Private View and Protest

10 - 15 & 24 - 28 NOV PLUS 6 DEC

Translated by Carol Rocamora and Tomas Rychetsky

In the 1970s, after the Prague spring was over, and Havel's plays were no longer acceptable in Czechoslovakia, he created the character of Vanek, a semi- autobiographical dissident writer, who appeared in short plays secretly disseminated around the Prague artistic underground. So popular (and funny and apt) was Vanek that other writers, including Pavel Kohout, the actor Pavel Landovsky and Jiri Dienstbier, later to become Foreign Secretary in the post-1989 government, asked to borrow him and wrote their own Vanek plays.
In the three Havel plays we meet Vanek first at work (in AUDIENCE, shown with MOUNTAIN HOTEL), then visiting friends and finally engaged in his 'dissident' activities.

Michael and Vera invite Vanek to a very PRIVATE VIEW of their newly re-furbished flat. They want to show off the new records they bought when abroad, their art acquisitions, the gothic Madonna and to offer their friend bourbon from the States and groombles served with woodpeak. But why does he seem to be withholding his approval?
PROTEST concerns the arrest of a pop musician. Vanek is invited to the house of Stanek, a well-known writer and media figure. But why has he been invited? And is it fortunate that he happens to have in his pocket a petition protesting at the singer's arrest?

'Bitterly, painfully funny', The Sunday Times *****

'Sam Walters' productions offer more than just historical insight: what they say about moral compomise still bites...fascinating and disturbing', The Financial Times ****

'Sam Walters' very funny production...the plays combine lacerating comedy of manners with a still-challenging invitation to take moral responsibility for the choices we make', TimeOut *****

'The Vaclav Havel season at the Orange Tree Theatre has been one of the year's highlights...Sam Walters' production is pitch perfect and deftly comic', WhatsonStage ****

'Two sharp little splinters of wit', The Times ***.