Prague, Oct 1 (CTK) – The plays by Vaclav Havel, the late playwright, former dissident and post-communist Czechoslovak and Czech president who would turn 80 on October 5, continue to be staged by Czech as well as foreign theatres all over the world.
In the past years, his plays were premiered even in countries where they appeared rather rarely before, such as Ukraine, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Australia.
Havel’s play Audience was staged by the Zhankovetske National Theatre in Lviv, Ukraine, and the Rooftop Promotions theatre in Harare, while a Theatre Centre in Canberra offered a cycle of selected one-act plays.
Unveiling was played in Montreal and at a festival in South Africa. The Beggar’s Opera was staged in the Albanian language in the Macedonian capital Skopje, and the Memorandum by the State Theatre in Istanbul.
According to experts from the Prague-seated Arts and Theatre Institute, Havel’s plays that have been the most often staged in Czech theatres are the Garden Party, the Beggar’s Opera, Audience, Temptation and Unveiling.
New productions of several of his plays are planned by Czech theatres in the current season, Zdenek Harvanek, from the DILIA agency that represents copyright holders, has told CTK.
DILIA has represented Havel’s copyright to his texts, including 21 plays, since January 1, 2016.
Havel entrusted the representation of his copyright to DILIA in 2006, but except the copyright to his plays, which had been represented by the Aura-Pont Agency from the early 1990s.
Havel’s widow and only heiress Dagmar Havlova transferred the copyright representation completely to DILIA as of the beginning of this year.
Harvanek said DILIA provided the copyright to about 20 texts by Havel, whose premieres have eihter taken place or are yet to take place in Spain, Poland, France, Belgium, Sweden, the USA, the Netherlands, Albania and Chile.
“The licences for staging Havel’s plays in the German-speaking countries have been supervised by a local agency, we do not have the relevant data at our disposal,” Harvanek said.
Havel’s last play, Leaving, which contains autobiographic elements, was premiered in Prague in May 2008 and then played in several Czech theatres. It has also been staged in Philadelphia (USA), Moscow, Bratislava and London’s Orange Tree theatre, and it was also warmly welcomed in Germany.
