Havel's death in December, theatres faced the dilemma of closing their doors or raising their curtains in honour of the playwright, essayist and poet.

The small Theatre On Balustrade, where Havel worked for many years, compromised by deciding to stage just one play - Czech War, by the young Miroslav Bambusek.

The choice of this play, which focuses on resistance to communism, reflected the theatre's desire to take a political stance - like in the 1960s, when Havel was a young man.

For a long time, such a move would have been considered ludicrous. The pro-democracy movement of 1989 was followed by a calmer phase that lasted until just a few years ago.

After the tumultuous events of 1989, people in the Czech Republic's theatre scene became more conservative and supported the state, says Ondrej Cerny, director of the National Theatre in Prague.

But, since the current leaders have lost favour with the public, 'it is becoming normal for intellectuals and artists to oppose the establishment,' Cerny says in his office, overlooking River Vltava.

Meanwhile, a young man wearing a polo-neck jumper sits in the bar of the Theatre on Balustrade: Bambusek, one of the country's rising young authors.

'I have always seen the theatre as a place which reflects the influence of contemporary issues on us,' he says.

Bambusek's plays clash with staunch paradigms and do not shy away from conflict. In 2005, he staged a play on a post-war massacre of Germans.

Another of his critical plays focuses on uranium - a bold subject in a country where the vast majority supports nuclear energy. The venue for this play was an enormous military bunker in a former air raid defence centre.

In Czech War, Bambusek focuses on armed resistance to communism.

The spotlight is on fighters such as the Masin brothers, who shot their way to the West in the autumn of 1953. Several police officers in former East Germany died in the firefights.

'You just have to say 'Masin brothers' and everyone's hair stands on end,' Bambusek said. Many Czechs still see the brothers as cold-blooded murderers rather than resistance fighters.

'People here do not reflect that the communist regime murdered others as though they were on a conveyor belt, ' Bambusek muses.

Karel Steigerwald, whose play My Distant Home premiered at the National Theatre in February, is an established publicist and playwright, unlike Bambusek.

But Steigerwald also rails against society's unwillingness to apologize to the victims of communism.

His play focuses on a woman who spends 15 years in prison after being wrongly accused of helping escapees. She regains her house, only to be saddled with a mortgage which continued to grow in her absence.

The play centres around this paradox; the playwright says Europe's tradition of absurd theatre has had a 'huge influence' on Czechs.

Havel and others were inspired by playwrights active in France, such as Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionescu, whose works were performed during the Prague Spring in the 1960s. Many consider Havel's works to be less severe and to have a greater sense of humour than the French plays.

During the Prague Spring, Steigerwald saw Havel's plays performed on stage, before they were banned. 'We didn't find the plays absurd at all. They seemed to be realistic reports on the shape society was in,' he says.

Today, however, many Czechs have little desire to deal with the past.

'The country is enjoying incredible freedom, unlike anything it has seen before. Governments here are really powerless and nobody is afraid of them. The problem is human rather than political,' Steigerwald says.

Socially critical plays are enjoying mixed success on stage, as visitors are not always able to adapt.

'Playwrights have to get the opportunity to stage their plays,' said Cerny. Havel's plays, for instance, could become fashionable again.

One such play is The Garden Party, which premiered at the Theatre on Balustrade in 1963 and took a satirical swipe at the communist state bureaucracy, winning its author international acclaim.

'The Garden Party is still valid today, and pinpoint political and communication problems in society,' Cerny says.