Professor David Peimer
Innovations in Czech Theatre

Professor David Peimer - Innovations in Czech Theatre

- [Lauren] Whenever you’re ready, David, you can get started.

• Okay. So thanks so much again, Lauren, to you and everybody. So hi everybody, and hope everyone is well in these strange and obviously, you know, darkening times. So hope everyone is well wherever you are all around and having a good weekend. So, I’m going to be looking a little bit specifically at a theatre from the Czech Republic or the old Czechoslovakia and more particularly Prague itself. And I’m sure everybody knows, and I’m paraphrasing here the phrase of Chamberlain, you know, a little far off country about, you know, little et cetera, et cetera. Why look at Prague? Why look at this so-called in a very common small country, small city in I suppose in a global sense of Prague and why the theatre there as opposed to obviously, you know, London, Vienna, Paris, Berlin, yeah, et cetera, Rome for that matter and elsewhere. And I think what is fascinating and not that well known is the extraordinary contribution to theatre, culture more broadly, yes, perhaps, and certainly intellectual endeavours, but in terms of theatre, it’s not that well known. The extraordinary contribution made by a pretty small number of people coming, emerging from this one city. And in this context of the first 20 years, the 20 years between the two world wars, and then of course afterwards as well, you know, leading up to Vaclav Havel and so on and post the fall of the Berlin War and et cetera.

And when one delves into it, it’s quite an incredible contribution from, again, an apparently small city on a global scale and context. So for me, what comes out of it is a certain richness and a certain understanding of theatre, which in a way is partly representative of some of the Central/Eastern European theatre and how it exploded in those 20 years between the wars, literally just two decades. And then influence a lot all around the globe from America to the west, to other parts of Europe, to Britain, et cetera. And so I think for that reason, it’s important and I think it really helps get a better much, much more enriching understanding of the overall treasure and development of theatre over the last century and a half. So these pictures, yes, I’ve called these innovations in theatre coming out of Prague, because what I’m going to focus on is less of the more traditional type of theatre, but the innovative work, which then influenced globally. This year is the first theatre that was really well known in Prague, which was called, it’s become called, anyway, the Estates Theatre. And 230 years ago, this is where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni. And when you go there, I must add that I was privileged and honoured enough to be able to live there and work there in Prague for quite a number of years. So I have an extra affinity for the city. But what was extraordinary was discovering even more of the richness of the cultural landscape, the cultural history, and how was so linked to the political. And I want to delve into it, but through the lens of theatre.

So this is the Estate Theatre where Don Giovanni, 230 years ago is first premiered. So Mozart has been here and many, many others, as I’m sure people know of the artists, the composers and others, and later scientists, intellectuals, writers, artists and so on, or, you know, move through Prague or come to it and move on. So it’s not only obviously Kafka and others who are born there, but many others. It’s part of the circle in a way of Europe of a certain era. And there’s, I think a number of reasons, there’s an extraordinary tradition of education. Charles University in Prague, as I’m sure people may know, is one of the oldest universities in the whole of Europe. So that goes way back. So the role of education and the role of language, cultures, you know, you feel it when you’re there, such deep roots. At the same time, one has to be completely struck going there now or going there, you know, in the last 20, 25 years and visiting it as a Jewish person, of course, the old Jewish quarter. So it’s in a city which is today around about 1.3 million people, and it gets nearly eight to nine million visitors per year, which is a hell of a thing for a relatively small city. In the old town, as people may know, there were of course around about 80,000 Jews living in Prague at the time of the war.

By the time I got there in the 2000s, there were less than 2000. Now, this is a figure that everybody knows, I’m sure, but what’s an extraordinarily moving experience? For me, always was the presence of absence. You know, not only the golem and the cemetery and all of that which we know, and the Charles Bridge and the old town and so on. But the feeling of so much culture and life and intellectual and educational and business and scientific, so much a sense of an era of a zeitgeist. There is a living there for I lived there for about six years. Living there, you feel it and yet it’s completely absent. It literally is ghostlike. And that’s why for me the phrase of the presence of absence is so powerful. And I think it’s also because Hitler intended it to be the museum for the extinct species in his phrase. So he left the Jewish old quarter exactly as it was, the buildings. So the five synagogues going back five centuries, four, five centuries is there, are them, the old Spanish synagogue and the others and so on. And all the artefacts of Jewish life going back five centuries are mostly still housed. He wanted them collected. It was going to be the museum, those five synagogues. So you have this incredible architectural, and if you like, known history through one’s own imaginative connection to the past. But of course, it’s gone completely and yet one lives it in one’s mind when being there. So it’s this living in a double duality in a way if you’re Jewish. And speaking to quite a few friends, not Jewish, you know, they had a strength, but not the same sense obviously. So for me, you know, it stands out, especially obviously post the war in this way, the whole of Prague, and the extraordinary contribution that Jewish culture gave obviously up until the second World War.

So, coming back to this here, innovations, this is the one of the oldest theatres. More or less, it’s obviously been touched up and redone, but the Estates Theatre known for, you know, so much fame in terms of Mozart and of course many, many others. I’m going to be looking at just a couple of the buildings, a little bit about it, and then also some of the main individuals who contributed so much. This here, this is the National Theatre in Prague, Narodni divadlo in Czech, National Theatre. I still am amazed when I look at it or when I’ve been there again and again. It is so huge for a relatively small city. It is absolutely huge when you’re there. The right hand side is one of the images of one of the theatres inside it, but this is the building. I mean, if you look at the car, you can see it’s huge. And for those who know it, it’s right on the river or very close to the river, close to the Charles, it’s located so centrally in the city, and there’s a reason for it for the National Theatre being there, but it’s such a sense a source of pride, and I was stunned that a National Theatre should be so central in a city with such a history. Why? And, you know, just to go back, I’m going to come onto that again, but to go back, this dynamic period of Czech theatre in these 20 years between wars, the directors of Burian and Hilar and Alfred Radok, Karcher, such innovative directors in terms of theatre making from realism to surrealism to the beginning without these words even being known.

Surrealism was, but absurdism, satirical comedy, Laurel and Hardy type stuff, folk theatre, Yiddish theatre to theatre coming from Germany, coming from Vienna, from everywhere passing through Prague. And we all know the stories of Kafka and Yiddish theatre and Kafka going to the Yiddish theatre, loving it and enjoying and so on. But Yiddish, it was one of the troops going, it was so many passing through, the influencers, and of course coming from the very rural areas in the old Czechoslovakia and other countries, you know, of Eastern and central Europe. So it’s an extraordinary centre of cultural activity and certainly theatrical activity. And it’s only 20 years during the Masaryk period, literally from the end of the first and to the beginning of the second World War, the explosion of democracy, the explosion of language, explosion of performance. And of course, you know, that thrown off the controlling shackles of the Austria-Hungarian empire, and I think that’s one of the biggest and most important elements in the rise or resurrection, if you like, of Czech theatre and of course Czech nationalism. And the National Theatre coming back now to the image feeds directly into the rise of nationalism in the old Czechoslovakia, but certainly amongst Czechs. And it’s one of the first things they decide when the Austria-Hungarian rulers loosen the grip, shall we say.

