What a Revolution Should Look Like: The Power of the Powerless

Initially, the student-driven revolution against Czechoslovakia’s hardline Communist government seemed hopelessly naïve. In a mere eleven days, the humbled regime relinquished their dubious claim to power, clearing the way for the democratic elections. Unlike, the current Middle Eastern “Days of Rage,” it all transpired without demonstrators committing any sexually, ethnically, or religiously motivated acts of violence. In fact, whether Havel and the Velvet Revolution were too forgiving of their former oppressors is one of the questions raised in Cory Taylor’s documentary, The Power of the Powerless (trailer here), which opens this Friday in the Los Angeles area.

In 1989, Prague witnessed one of the most inspiring revolutions in world history. However, several college students interviewed throughout Powerless are unsure what to make of it. More specifically, they are unclear how their parents were or were not involved with either the Revolution or the former Communist secret police and its network of informers. In contrast, the Dana Němcová’s children knew only too well their mother was one of the 242 original signatories on the Charter ’77 declaration. Indeed, through a coordinated campaign of harassment, the government would not let them forget it.

For context, Powerless provides an authoritative overview of the Communist Coup of 1948, the brief period of liberalization known as “Prague Spring,” and the resulting Soviet invasion of 1968. According to historian and onetime Havel advisor Jacques Rupnik, during the Stalinist period of so-called “Normalization” approximately half a million party members were purged. Indeed, the extent to which the Velvet Revolutionaries reached out to those former Prague Springers in 1989 clearly illustrates the humanist spirit of the movement.

Not surprisingly, Havel emerges as the critical figure of the film’s narrative. Yet, one of the Powerless’ great merits is the wealth of former dissident voices it presents, including the relatively unheralded Němcová, as well as the likes of Jan Bubeník, a leader of the student demonstrators who became the youngest member to serve in the Czechoslovakian Parliament. Featuring the silky tones of narrator Jeremy Irons, it tells the real life human stories of average people, who rather than merely finding themselves caught up in great events, rose to the occasion, becoming leaders themselves.

The ultimate wisdom of Havel’s conciliatory tone to all but the worst offenders of the former regime remains an open question throughout Powerless. While most Czechs readily give him credit for unifying their country (though he was unable to hold together Czechoslovakia as a whole), many are plagued by nagging questions in the absence of a full accounting of the dark years of Communism. However, the peaceful “people power” Havel harnessed in face of a violent government repression speaks volumes. Indeed, Powerless is a timely reminder democratic revolution must be accompanied by a commitment to individual rights to be successful. Insightful and informative, Powerless opens this Friday (3/11) at the Laemmle Music Box in Beverly Hills, with a New York engagement to come sometime in the near future.

Performing Revolution: Velvet Oratorio

On November 9th, world leaders past and present converged on Berlin to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, our own president was not sufficiently interested to attend. In contrast, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has found the fall of the wall and the subsequent revolutions that swept the Communist Bloc worthy of five months of special programming. Incorporating drama, film, dance, and literature, the Performing Revolution series came to Bohemia National Hall last night for the Untitled Theater Company’s production of Velvet Oratorio, a dramatic hybrid chronicling the events of then Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution.

Incorporating primary sources including contemporary news accounts, official statements of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, and declassified CIA and State Department cables, as well of scenes from Vaclav Havel’s Vánek plays and original interviews conducted by librettist Edward Einhorn, Oratorio presents an impressionistic but informative overview of the heady days of the Revolution. As the play opens, Ferdinand Vánek, Havel’s literary alter-ego, is in police custody yet again, but this time his interrogator is a bit nervous. Since he has been confined to a cell, the writer has not heard the news sweeping the across Eastern Europe—the Wall has fallen.

While Vánek again serves as a stand-in for his creator, we do hear from one specific historical figure, American Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, who Oratorio depicts as quite an effective and relatively proactive diplomat. On the other hand, the unnamed Communist Party spokesman comes across as a “Baghdad Bob” without the style points. He is nicely brought to life though with appropriate oily insincerity (and increasing uncertainty) by Danny Bowes.

At times, Oratorio has an absurdist bent that would befit some of Stoppard’s work in terms of tone and certainly subject matter. However, Oratorio often ends such scenes with a thoughtful kicker, as when two namesakes of Martin Smid, the mathematics student erroneously reported murdered during the November 17th demonstration, petition Vánek to declare them “alive.”

Musically, Oratorio is imminently respectable, but the odd harmonies and dissonant passages might be a bit challenging for patrons not accustomed to contemporary classical composers. From a shallow musical theater perspective, it also lacks the rousing notes of pure triumph to accompany the Revolution’s peaceful climax.

Unquestionably, Oratorio’s strongest scenes involve Peter Brown as the literary everyman Vánek (again also credit the original creator Havel), particularly when confronting his former interrogator and appealing to the conscience of a former colleague from 1968 who had since joined the government. Indeed, Brown simultaneously conveys compassion and an ironic sensibility that is very Czech.

