ABSTRACT
Although this book has dwelt on those primarily responsible for the creation of modern Czech theatre as an art of production and performance – its directors, actors, and designers – it would perhaps seem perverse not to include at least one playwright, particularly when he is better known to the world at large than are his production-oriented colleagues. I mean, of course, Václav Havel. As Karel Čapek was the best known Czech associated with theatre in the first half of the twentieth century, so Havel has been in the second half, although his direct, sustained engagement with theatre activity lasted less than ten years. 1