After the 1860s, they start to loosen the grip of their power over these lands and peoples. One of the first things they think about is to build a national theatre, and I always found that fascinating. You know, other ethnic groups might think of something else to build, but they wanted a national theatre. And there are many stories, no, we’re want to go into it, the construction of it, the building, and you know, what you see at that crown at the top almost and so on. It’s got a fascinating history, but it was one of the first and most important things that these people felt that this is what they wanted to express nationalistic pride. And I know I’ve spoken a lot, obviously the First World War and the poets of the war from both the English, French and German side and, you know, the ordinary soldiers and their attitude to it, and the absolute horror on the slaughter, ordinary people, ordinary guys insult soldiers in the trenches writing the poems, basically, whether it’s Wilford Owen or Rosenberg, whoever. But what’s interesting here is that after the fall of the Empire, the Habsburgs Empire, and the old Czecklovakia starts to assert itself, nationalistic pride comes in together with, you know, using the National Theatre and other cultural centres. And in a way, it creates a dilemma for me around the very word, patriotism, because there is something proud and celebratory about it. And at the same time, there’s something questioning about it because of the nightmare that excessive patriotic nationalism has led to in terms of the First World War, and here we have a celebration afterwards.

But if we see it in the context, again, of throwing off the shackles of the Hapsburgs, I think we can understand it and see it for what it is in terms of a contribution and a desire for a freedom for democracy and for culture, for a nationalism of Czech people. So this National Theatre has such a central place in the City of Prague and in in Czech consciousness. And I think when we go there today, even all these years later and after the fall of the war, we can still feel it. You can’t help it when you go to, especially the old town area of Prague. So what do we have coming out of this year? This is one of the picture. This is one of the main theatres inside it. You know, it’s this extraordinarily ornate, massive, incredible building, you know, in the centre of Prague. So what do we also have? There’s this theatre that I want to look at, and then I’m going to briefly look a little bit later at this theatre, Divadlo Na zabradli, which is Dilo is, I’m people know I’m sure, Czech for Theatre, Theatre Na zabradli, which literally means theatre on the Balustrade. This is one of the most important theatres in the world.

It has the same impact globally in the theatrical consciousness of literally everyone in the globe, around the world as the market theatre from Johannesburg, you know? One of the few only theatres in that country where black and white could be on stage together at certain times. Black and white certain times could be in the audience and so on during apartheid. The market theatre, this theatre, Theatre Na zabradli, Theatre on the Balustrade, Vaclav Havel’s theatre, for all those decades under Russian rule and communism. And what happened to the actors here, what happened to Havel and many of the others and what extraordinary people came out of this environment, you know, of actors and writers and directors and their contribution to the Velvet Revolution, not only to Havel himself, but Jan Gross, so many of others coming from a world of theatre literally leading and helping to lead the Velvet Revolution to overthrow Russian totalitarianism and Russian communism coming from this little theatre. And if you go inside it, which I want to contrast with the other big theatre, this is inside, it is one of the tiniest theatres. And you know, it reminded me of some of the tiny theatres, the market theatre in Johannesburg. Yeah, it was albeit, the great anti party play was first performed in front of 36 people, the tiny little larger theatre and others. This theatre is about 130, 135 people, you know, little balcony at the back there, classic end-on theatre, tiny stage, tiny theatre, but extraordinary minds and extraordinary culture. and theatre writers, designers, directors, actors.

So much comes out of here that it becomes, I would say, one of the 10, 12 most important theatres in the world in terms of contribution in the last, you know, since the war certainly, and the influence spreading way beyond the smallness in size. Bret had a great phrase. Bret said, “Don’t go for success, go for impact.” And he argued always, “Look for impact and success may or may not follow, but if you don’t go for impact first, success won’t follow.” Now, we can debate that, but I, having seen what happened in Johannesburg and having seen what came out of this little theatre and the little coffee shop attached, et cetera, is extraordinary, you know, the reach. And I think also because of the quality of artistic mind that came here, and, you know, so many experience in Johannes and elsewhere. We all know of these kinds of small theatres which then explode into a national and global consciousness. So I wanted to contrast the National Theatre, this massive building on the one hand, Czech nationalism. And then it was, you know, also linked so profoundly to the turn of the century, sorry, after the First World War and Czech language, Czech nationalism, pride, et cetera. And this little theatre linked so powerfully with the, after the Velvet Revolution post 1989. fall of the Berlin War, you know?

So you can see that the one, the grandiose and the big and the national, et cetera, and the other really attracting the brilliant minds and brilliant artists, you know, and it happens in so many cultures and many cities around the world. And I’m always fascinated, where does theatre start? How does it begin? You know, what appeals, what attracts, what brings people in? It’s not just the size obviously, but sometimes, you know, of the theatre, et cetera. Okay, so coming back to this main theatre, I’ll come on to Havel a little bit later. One of the contributions is the importance of the Czech language, the importance of Czech culture, of folklore, of the Czech’s stories going back way back, you know, its own history and using culture in a way, and I guess quite pragmatically in order to help further the cause of Czech nationalism and Czech identity ultimately after, you know, nearly four centuries of Hapsburg rule. And that’s absolutely important, because, you know, there’s an old joke, which I was told by quite a few Austrians, some Austrian friends when I was living in Johannesburg. And they would say to me, “Well, for the Austrian-hungarian empire, the Czechs were the cooks, the cleaners, and the gardeners.” That little apparent joke in inverted commerce says it all. So you get the sense of the servant to the empire, the servant to the Hapsburg and the Austria-Hungarian world. So it’s coming out of this, the sort of consciousness of, you know, being held down, pushed down, and serving the much bigger power, if you like, and then having an explosion of identity and cultural celebration in the Mazaryk period between the two wars.

The other things that the Czech theatre has given, and it’s mostly coming out of this period in the 20s and 30s, there’s the Yiddish Theatre I mentioned, there is the importance of the visual in theatre, because obviously there’s a celebration of language. On the one hand, you know, its own natural, its own, the Czech language, but a knowledge that it’s only spoken by a very small number of people. So if you’re making theatre there, you’re trying to think broader, well, you’re going to go for the visual. So the incredible, and this is probably one of the biggest influences, is the importance of the visual that emerge out of Czech theatre. And that coming out after the First World War in the ‘20s and '30s has had a total global influence, because, yes, you have it obviously always obviously in art, surrealism, other things, but in theatre, no. And this is in a way where it really began. I’m going to talk about a little bit about Josef Svoboda, the great designer, Czech designer who influenced so much and what he did with Czech stage design and influencing so many others in Prague and elsewhere. So you have the emphasis on the visual, not only the literary quality of a theatre text, and that is so important. It is such a shift. It’s not only later with film and TV and now obviously the internet, you know, the influence of the visual. You know, in our time we talk about, let’s go and see a play. in Shakespeare’s time it was, let’s go and listen to a play, let’s go and hear a play. So it’s a huge difference, the importance of the visual in terms of performance. And it comes out of this place, this theatre here, because they wanted their language to be celebrated for nationalism and identity, but also they wanted their theatre to transcend language barriers.

