Cover
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
Prologue
National Awakening
National Theatre
Arenas and Tingle Tangle, Cafés Chantants, and Cabaret
Turn of the Century
In the New Republic
Devětsil and the Avant-Garde
Jindřich Honzl and the Dědrasbor
Jiří Frejka and Constructivism
Honzl, Frejka, and the Liberated Theatre
Frejka and the Theatre Dada
E. F. Burian and the Voiceband
Voskovec, Werich, and the Liberated Theatre
Jaroslav Ježek and the Jazz Revue
The Turn of the Decade
The Prague Structuralists
Frejka at the National Theatre
E. F. Burian and Déčko
The Fettered Theatre
III. Under the Protectorate
E. F. Burian and the Gestapo
The Little Theatre for 99 and Occupied Prague
Terezín and the Concentration Camps
Brief Window: 1945–1948
Socialist Realism
The Daring Threesome and the Thief of Happiness
After Stalin
Akord Club, Reduta, and the Text-Appeal
Otomar Krejča at the National Theatre
Laterna magika
Founding of the Theatre on the Balustrade
Ivan Vyskočil at the Theatre on the Balustrade
Jan Grossman at the Theatre on the Balustrade
No Heroes Live in Thebes with Otomar Krejča
The Invention of the Grenoble
Václav Havel’s The Garden Party
Ubu Roi, Beckett, and Ionesco
Havel’s The Memorandum
Grossman’s The Trial, and the End of an Era
Origin of the State Theatre Studio
Suchý, Šlitr, and Semafor
Paravan
The Drama Club (Činoherní klub)
Maringotka
The Theatre of Jára da Cimrman
Krejča at the Theatre Beyond the Gate
Rokoko
Viola
Orfeus
Evening Brno (Večerní Brno)
1968
VI. “Normalisation”
The Theatre on the Balustrade and What Became of Jan Grossman
The Theatre Beyond the Gate and What Became of Otomar Krejča
The Fates of Macháček, Radok, and Schorm
Semafor, Drama Club, and the End of the State Theatre Studio
Václav Havel, Charter 77, and the Anti-Charter
Irregular Dramaturgy
Theatre [Goose] on a String
HaDivadlo (Theatre of the Haná Region)
Between Dog and Wolf
VII. The Theatre and the Velvet Revolution
Dramatis Personae
Titles of Czech and Slovak Plays, Operas and Films
Select Bibliography
Notes
Index of Names