Vaclav Havel's "Protest" FREE - USC Students, Staff and Faculty Only March 7, 2007

Free



Apparently only for USC students, staff, and faculty.
You must RSVP.

Directed by Jack Rowe
Starring Tim Curry and Charles Janasz

From celebrated Czech playwright Václav Havel, a key figure in Czech public life for the past half century, comes one of his wittiest one-acts that raises important questions about the role of artists in a political context.

Written in 1978, Protest deals with the travails of Havel's alter-ego Ferdinand Vanek. Recently released from jail for anti-government activities, Vanek escaped his hellish office to visit the comfortable, middle-class home of his friend, Stanek. He is hoping to convince Stanek to sign a petition renouncing the regime.

In this remarkable work, Havel demonstrates how the restrictions of freedom of speech and thought spread conformity across all members of society while slowly eroding basic humanity.

Havel has been a key figure in Czech public life for the past half century. As one of Czechoslovakia's leading dissident intellectuals, he became the president of the country's first post-Communist government. After the failure of the "Prague Spring" in 1968--when revolutionaries tried to overthrow the Communist regime, only to be beaten into submission by the Soviet military--Havel became a notorious political dissident and formed the forefront of the intellectual renaissance of the country that gave us Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera, among others.

Organized by the School of Theatre.

For further information on this event:
[email protected]

Official Website: http://www.usc.edu/webapps/events_calendar/custom/113/index.php?category=Item&item=0.861402&active_category=Upcoming