And that’s a very interesting combination, which is often not thought about amongst theatre makers. So what we have in this place here is the beginnings of the influence of the visual. We also have puppet theatre coming, which has got a huge tradition in central Europe and Prague, but it somehow took absolute root in Prague. And there is so much puppetry, puppet theatre. Some of you may know William Kentridge’s work. You know, William knows it so well in inside art, his brilliant, amazing work. Some of you may know the handspring work. You know, the influence is absolutely global coming out of extraordinary focus on puppetry and the manipulation, the development doing puppets in so many different ways, so innovative. The innovation comes from here of puppetry, of the visual, the idea of linking it so strongly to language and nationalism, but never to me really an extent of excessive patriotism, if you like. And that I know it’s a very fine line here, but it didn’t feel like that to me, it doesn’t, when I read the works. And then the other important quality is satire and wit and the work of Hasek and others. Because again, coming from that so-called joke of the Austrians is always this ironic detached perspective on power and the impulse to ridicule power. And it is absolutely rooted in Czech literature from Kafka all the way through with the theatre and the novel and so on.

The ironic attitude, which is so important in theatre, and the ironic wit that goes with it to ridicule and satirise power, whatever the power may be. And how during the communist period, Haval and others used the visual, used certain linguistic qualities always to have a satirical edge to ridicule power. It’s hardly a play I’ve read coming out of this country which doesn’t have something of this ridiculing ironic quality about it towards authority and power. And loved by the audience 'cause they will pick up the physical cues of the actors and some of the playing with words and they’ll pick up the play with the characters, you know? And the classic ultimate stock character is the kind of a version of the archetype of the Village Idiot turned into Svejk oF the soldiers and the relationship to authority and power, which are, you know, come to a little bit more. But that is worked so much and played with so much, has become one of the most loved and fantastic characters. It’s a trickster quality together with a pretended naivety and pretended idiot and constantly outwitting power of any kind, whether in the military or anywhere. And interestingly to me, the contrast with the Czech response to the First World War compared to the poets of Wilfred Owen and the others, which is so profoundly emotional and intellectual and viciously attacking the nationalist fervour of their times, you know, at the empires of France, Germany, Britain. Here, what we have is an ordinary small character, but who’s pretending to be a naive idiot who doesn’t understand orders, doesn’t understand the army, doesn’t understand you’re going to get a sack of potatoes or the order coming from the lieutenant or the sergeant major and looks completely stupid, and the boots and the little shoelaces and so on. You know, you get an echo a little bit of Beckett and waiting for Godder.

A little bit of an echo of the ordinary small guy is ironically outwitting the sergeant major, the lieutenant, the colonel, the commander, by pretending to be so stupid and idiotic and not comprehending. Go and shoot or this and that. Huh, what would, you know? But played, acted in such a funny way. So the response to the war, the pain and suffering and the horror of the First World War is responded to through ironic wit of the trickster, the archetypes of the small ordinary character who will outwit any authority and power in the military and political and business, in any other kind above the ordinary guy. Now that’s a huge difference to the poetry of the trenches by the English, the Germans, the French, and others. And that’s partly what makes it very fascinating, 'cause of course, you know, many of them were in the war as well fighting on the side of, you know, the Austro-Hungarians. Okay, so we have this, which is picked up. You can see it in the works of Kafka, Kundera later, Havel, this tradition of ironic wit in the trickster and archetype of the ordinary small character up against the big power. And that’s one of the great contributions of the kind of character.

And there’s a link to community art and the work of certain Italian satirists as well in theatre, but that’s for another whole story. Okay, so this here is some of the theatres and some of the main ideas that come out of it. What started to happen was in 1785, Czech productions were first staged in the Czech language with a little bit of political language and other political content, et cetera. And then up until the 1860s is really the turning point, because before that, most cultural institutions in theatre in Prague were really controlled by the Hapsburg Empire. And you know, they call it an absolutist rule from a Prague perspective. And the words discourage, suppressed, repressed, whichever word we choose, was felt by the artist and writers up until the 1860s. Then in 1860, the Emperor of France, Joseph, has a decree where he loosens the grip and abolishes this policy of absolutism, and Czech culture starts to revive in these ways. And there’s a clamour for the permanent National Theatre, this building, to be built. And the provisional first version of it happens only two years later in 1862. And for me, that’s quite an amazing leap and quick to grab it and through culture. Okay, I want to go on to, we’ve spoke a little bit about the Theatre of Na zabradli. This is some examples of puppet theatre. This goes way back to some of the ancient examples of puppetry and then some far more modern examples. It is so huge Czech puppetry and studied. People come from all over the world to study Czech puppetry at the Academy of Drama in Prague. There’s the two main academies. There’s the Janacek Academy and the Academy of Drama, and puppetry is absolutely as central as anything else. You get a more contemporary version, you get some of the more classical puppeteer, and some of the more traditional over there.

Just to link it to this idea of this character I’m talking about is the stock type, which is shwick, and this ordinary, the small guy ridiculing power, but through trying to outwit him pretending to be so stupid, is the character of Jara Cimrman. This is a completely fictitious character which emerged, you know, during the communist period in the old Czechoslovakia and has gone on post-development revolution, et cetera. It’s a completely fictitious character, but it builds on that stock type that I mentioned. And there’ve been plays written about this character. There’ve been novels, you know, so much it’s so deeply in Czech culture, but this person never existed. This is a completely fictitious person. And just to say that the BBC Today, a competition, you know, the a hundred greatest Britains, and they were voted for in the BBC, and, you know, there was Churchill, there was Shakespeare and et cetera, et cetera. And then the Czechs adopted this in 2007, this idea, you know, who were the a hundred greatest Czechs? And who does that vote for number one? Jara Cimrman, who never existed, who’s a fictitious character, a trickster archetype, who’s the ordinary idiot soldier trying to outwit the power and authority through satirising, through ironic, through humour. All the pain and suffering and humiliation is covered through ironic wit, a very different kind. And Jara Cimrman was voted the most famous Czech of all time. Never existed and this is the person more than Havel, more than the Emperor Charles, all the rest of it.

I just mentioned that as a little side note because it shows the role of humour and irony in this particular culture, which begins for me very strongly after the First World War, you know, as a response with these soldiers to the war. Okay, I want to go onto, this is here the Cafe Slavia in Prague. This is a very up-to-date picture, and I’m sure people have been there. This is where, you know, so many of the artists and intellectuals would’ve gathered. So Einstein came to give a series of lectures here, and so many of the others, the Kafkas, the Havels and so on. This is Cafe Slavia. So profoundly central to the whole cultural life going way back to the early part of the 20th century. And then this is the Cafe Louvre, which is the other one. You know, these are contemporary pictures, obviously, but these two, the cafe life of the city and the autistic intellectual life and all the people coming through and meeting. This is a picture of Karel Capek. Now, he only, you know, he’s already 48 years and he dies. But this guy is so underestimated, I think, and together with another writer I’m going to come to. Karel Capek was a playwright, a novelist, an essayist, a critic, an extraordinary mind and intelligence and understanding through writing essays and play, in particular, and stories to try and get a sense of what is happening in this extraordinary period of before the First World War, the First World War right up till which the beginning of the Second World War.

