PRAGUE (AFP) ― Long before becoming an anti-communism icon and Czech president, the late Vaclav Havel earned a reputation as visionary playwright in the vein of the theater of the absurd and Franz Kafka.
Havel’s works expounding his humanist beliefs focus largely on the inhuman and absurd aspects of everyday life he and his fellow countrymen endured under totalitarianism.
“The greatest spiritual authority of our young democracy, a great politician and an excellent playwright has died,” Ondrej Cerny, director of Prague’s National Theatre, said in reaction to Havel’s death on Sunday aged 75.
“The role of Vaclav Havel as a founder of a specific stream in the theater of the absurd, reflecting a political background, is crucial,” said Jana Soprova, a theater historian.
The theater of the absurd, which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s examining the consequences of what its authors believed was a godless universe, questioned established theatrical concepts, foregoing classic plot lines and conventional language.
Hailing from a rich family whose assets were confiscated by the communist regime that took power in the former Czechoslovakia in 1948, the young Havel did odd jobs, wrote plays and dreamt of the stage.
Starting as a stage hand at Prague’s tiny Na Zabradli (On a Ballustrade) theatre, just steps from the picturesque Charles Bridge, Havel became an acclaimed author in the 1960s which saw somewhat of a thaw in the hard line communist regime of then Czechoslovakia.
His first great play, “The Garden Party” (1963), was an immediate success.
The Na Zabradli theatre was “a pioneer of the theatre of the absurd with Ubu the King by Alfred Jarry, Franz Kafka’s Castle, but also with the first works by Vaclav Havel,” said Soprova.
In “The Garden Party,” Havel focused on what he felt were soul-destroying aspects of totalitarian regimes: their power structures and bureaucracies express themselves in a deformed language which is essentially meaningless.
“Havel drew much of his inspiration from Jarry and Kafka. We should remember how Kafka spoke about bureaucratic labyrinths,” Soprova said, referring to 20th century Prague author Franz Kafka, celebrated for forging a magical realist, modernist literary tradition.
Havel’s characters speak an imaginary language or jargon dubbed “ptydepe.”
“Even today in political circles, we can hear a jargon that nobody can understand, including those who speak it,” Soprova noted with a smile.
In 1968, the premiere of his play “The Increased Difficulty of Concentration” became one of the last to be performed publicly.
Following the brutal Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Havel became the leading voice of his country’s dissidents and his work was strictly banned.
But audiences abroad were able to view two of his plays, Audience and Vernissage, both from 1975.
Havel based the main character in “Audience” ― Ferdinand Vanek, a worker at a brewery, on himself. Like Ferdinand, Havel also worked in a brewery, was persecuted by the regime which later sent him to prison for five years.
Havel wrote another two great plays, “Largo Desolato” (1984) and “Redevelopment” (1987), before he was propelled into the office of president following the peaceful Velvet Revolution that toppled communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
Havel resumed his activity as a playwright after his last term as president ended in 2003. Four years later, he wrote his last play “Leaving,” inspired freely by Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.”
The play that premiered in 2008 tells the story of a chancellor whose world collapses as he quits his job.
“In my opinion, this play is the essence of Havel’s sophisticated style, of his method and of the roots of his entire work,” said Soprova.
Havel had long been one of the most frequently staged Czech playwrights, both in his country and abroad.
