Political Dissidence To Be Explored in ‘Havel’

The Middlebury College Department of Theatre and Dance will present “Havel: The Passion of Thought” from November 1 through 3. Professor Richard Romagnoli directs these five short, funny, and chilling plays by Václav Havel, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. The evening explores the challenges of exercising individual conscience and the consequences of making unpopular though principled choices.

The evening’s centerpiece is three entwined plays by Havel: “Interview,” “Private View” and “Protest,” collectively known as “The Vanek Plays.” The name Vanek became synonymous with dissidence, as other playwrights in Eastern Europe, including Pavel Kohout and Pavel Landovsky, began to use the name for their nonconformist protagonists.

The late Mel Gussow ’55, former drama critic for the New York Times, wrote, 

“The Vanek trilogy remains the cornerstone of Mr. Havel’s art, a painfully honest documentation of dehumanization within a repressive state. Written with ironic humor, each play is a searing reminder of the importance of the artist as a provocateur.”

Václav Havel, born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) in 1936, died in Hrádeček, Czech Republic in 2011. He was a playwright, poet and political dissident. After the fall of communism, Havel was president of Czechoslovakia from 1989-92 and of the Czech Republic from 1993-2003. In April 2012, Havel’s widow, Dagmar Havlová, approved the creation of the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent, established by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. The Prize is awarded annually at the Oslo Freedom Forum and celebrates those “who engage in creative dissent, exhibiting courage and creativity to challenge injustice and live in truth.”

The three Havel pieces are bookended with Harold Pinter’s “New World Order” and Samuel Beckett’s “Catastrophe.” Englishman Harold Pinter was an actor, director, playwright, screenwriter and poet. Samuel Beckett was born in Ireland but lived most of his life in France. He was a playwright, novelist, poet and director. Both were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, Beckett in 1969 and Pinter in 2005.

The production features a company of nine Middlebury College students, including Kevin Collins ’20 as Vanek, Havel’s ‘surrogate’ in the plays. Will Koch ’21, Galen Fastie ’20, Ashley Fink ’18.5 and Madeleine Russell ’19 play Vanek’s friends and antagonists. The evening opens with Pinter’s “New World Order,” where Ian Hanson ’21 and Jacob Morton ’21 join Collins, and closes with Beckett’s “Catastrophe,” written in homage to Havel; the cast includes Sabina Jiang ’18.5 and Emma Cowper ’21 with Collins. Olivia Christie ’19 is Stage Manager with Emily Ballou ’21 and Sabina Jiang ’18.5 as Assistant Stage Managers. Set design is by Mark Evancho, lighting design by Hallie Zieselman and properties by Jim Dougherty. Glenna Ryer is the costume designer for the show, while Allison Rimmer is Technical Director and sound designer. 

“Havel: The Passion of Thought” will be performed on Thursday, November 1, Friday, November 2, and Saturday, November 3, at 7:30 p.m. each evening in Wright Memorial Theatre.

The information in this article is from a college press release.