So he’s covering this whole period, Karel Capek And very underestimated and I think needs to be read and studied much, much more, and becoming far more known now. Karel Capek, just to give you a brief bit about his life, he wrote what has become known as science fiction now, but let’s remember, he’s writing around the time of the First World War. He has the novel, “War with the Newts,” 1936, his play, “RUR.” Here you can see “RUR,” which is short for Rossum’s Universal Robots. He’s the first to write and his brother came up with the word robots, so his brother Josef, and they worked together often on theatre work. And Josef comes up with word robots, and he’s the first to introduce the idea of robots in science fiction and in theatre and others. It’s a word we don’t even think about twice today, but it’s coming from Capek and from this play in particular. And it, you know, it’s really about turmoil and ordinary workers and the robots who work in the factory, in a huge factory, the anonymity, et cetera. Very many of the common themes of science fiction today, but it begins with Capek’s play, “RUR,” Rossum’s Universal Robots. 1920 is when he writes it and it’s staged. He writes many political works and essays. He writes works on social trauma, social disaster, social events of his times. He writes on biology and nature. You know, an amazing mind and ability to write on so many things. Then as he sees fascism and communism beginning to rise at the beginning of the 30s, you know, he turns and he sees, and like some of the others, predicts what will come. He saw what was coming. I’m not going to say he saw the holocaust, but he saw what was coming of fascism with the beginning of the Nazis and Muslim, et cetera, et cetera.

And he wrote about it and the plays, and they become darker, and they become imbued with this emergent fascism, but he never loses this ironic wit that I’ve been speaking about and the ironic ability to satirise. And that is what is so powerful. The pain and the intelligence and the suffering is within the humour. That’s really it. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize, and by the way, the communism as well, as anti-communist, as anti-fascist, you know, in his plays and his writings. He’s nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature seven times. He didn’t get it, but he got many other awards all over the world, the PEN Award for literary work and so on. He’s very linked to Masaryk, the, you know, the leader of at the time, incredible political leader in those 20 years between the wars. He studies philosophy and aesthetics at Charles University in Prague. Then he studies it also at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. And then finally at Sorbonne in Paris. He gets a couple of these doctorates in philosophy. By 1915, that’s when he finishes his last at the Sorbonne. An extraordinarily cultured intelligent mind, you know, and it’s all in philosophy. None of it’s in literature that he’s studying. He’s exempted from military service in the war, because he has born with severe spinal problems, which haunted him in pain all his life, of physical pain, and yet the ability to have satire and wit and irony and do not be scared of taking on these huge topics of his times of fascism and all the others, and the horror of the First World War. He’s very friendly with Masaryk, the first president of the Czechoslovakia. He has intellectuals coming around his place, he organises with his brother. They come every Friday, they gather at his place, you know, together with the cafes.

He’s at the centre really of so much artistic activity. The play, “RUR,” you can see an example of, this is here, the Garrick Theatre, staging it in England, Karel Capek’s fantastic melodrama, “RUR.” You can see the influence he had with on Fritz Lang and others, metropolis, all the others, et cetera. Karel Capek is the one who influences them. And this is a production much later at the Garrick Theatre in London of Rossum’s Universal Robots,. The play, they put robots on the stage, and the very word robot, the science fiction into popular imagination through theatre really. This is the play that does it. This is a much more contemporary version of it, The National Youth Theatre of Ireland staging it, you know, et cetera. There’s a much more contemporary image there with the poster. To go back to Capek. He was offered the chance to go into exile in England when the Nazis march into the old Czechoslovakia. And he refuses to leave his country. So he and his family can get out. He says, “No.” And the Gestapo who arrived in Prague named him “public enemy number two” after Masaryk. For an artist and a writer, a playwright to be named “public enemy number two” by the Nazis, that’s pretty right up at there. That’s how threatened, you know, a satirist, a writer is to them. Whilst he’s repairing damage to the family summer house, he got a cold and he’d suffered all his life from health problems, especially with his spine. Terrible pain that he lived in. And he died of pneumonia late December in 1938. Now, the Gestapo, believe it or not, were not aware that he had died. One of the first things they did when they arrived in Prague was they went to arrest him, and after the full invasion of the full Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland.

So the Gestapo agents arrived at the Capek house. They discovered that he’s already been dead for a while. So what do they do? They arrest his wife, Olga. Not satisfied with that, they arrest his brother, Josef. Josef has contributed the word robot and a few little things to some of his plays, this and that, et cetera, but, you know, they said quite a different, you know, experience. They arrest his wife and arrest Josef. They take Josef immediately off, and he spends the years of the war in various concentration camps and dies in Bergen-Belsen where he’s murdered. Karel Capek and his wife Olga are buried in Prague today. They’re buried together. His brother Josef is buried next to it with a tombstone which reads, and this is a little translation from the Czech, and I’ve put it in this, forgive me, average English, bad English. “Here would have been buried Josef Capek, painter and poet, Josef Capek’s grave is far away.” You can feel the use of language in this trying to evoke in a response to people just looking at a tombstone of Capek’s brother, Josef, what they did to him. He’s become known. Karel Capek has become known much more as a science fiction writing, who wrote the science fiction theatre stories way before it became the genre that it is, way before it, you know, even film and other areas of interest. He’s looking at ethical interests.

He’s looking at industrial inventions. He’s looking at fascism, democracy, human rights, nuclear weapons he writes about, artificial intelligence and can go on and on. And he writes about the extraordinary impact for him of sheer human stupidity and naivety. And he’s not writing it from an arrogant, when you read his stuff, he’s not from an arrogant sort of, you know, I mean, educated superior point of view instead of academic scholar. But, you know, again, linking a little bit to that ordinary character I mentioned is trying to find a way, a language to write that can speak to people, not just a few scholars. And he’s always looking for hope. And let’s never forget, he’s suffering from terrible physical pain all his life. Ivan Klíma, one of the really interesting Czech writers, said that it is thanks to Karel Capek that the written Czech language drew closer to the language that people actually spoke. And it’s his language in theatre, in stories and his essays and political writings and so many other things that he’s trying to use the language that people spoke. Klima is right, and that’s why it’s so readable today. Arthur Miller wrote in 1990, “I first read Karel Capek for the first time when I was a student at university, long ago in the 30s. There was no writer like him, and I’ve never read another writer like him since. His prophetic assurance mixed with surrealistic humour and ironic wit and hard edged social satire gives an extraordinary, unique contribution.

