The Czech President Vaclav Havel, a force on behalf of
international human rights and his country's most celebrated
dissident, first gained prominence as a playwright. During the
period when Havel was blacklisted by the Czechoslovakian government
for his political activism, productions of his work in and around
Prague were regarded as subversive acts.
The Beggar's Opera is a free-wheeling, highly politicized
adaptation of John Gay's well-known eighteenth-century work of the
same name. The play, reminiscent of Havel's earlier Garden Party
and The Memorandum, is up to his best satirical standard. Like the
Brecht/Weill Threepenny Opera, Havel's play uses an underworld
milieu to explore the intermingled themes of love, loyalty, and
treachery.
Paul Wilson's new English translation of The Beggar's Opera is
lively, idiomatic, and sensitive to underlying linguistic and
political issues. The Cornell edition contains an Introduction by
Peter Steiner that details the November 1, 1976, premiere of the
play in the Prague suburb of Horni Pocernice, the reaction of the
Czech secret police, and the measures the government took to punish
and discredit those involved in the production. Eleven photographs
-- of the playwright, the actors, the theatre, and the actual
performance -- enhance the texture of the book.
General
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