ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the playwrights. The most important dramatist of the older generation was Pavel Kohout. He established his reputation well before the appearance of the "poetic" and "absurdist" plays, and during the second half of the 1950's in particular, he was a leading figure in the renaissance of the Czech drama. An important place in the development of the Czech drama during the first stage of thaw belongs to Vratislav Blazek. He contributed significantly to the revival of the satirical play, which virtually disappeared during the Stalinist era. Playwrights found it impossible to adjust this genre to the dogma of classless society, according to which a socialist state was without hostile classes and therefore devoid of antagonistic conflicts. Bohuslav Brezovsky is one of the most successful playwrights of the 1960's who used the traditional comedy patterns to probe conflicts in socialist society. He was the author of two plays, A Dangerous Age and All the Bells of the World.