He wrote from the ordinary person’s perspective. He is one of the greatest joys I have ever read.” Arthur Miller, 1990. Okay, I go into this in quite a bit of detail, because it’s underestimated, the global influence that this guy had. Okay, those are some of the pictures and the influence of robot and RUR. Jaroslav Hasek lives from 1883 to 1923. These are some pictures of him. He’s written for me one of the great novels I’ve ever read in my life, and I love it and can read it again and again, “The Good Soldier Svejk during the World War.” This captures what I was saying at the beginning compared to the trench poets of Britain, Germany, and France, elsewhere, which we’ve looked at and of the movies, you know, and they’re horrific at their feeling of horror and uttered despair and disdain and hate and passion against the system and power that has put them there. And they’re going to overthrow everything. Hasek writes “The Good Soldier Svejk,” which is exactly that character that I was talking about earlier, which links to the Jara Cimrman character, you know, who’s voted the most famous Czech of all time by Czechs. The Good Soldier Svejk, Brecht much later writes a brilliant, one of his best plays is called “The Good Soldier Svejk” based on Hasek’s novel. He lives a short life, Jaroslav Hasek, but he writes this. He wrote many other things as well, but the great novel, and I think it’s really one of the great novels of all time, comes here. He’s a satirist. He’s a journalist. He’s living the life of what we would call today as Bohemian. He’s an anarchist in his philosophy, and this is his most famous novel. And the soldier goes through all these incidents during the First World War.

You read it or you watch the play of it. It’s so funny and ridiculous, the way he ridicules every aspect of military authority of the family, of military, of political authority and power of empire, of statehood, of patriotism, nationalism. It’s all in this one novel and in the play that Brecht version and many others have adapted it into theatre as well. An amazing production was done by a friend of mine, Johannesburg, which ran full ages. It is still so popular. The utter in aptitude, and I think that’s the word I’m looking for, the utter in aptitude of figures in authority in the time of the First World War, and that’s the credible ineptitude and pain and suffering it causes, but done in this ironic, satirical, witty way through the people who are suffering the most, the ordinary, you know, private corporal, the ordinary soldier at the front. All right. This novel has been translated into over 65 languages. It’s the most translated work from the whole of Czech literature. More than Kafka, more than Vaclav Havel and all the rest of them. Extraordinary. He falls in love with a woman called Jarmila. But because of his life and his attitude and his irreverence and desire to satirise everything, including Czechs, by the way, he’s satirising Czech pages as much as anything. Her parents didn’t consider him a suitable partner for their daughter. Anyway, he’s arrested for desecrating the Austria-Hungarian flag in Prague in 1915. He was called up to the army. He was captured by the Russians. He was sent to the camp by the Russians and tortured really, really bad horrific experiences, you know, leading to one of the reasons why he dies fairly young.

In 1918, he escaped from that camp, and in 1918 he distinguishes himself as a courageous commander of the Czechoslovak army. So he’s got this strange combination of satirising, and yet he’s decorated for bravery in battle. He also, you know, is quite friendly and close to Trotsky, which of course endangers him with a rise of Stalin so on. And this play and this novel that he writes, he’s connected to all these people in a fairly peripheral way, but the book and the play was such an influence. And the reason why I’m hopping on it so much is because the approach to the horror of the First World War is so different to ironic wit and trickster, and ridiculing of power. It’s so different to all the other writers and poets from all kinds and the rich and foreign to all the other, the war, all of them. That’s what intrigues. 1928, Max Brod, who was a friend of Hasek and a friend of Kafka, all of them were friends, adapts it into a theatre performance. So the first theatre performance is 1928, and then other ones were done in the 60s, et cetera. So we have this kind of a connection with all the other writers happening of the times. But for me, Hasek and Caped, you know, they really stand out in terms of not only contribution to Czech theatre, but to global work. And in times of horror, what is the attitude of the artist and the writer in theatre is what fascinates me so powerfully. This is a picture of Josef Svoboda. Svoboda is so important because he is the one who brings the importance of the visual into theatre. He works with technology. He works with architecture. He works with design. He works with light. He brings so many of the things we don’t even think about twice today, we take for granted completely comes from Svoboda. And the influence that I mentioned earlier of not only puppetry, but of the visual, and it includes light.

He was the first to say, “Light the air, don’t light the stage floor.” Now, it may sound ridiculous, but when you think about it in the stage, it’s such a big difference. And he was the first to really talk about using light for mood and atmosphere, not for realistic authenticity. Light according to mood, not according to day of time, time of day or time of night. Fascinating difference when you do think like that, you know, and the position of the body and the face on the stage and the costume. He puts costume and the body and light and design altogether. We can call it surreal and metaphor. We can call it literal, all the mixtures. But he’s playing for the first time on the stage, he’s bringing all of these technological innovations to theatre and it’s coming out of him in Prague, Svoboda particularly. People from all over the world go to Prague to study stage design in Prague and in the Czech Republic. The influence of this guy stretches everywhere. And you know, sonography, we can call it whatever. He became the main designer of the Czech National Theatre in 1948, and he keeps that position for 30 years after the war. The influence of multimedia comes through Svoboda for the first time. 1948, his multimedia, he brings it all in, everything, the projections. Things we take utterly for granted today come through Svoboda’s unbelievably inventive mind in a visual context. Materials such as plastics, hydraulics, lasers, all in his design, shadow, light, all of it comes through his imagination. Three-dimensional effect of light, how to try and create it on stage.

You know, you’re going to see the Lion King. It’s over granted, but this is where it all begins. So there’s architecture, there’s objects, there’s the questions of illusion and questions of reality on stage, mood, all of these things feed in very, very powerfully. These are all part of the inventiveness of a small number of remarkable minds coming from relatively small city. Vaclav Havel, an amazing human being, I’m sure everybody knows. I’m going to talk about his theatre in much more detail in another session completely, 'cause it deserves it utterly. Everybody I’m sure knows his life, you know, the so-called Mandela of Europe. You know, going to prison for five years, tortured, the dissident Charter 77, becoming the first president of the Democratic Czech Republic, et cetera, et cetera, human rights. Everybody knows the story of Havel I’m sure. A remarkable human being. One of the greatest I’ve ever had the privilege to meet and work for. And just an incredible individual, you know? And in so many ways, the stories and the romantic literature about him, of course, but you know, hell of a lot is really true. But I want to talk about just briefly a couple of things of Havel’s contribution to the inventiveness of Czech theatre building on what I’ve spoken about before. And it’s all coming, let’s never forget, from that tiny little theatre of Na zabradli, the tiny little theatre that I showed you that seats 130 people. Havel comes from a fairly wealthy family, but because the communist call is family bourgeois, et cetera, he’s not allowed to really study properly at university. He’s allowed to get a job as a stagehand in the theatre. And he’s allowed to work at that.