Oratorio is a well-conceived production that provokes welcomed reflections on the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Communism in general. Twenty years after 1989, within my own lifetime the Czech Republic has been a free country longer than it has been a Soviet Satellite. That is definitely an anniversary worth marking. The UTC’s next free production will be the Czech-themed Rudolf II, beginning March 5th. Performing Revolution continues with programming well into March 2010.

Jasny at AFA: Why Havel

Vaclav Havel’s longest stint in a Communist prison lasted about four and a half years. Nearly six years later he was elected President of Czechoslovakia in the country’s first free and fair election in over fifty years. Vojtech Jasny captured the exceptional role played by President Havel during those heady days of newly won freedom in his documentary Why Havel, screening as part of the upcoming Jasny retrospective at AFA.

How does a playwright become one of the world’s most respected statesmen? Jasny’s film literally asks why Havel, quickly answering its own question. We see candid footage of a President more comfortable laughing and joking with the kitchen staff than with the power and ceremonial trappings of office. A portrait emerges of a man of conscience, imprisoned for his activism and avant-garde writing, who earned the respect of both his dissident colleagues and his fellow citizens.

Why Havel begins with the President’s first state visit to America, attending an all-star tribute in New York at the Cathedral of St. John’s the Divine. Amongst those paying tribute are Joseph Papp, his American producer; director Milos Forman, Jasny’s celebrated colleague in the Czech New Wave; Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel; and musical guests, including Dizzy Gillespie (the rest of his band is not credited, but it looks like Mike Longo at the piano).

Jasny directs Forman as the film’s narrator and on-camera guide, who brings a great deal of charm to the role, sounding downright giddy at times. Considering the enormity of the changes under weigh, his euphoria is understandable. In one such exercise of the newly granted right to free speech, Forman mocks “the favorite pastime of the former rulers: giving each other medals—they loved it.”

Although there are some interesting transitions between scenes, Jasny seems much more interested in serving his subject than flexing his cinematic muscles. However, he clearly had remarkable access and a good amount of luck, filming Czech history as it happened.

Over the course of the film, Jasny and Forman give an unequivocal answer to the question why Havel. Only a man so uncomfortable with power could be trusted with it at such a delicate time in Czech history. Watching these events unfold through Jasny’s lens really is inspiring. While the Velvet Revolution was not so very long ago, many seem to have already forgotten its lessons, which is why Jasny’s film will always be a valuable document (that also happens to be quite entertaining). It screens at AFA this coming Saturday and Tuesday.

Merry Christmas, Good King Wenceslas

The statue of King Wenceslas, the patron saint of the Czech people, is one of the dominant landmarks of Prague. Legend has it that at the Czechs’ greatest hour of need, the statue will come to life and lead his people to salvation. Other versions have St. Wenceslas rousing the slumbering Knights of Blanik entombed beneath Blanik Mountain under similar circumstances. However, many only know King Wenceslas as the subject of the Christmas carol, one of the few sacred-themed carols which do not mention the birth of Christ.

King Wenceslas only ruled then Bohemia for five years. As the carol suggests, he was known for his charity to the poor and to children. Also known to be hard on the nobility, his reign was marked by comfort for the afflicted, and affliction for the comforted. On his ascent to the throne, King Wenceslas ended his mother’s persecution of Christianity, becoming a staunch Defender of the Faith. He even considered abdication to pursue a life of the cloth. Ultimately, he was martyred by his brother, after ruling only five years.

The twentieth century was difficult for Czechs, yet King Wenceslas did not return during the German occupation or the Soviet invasion of 1968. However, some do not know Václav is the common Czech and Slovak derivative of Wenceslas, and one Václav definitely came to the fore.

The analogy between Václav Havel and King Wenceslas is certainly flawed. Though harassed and imprisoned, Havel happily was not permanently martyred. From 1977 to 1989 Havel regularly saw the inside of prison cells. Havel is the playwright and jazz fan who rallied to the cause of the persecuted rock band The Plastic People of the Universe. He became the natural leader of the Velvet Revolution, culminating in his election to the Presidency, heading the first free government since the Communist coup of 1948 from Prague Castle, where King Wenceslas ruled over 1,000 years earlier.

Havel neither sought power for himself, or to cling to it once he attained it. He is now content in his role as preeminent world citizen. In recent years he has taken the lead supporting the emerging democracy movement in Cuba, and advocating vigilance against. Fortunately, he is not a saint, but he is a hero.

If you are caroling this Christmas, give St. Wenceslas his due. Let us give thanks for his example and those of the great heroes of our time, like Václav Havel, Lech Walesa, and those risked their lives with them. Merry Christmas to all my Czech friends, and to all semi-regular readers of J.B. Spins, wherever you are.