Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2007 - 10

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PRAGUE '79

by Beeb Salzer

Prague was not the tourist magnet it is now. Few restaurants or
beer halls vied for business. And foreigners were rare. Prague
in 1979 was a grim, conﬂicted, and mostly sad city. Russians
still controlled the country and their rule was thuggish. This was
the atmosphere when I represented the United States at the '79
Quadrennial. About this time, Dr. Joel Rubin, who was USITT's
international commissioner, had asked me to attend several international meetings, one in Warsaw, another in Salzburg, and
then Prague. Looking back, I may have been a default choice,
for ofﬁcial Prague was only grudgingly accepting of Americans
even though on a personal level, westerners were welcomed.

back to my hotel left a lasting impression. The cab driver spoke
excellent English and explained that as a merchant seaman he
had left his ship in Canada, married, and had a family there.
After years, he returned to Czechoslovakia to see his parents.
But then, the government had denied his repeated request to
return to Canada.
Just the reverse was true of Pavel Kohout, the playwright
and novelist. His support of the 1968 Prague Spring that
prompted the Russian occupation, and then his signing the
manifesto Charter 77, led to his exile in 1978. The government
refused to let him return home.
Charter 77 was a courageous declaration of human and
civil rights that were denied to Czech citizens. Another famous
signatory was playwright Vaclav Havel who became the most
trusted ﬁgure in the nation. He had constantly spoken out
against the state's repressive actions and was imprisoned several times. At the fall of Communism in 1989, Havel was elected
president of Czechoslovakia.
Many artists were also punished during those times. In
an article in The New Yorker, Anthony Bailey reported that respected ﬁlm directors were denied work and could not afford
gas or electricity, famous actors could not perform, and artists
were denied art supplies.
In no way diminishing the artistic accomplishments of
Svoboda, Vychodil, or even the sincerity of the Quadrennial
organizers, but one wonders about what political accommodations they made at a time when other artists were suffering for
their views. Of course, we may not know how, in their own way,
they might have opposed the government. Stories of less confrontational methods of criticizing the regime show that such
resistance was possible.
Edward Albee told me of one such example. He was invited to see a production of his play Seascape in Prague. Seascape is about a couple who go to the beach and are surprised
by two large lizards who come out of the sea to decide if they
want to become land creatures. Albee, who insists that every
word, comma, and dash in his plays be faithfully observed,
was taken aback when after the play, the Czechs said they had
changed his play. They said that not knowing Czech, he would
not have noticed that the humans spoke perfect Czech but the
sub-human lizards spoke Czech with Russian accents.
I see two present day lessons in the Czech experience.
One is that when a country is occupied by the forces of another country, resentment and hatred are inevitable. The other
is a more hopeful reaction. With a change in government, with
leaders who are respected for courage and truthfulness, it is
possible to restore human and civil rights and regain the respect of the international community. ❖

What I had stored away was a pretty complete
record of what I had done because my training was
done in the antediluvian era of renderings.
My memory of the Quadrennial exhibition is less vivid
than my encounters with a variety of people. I attribute this to
the lack of reactions to exhibits that produced surprise or a
WOW moment. So what follows are some of my recollections of
situations and personal exchanges.
Soldiers with guns were everywhere, especially at the airport where several checkpoints needed to be passed on arriving
and even more on leaving. In the magniﬁcent Old Town Square,
Czechs demonstrated their political views with body language.
As Russian soldiers walked through square, the Czech crowd
parted like the Red Sea for Moses and turned their backs on
the Russians.
Another vivid example of the Eastern satellite countries'
feelings for the Russians was a meeting at the Russian Cultural
Institute to which a Russian delegate had invited me. Representatives of all the Soviet block countries assembled to see a
Russian designer give a slide show of Russian stage design. We
were seated at tables that were loaded with the customary ashtrays and bottles of water. As the Russian started talking, a photographer went through the room taking pictures of everyone in
the audience. When he was done, all the non-Russian attendees
got up and left, having then been counted as present.
The country was still Czechoslovakia, and two stars of the
meeting were Josef Svoboda, a Czech, and Ladislav Vychodil, a
Slovak from Bratislava. Vychodil was less well know because
he did less international work but he was revered and inﬂuential as a teacher. I met him at a meeting of students and was
impressed by his manner that reminded me of my professor,
Donald Oenslager.
Joel Rubin invited me to have dinner with him and Svoboda. I remember almost nothing of the dinner but the cab ride

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