He goes to study the academy performing arts. They let him study for a little bit, but he works mainly as a stagehand. He meets Jan Grossman, who’s the main director of that theatre I showed you. In the early days, he’s the main intellectual mind. And together with Havel and others, they meet in the cafe Slavia and Cafe Louvre and they teach themselves. You know, there were probably eight, 10, 12 of them, small circle who would meet every week, two, three times a week, teach themselves philosophy, literature, everything they were not allowed during the really hard times of communist rule in the 60s and 70s and so on. And they’re in touch with Pinter, with Arthur Miller. They’re in touch with all the other playwrights of the world, of the English speaking and German and other parts of the world completely, you know? And whenever they’re thrown into prison, the word gets out, the others try and help, et cetera. So it’s coming from a tradition of dissident, and that’s the tradition of Hasek, the tradition of Karel Capek. It’s the tradition of the inventive, the non-fiction, the fictional Jara Cimrman, you know? The tradition of satire and ridicule authority is such a powerful sort of trickster art character in Czech theatre, and Havel is the latest one to pick it all up, The Garden Party, his play, The Increased Difficulty of Concentration is another play of his, The Memorandum and many of his other plays that he writes. And Havel is playing with not just the absurd, but he’s playing with ridiculing authority of any kind. He’s showing it for what it is when you strip it, you know, from Shakespeare’s phase, dressed in a little bit of authority.

Well, what happens when you’re undressed, you know, and you see the ridiculousness of the individual, the ridiculousness of the cheeks, of the eyes, of the hands and you just see the ordinary individual puffed up with so much power and pump? Havel is infused with that, coming from that tradition of Hasek and Capek that I’ve mentioned, that satirical, ironic, witty tradition. Even though he’s a dissident, imprisoned, even though he’s tortured, all the rest, et cetera, et cetera, not allowed to go to university, called bourgeois in times of communism. Nevertheless, that sense of irony and humour remains. The Garden Party is probably the most well-known play from 1963. And I had the fortune to direct some of his plays in the theatre in English. And it was so hard until it struck having a conversation with him and others who’d worked with him that the difference between his theatre, which was in a sense the last main point I want to leave us with, is the construction of character is so different from character in the English language Theatre, because character in English language theatre is, begins rarely, I guess with Shakespeare that period, Shakespeare monologues, et cetera, where it’s the individual character that matters, the soliloquies. And the beginnings of individualist capitalism and of a feudalism in breath phrase, but also the inner psychology of character together with democratic rights beginning to emerge more and more and more in English speaking countries.

That’s the theoretical link. and the emphasis on psychology of character compared to secure in the old Czech, in Czechoslovakia or Czech Republic is character as type, as a social type. You have the prince, you have the princess, the village idiot, the whore, the feudal Lord, Svekj, who the idiot soldier, the servant, et cetera, so the cleaner, all of these are social types. And because this part of Europe is so infused in German theatre and Czech theatre, Slovak and Hungarian, Polish, it’s the character social type that is precedent on the stage, and that leads very closely to stereotype. And that leads very, very directly to irony and wit, 'cause you can satirise power, authority of any kind when you play with stereotype. And Havel talks about, he was so aware of it when he started to write his plays in the early 60s. And that’s why not many of his plays are done in English speaking countries because the characters, number one, are social types. They’re not infused with what we call, you know, the backstory of psychology and the internal dilemmas or the inner life, the inner psychological life of a character. It’s more the social type, the role that they’re positioned in. This is the Jew, this is the rabbi, this is the prince, this is the Catholic priest, this is et cetera, et cetera. It’s all the social type.

And he play with that in particular. And that’s absolutely central to Central European and Eastern European theatre, and it’s one of the main differences between the tradition of English language theatre and theatre coming from this part of the world. And what it also leads to is far wit and humour, but also in Havel’s own phrase, “When you watch the place, you don’t have a classic story.” You know, this happens and this happens, and this event and that event and this huge conflict and this battle and this inner dilemma, which leads to that choice, et cetera. What you have much more is people who slowly reveal their truthful self. And he would say, Havel, “Stripped of authority, stripped of power, stripped of costume and clothes, I will slowly reveal to you who this person really is.” And when you watch his plays, you can get very bored 'cause there’s so much language. But you slowly start to see what’s really inside the human being. You look at images of Putin today, you know, with this ridiculous huge table. Now, imagine on this stage and slowly just listening, talk, talk, talk, talk, slowly you see the human being inside the social type, whether it’s the president or the cook or the cleaner or the taxi driver. You slowly see the quality of human being inside that heart, and that is the kind of what Havel adds to that great tradition of Czech theatre and literature. That’s slow revelation. if you can sit through an hour or two hours of the theatre watching it dawns on you.

Yes, this one might run the factory, the boss. This one might be the prince. This one might be the political leader or the mayor of the town, the wife, et cetera. But slowly is revealed the little inner workings, you know, the envys, the greeds, the obsessions, the loves, the passions, the hates, the little things which really make us the man and woman. And that’s what’s extraordinary when you look deeper into his plays, and it’s totally different to act it and direct it and to write it. But it is steeped in the tradition of Capek and Hasek and all the others. And he adds that quality of inner revelation slowly, very slowly through words. He adds that to that whole tradition that I’ve been speaking about. And then of course, one stage it’s in the visual way of Josef Svoboda’s influence and all the others. Okay, I want to thank you because I hope this is given perhaps just a little taste of a few individuals from what is so apparently a small country, but the contribution to theatre and through that art and the artistry of theatre is absolutely enormous` through the language, through the writing, through the political commitment, whether it’s through dissident or being a satirist, but suffering and going through the traumas of that part of the century, the early part and a little bit later with Havel. Okay, thank you very much. Should we do the questions?

• [Barbara] Let’s do it.

• Okay. Thank you, Barbara.

Q&A and Comments:

• Tommy. Gustav Mahler was there. Thank you.

Yes. Mona. The shock of the Jewish cemetery, it resonates. Absolutely. And the music is incredible. I mean, when you think about it, I’m only focusing on a little bit of theatre here and a couple of theatre makers. But when you think about the unbelievable amount of music and the composers, absolutely, you know, an extraordinary. And we link it to the cemetery, you know, of the Jewish contribution. It’s incredible for a relatively small city. Okay, thank you.

Howard. Oh, okay. I think the National Theatre was placed in the embankment since that was created the time that the theatre was showcased the Renaissance of Prague. Yes.

Turn of the century. Yep.

And the whole thing about the area of flooding, exactly, which I don’t want to go into the construction of the building and the flooding endlessly of the river. Yeah.

Betty When I was the teenager in Montreal, there was a world exhibition. I was a guide in one of the most popular pavilions of the Czech Pavilion that a theatre within it with a stage Black Light Theatre, black light plays. Yes.

Svoboda was central to puppetry, to everything about the visual on the stage and to what is become known in Prague, in the Czech Republic, a Black Light Theatre. That very phrase, very phrase, Black Light Theatre.

Yeah, it’s always ironic. It’s always goes with an ironic twist there.

Yes, so there’s a play with words and it is that. It’s really about playing with shadow and light and image. And the visitors with the expo were amazed. I mean, I was fortunate enough to be part of Prague Quadrennial, which is every four years. It’s the biggest exhibition of stage design in the world. And they get, you know, 40, 50,000 visitors who come to Prague for two weeks. And over those two weeks, they have exhibits and performances from everywhere in the world. And it’s all about stage design and costume and light, you know, and it’s linked to the traditional Svoboda and the visual and design in Czech theatre. Extraordinary. And you get an opportunity every four years, not only for theatre people, but for anybody to just have your mind exploded by everything going on from everywhere in the world in terms of stage design, light and costume and use of space.

