Word: havel
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TEMPTATION by Vaclav Havel...
When New York City's Public Theater produced his The Memorandum in 1968, Vaclav Havel sat in the audience. But by the time his The Increased Difficulty of Concentration was mounted the following year, the Soviets had marched into his native Czechoslovakia, and Havel was no longer able to travel. His works have been banned from Czech stages. For his human-rights activism, he has repeatedly been jailed. This week, when the Public opened his Temptation, Havel was serving an eight-month sentence for "incitement" and "a public order misdemeanor" during a peaceful demonstration in January protesting the legacy...
Temptation is the fourth of Havel's plays to be staged at the Public; a fifth, Slum Clearance, is scheduled later this year. Unfortunately, the Public's loyalty does not always result in illuminating productions. Temptation retells the Faust legend and evolves into a grimly believable portrait of life in a police state. This scientist who dabbles in black magic reaps only petty pleasures, while his demonic bargain leads him to mistrust friends, denounce colleagues, deny his beliefs and pledge to become a spy. Director Jiri Zizka, a Czech emigre, adds a mysterious high-tech gloss but stints on emotion...
Whole segments of the East bloc, once firmly under the thumb of Soviet orthodoxy, are launched in headlong pursuit of a new political and economic order. But not all. In Bulgaria an aging leadership shows no sign of interest in homegrown perestroika. In Czechoslovakia, where leading dissident Vaclav Havel has been sentenced to jail, trials moved into a second month for other activists held on charges ranging from organizing peaceful antigovernment demonstrations to signing political petitions. And in Stalinist Rumania, party leader Nicolae Ceausescu remains the "Idi Amin of Communism," as his neighbors call him. The unregenerate totalitarian, obsessed with...
Last week Havel told his judges of his appearance in Wenceslas Square: "I was there for one hour. Something happened that I had never even dreamed of. After the totally unnecessary intervention by the police, the onlookers ^ changed into real protesters." He was sentenced to nine months for inciting a public protest and obstructing a public official who had ordered him to leave the square...