Howard. Good Soldier Švejk. Yes, it’s a forerunner of Catch-22. Absolutely. Another Jewish author came the origins from Russia. Yeah, it’s absolutely, you know? And I mean, to look at the connection between Catch-22 and Hasek, it’s so powerful. What’s so important for me is that Hasek is the first, and he’s writing about the First World War compared to, you know, Remar and all the others of the very different kinds of books being written. But yes, absolutely linked to Catch-22.

Pat All coming to theatre can be applied to the wonderful 56 Czech cinema. I mean, that’s another whole conversation. Milos Foreman, who was a friend of Havels. They were at school together. Milos Forman is one of only four directors to win the Oscar twice for directing film for “Amadeus” and one over the “Cuckoo’s Nest.” I mean, incredible movies. His first movie, “The Firemen’s Ball.” one of the greatest satirical movies I’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely, it’s amazing and so simple, and it’s imbued with everything I’m speaking about coming from this tradition. It’s ironic, it’s witty, it’s satirical and it’s a group of firemen in a small town and authority and power and the ordinary individual. That’s it. And ironic and twists all the time, and this idea of revealing. 'Cause he was very friendly with Havel, they went to school together and studied and taught each other together. And Forman of course got out, you know, and got to America. But they spoke about this idea of, you know, revealing, slowly reveal what’s really going on inside a human being with who has some power and authority.

Howard. Perhaps explain, the statue you showed was intentionally disfigured. Yes. No real face since he doesn’t exist. Exactly. Jara Cimrman doesn’t really exist, so the statues without a real face. Exactly. It’s fascinating if you look at the statues of Kafka in Prague. They’re not big. They’re all small and little and, you know, it’s a very, anyway, how they use, you know, symbolism to represent, you know, the writers and the artists.

Karel Capek is, yeah, developed in a beautiful place to visit in the cemetery. Yep. That’s where Karl and Olga are buried. But for me, the really moving part is that phrase, that epitaph to his brother who died in Belsen.

Q: Ron. Check 20th century graphic design and photography was striking the original, was that reflected in Czech stage design?

A: Yes. They relate because they studied Svoboda and all that, and this idea of trying to make the theatre more global and international, not reliant just on the language, which is ironic in itself because the Czech language was being used to help promulgate Czech nationalism and Czech identity. But the artists wanted to transcend it and also be global, so they, you know, they gravitated towards the visual.

And yes, photography, design, all of it comes in, and the place where it all meets is on the stage. Early film, early photography, anything to do with light, technology, hydraulics, lasers, all of the technology of lights and down to the globe and down to, you know, where you like put the light, every hanging of the lights, it all comes from here. All these technological developments meet on the stage. That’s what’s fascinating.

Mira. And realism, as we would know it, doesn’t really have much of a role there. Totally different to the psychological character, you know, and creating a different world, you know, a world really of imagination. Karel Capek also wrote a wonderful children’s book.

Yes, in the name of “Dashenka”, absolutely. About his own fox terrier dog, which was the first book my parents read me as a young child. That’s amazing. Okay, that’s amazing. I know Capek wrote amazing children’s stories, which I still love.

Jakav, thank you. Robot from the Czech, Robert Robotnik, which is surf or land, land worker, hard work, exactly. Comes from the Czech word.

Hannah. Capek was influenced by the dybbuk. I don’t know. Great question. I’ll have a look. Thank you.

Ron. Please comment on Kundera. I’m going to have to look. I would love to look at Vaclav Havel and Kundera and Milos, and many others, because I think it’s what they have contributed to world’s literature is absolutely huge. I mean, there we were in Johannesburg during the party during the eighties reading Kundera and in touch with writers in South America, in Asia, in everywhere reading Kundera, reading Havel, reading Hasek. You know, all of these in times of political turmoil, reading all these Czech writers, because of their ironic humour and it links so closely to the anti-apartheid protest theatre was that albeit. So many of the other plays is ironic, satirical wit against apartheid. The pain and suffering is dealt with, with irony and satire and ridicule, which freaks the political leaders out, so of course they’re the first to be arrested, imprisoned, or killed.

Q: Judy. Could you expand on the presence of absence?

A: When I lived and worked there, I just felt that wherever you walk, there’s the feeling of Jewish culture and the heritage of culture of education, for me, obviously of literature and theatre, of knowledge and also of business and work. But it is all there, the feeling of it. And yet, you know, 80,000 people slaughtered in a couple of years. And when I was there in the 2000s, early 2000s, you know, less than 2000 Jews. So for me, they were, and the five synagogues that hit the left for the museum, and the synagogues are as ornate and extraordinary as they were over the centuries, but they’re empty museums with the once, and goes got the names of so many of the thousands of slaughter Jews. So it’s absence. There’s a such a terrifying feeling of you’re trying to connect to it through memory, but it doesn’t exist anymore. So how do you connect with your own memory to something you imagine or you’ve read about and heard about, but it’s not there. But it’s there in the architecture. It’s there in some of the food. It’s there in some of the words, the language, the day-to-day culture, other things, but it ain’t not there in the people. And that horror is for me, that it’s a ghostliness of presence of absence.

Jarka. Divadlo, divad from divat, to look, to see, to watch. Thank you. The Czech word for theatre divadlo. Audience from Latin to hear is the difference. Okay, great. Thank you, Jarka. Appreciate. That’s really helpful. MW.

Q: Is Ivan Reitman, “Animal House,” a product of this style of Czech theatre?

A: He was born in Czechoslovakia, lived in Canada. I would think so. I can’t say definitively, but I think so.

Susan. That’s a whole different story about Havel, which is for another time. Thank you.

Sheila. The Adventures of Shrek is one of the books hidden by Dita Kraus in Auschwitz, the librarian of Auschwitz in the children’s hut. It was in great demand by the people who’d read it to the children. Thank you. I didn’t know that. That is very powerful. Jarka. Havel’s family owned the Czech Hollywood, the Barrandov films and cinemas, film studios. Absolutely. Thank you.

Q: Yjolanda. Has been Kundera also influenced by World War II, and is he part of that famous group of Czech writers?

A: He loved “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” I don’t anybody who can’t love that book and his others of Kundera’s. I mean he’s still alive in his late 90s. Kundera is part of the Havel and Milos Forman generation, so he is post the war and he was part of them. He taught at the Academy of Jamaica and he taught at the film school in Prague. He was a junior lecturer in Western context in the English language university. He’s corporate junior lecturer. And then he leaves at the same time as Milos Forman and others. He goes to Paris, Kundera. But he’s part of them, that generation of extraordinary small number of extraordinary minds. Jan Grossman, the director in Na zabradli in Havel’s theatre, you know, and the other intellectuals and artists. You know, when you go to Na zabradli Theatre, that is where the Velvet Revolution was organised from, the coffee shop. And literally sitting in the chairs and the tables and the actors were sent out to all the parts of the old Czechoslovakia to get the people to go walk and march into the streets. And I met some of the brilliant actors who were injured, car accidents when they were 19 or 20, and some were in wheelchairs today, some have got other terrible injuries. I worked with an amazing actor who’s in a wheelchair.

He’s one of the best actors in Prague, but he’s been in a wheelchair ever since he was 18, 19, and he was one of them who was sent out in the Velvet in 1989 in his car to villages to get the people to march on the streets, the Velvet Revolution. And he had a car accident, wheelchair for the rest of his life. But Havel organised that he would have a monthly salary for himself and his young family for the rest of his life. And Havel did that for many of the others. It came from the actors. One of the first time that theatre people really rarely did the legwork and the dirty work to get a revolution on the go. I mean it’s quite amazing coming from this group. I don’t want to over romanticise it, 'cause obviously it wasn’t the only, you know, the role of the military, et cetera. A funny story is how Havel trying to think of new costumes for the new Czech military after the fall of the Berlin War. And he approached all his theatres designer friends and costume designer friends and they designed the police uniforms and the new military uniforms for the new Czech army in the 1990s.

Isaac Maureen. Want a reference to the black theatre. Yeah, with a Black Light Theatre. I mean, there were so many of the others. I chose to focus on a couple of these individuals, because these so many other things in Prague theatre, but these to me have the most lasting influence which go beyond Prague, the ones that I’ve looked at today.

Sherry. Brings to mind Zelensky who achieves fame now as a satirist. Of course he’s a Jewish comedian and satirist, and he is acting in the tradition of Hasek in Svejk and Capek and Havel. He knows all of these writers. Absolutely. You cannot be an actor when theatre in that whole part of the world and not know it. So Zelensky is absolutely connected in terms of theatre anywhere and in performance. Yeah.

Sonya, thank you. Uta, thank you for comments. Adrian, thanks. Barbara, thanks. Sandy, Avron, Nicki, thank you, Mavis.

I’ve written a novel about a humanoid robot. Have a look at Capek’s story, “War with the Newts.” It’s the first great work of science fiction before even the word science fiction was ever there, you know? He basically created the world of science fiction mainly. I mean, yes, I know it was Jules Verne and yeah, but he and artificial intelligence and nuclear disarmament, nuclear warfare, all of it is in Capek in the 20s. Debbie, thank you. Betty.

Did Havel? No, but there are brilliant autobiographies Havel. Thanks, Hannah.

Q: Neville. Do you think that Prague and the Czech people suffered totally erroneously from a feeling of insecurity?

A: Yes.

Q: And that’s the confidence to feel an a par with other theatre communities?

A: Yes. It’s extraordinary that the Czech theatre creators fought so hard to be a force in theatre and succeeded. It’s no coincidence. And international theatre institute was inaugurated in 1948 in Prague. Absolutely. And you were director of the British chapter for many years. That’s amazing. Thanks, Neville. That’s amazing. Thank you.

And you met Havel, amazing. It’s no coincidence. International Theatre Institute inaugurated in 48 in Prague. Absolutely. For them, theatre and literature were so central. The Czech identity and nationalism on the one hand, but that’s also with political leaders, but we’re so central to a kind of a renaissance of culture and art. That’s for sure. Lorna, thanks. Rhonda, thank you. Comments, Dennis, thank you.

Philip Roth, yeah, well Philip Broth wrote that, you know, The Prague Orgy, which is a wonderful book. Recommend anybody to have a look. Because Roth went to Prague a lot afterwards, and he’s written the book, “The Prague Orgy,” which was the whole celebratory era in the early 90s of the Havel presidency, the fall of the Berlin Wall, all of that, et cetera. And let’s not forget the beginning of extreme consumerism and that total shock, fast change from one to the other. And you know, to me it’s still part of, still in a way caught up in that, you know, from communism to consumerism to use a phrase which I don’t really like, but I want to try and be brief now. But moving from one such, you know, nearly 50 years of one system under fascism, totalitarianism, not only communism to, you know, democracy and capitalism, and Philip Roth trying to get to grips with it there. Miriam, many thanks, Jaroslav Hasek.

Hasek. Okay, thank you. Correct pronunciation. Great. Thank you.

Lynn. As an interactive children’s puppeteer, I used the trickster character to delight the kids. Puppets have a liberty to have attitudes . Yes. And the other thing about puppets that’s for both and other roustabout, was that with puppets, the connection between emotion and physical action of character are immediate. I like you, I don’t like you. I punch you, I kick you, punching duty. I punch you, I kick you. I say this, I say that, da da da. It’s fast story that’s why our children love it. It’s not only 'cause it’s puppets and not real people, but because the storytelling in the dialogue is so fast and immediate, emotion, direct, no subtlety, get it. And I think it’s one of the reasons I’ve studied it so much and looked at it so much. My kids love puppetry. And you know, how that idea has transformed itself into the later use from warhorse to handspring and others, how they’ve used puppets for adults in many different ways. But the root is that very direct physical expression of emotion, which the Czechs explored so much, yes, Lynn. That’s a huge question. I have to come to that another time.

Which she plays favours to direct? Thelma, thank you. Hasek’s name pronounced Hasek. Veronica, thank you. Okay. Susan, thank you.

Natasha is saying, all these writers. No, no, no, I’m not saying they were Jewish. Capek wasn’t and Hasek wasn’t. They weren’t. Havel wasn’t. They weren’t Jewish. I don’t think I said that. I didn’t said they were Jewish, no. Okay.

Eva, my aunt, Hana Volavková, survivor of Theresienstadt, was the director of the Jewish Museum in Prague after World War II. It was her idea to have the names of the 80,000 Jew perished inscribed on the walls of Pinkas Synagogue. All the names of our family on the walls. Eva, thank you. As profoundly important and moving. Thank you.

Ron, I thought the unbearable likeness of being the Soviet invasion. Yep. Sense of dejavu. Yep, right now. That’s why Kundera resonates so confidently as well. We’ve attended a concert in Spanish synagogue, it’s extraordinary. I know. I did a play in the Spanish synagogue. An incredible atmosphere you can create without, you need anything, theatrical acceptors, actors. Mavis, yep.

Barbara, it was Insect Play. Yes. That was his other play at the great play. I don’t know if it was done with puppets. I know it was under the actors. I’ll check that. Thank you.

Elizabeth, Zappa was very close to Havel. Yes, and Pinter as well. And they were among Zappa, Pinter and Arthur Miller and Mamet were at the forefront of trying to get Havel released and of putting Czech playwrights on the international map and international conscience to improve their prison conditions, and you know, hopefully to get them released. Julian, the first book by Capek. I would look at “War with the Newts” and the play, “RUR”. Puppets are coming to Kyiv, Ron.

Francis, there’s a puppet scene in the Sound of Music. Yes. Spot on. Thank you. Anything, when you look at Central European Theatre, you cannot forget the role of puppetry and the visual. And when you look at the film of “Amadeus” by Milos Forman, obviously it’s the visual that is so powerful, obviously the music, but that’s a given. But it is the visual and the construction of those social type is character and the visual, and that’s what connects Milos Forman to Svoboda and that whole Czech tradition, which they study and were trained in, you know, for Milos Forman and others. So, and the role of puppets always is linked to it.

Okay, thank you very much.