REVIEW

by Norah Vawter

If you haven’t been to the theatre underground—and I mean literally underground—you haven’t seen a show like The Havel Project. This production by Alliance for New Music-Theatre runs until November 17, and takes place in the Dupont Underground, an underground streetcar station that was abandoned in 1962 and reopened in 2016 as an arts space. Imagine descending into a subterranean world and walking through a graffiti-adorned tunnel to a small, intimate performance space. And the location is just the beginning of the appeal of this performance, which manages to shock, unsettle, enlighten, and delight, all at once.

The Havel Project is presented in partnership with the Czech Embassy and as a tribute to the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution—which bloodlessly ended totalitarianism in Czechoslovakia. It is two plays: Protest by Vacláv Havel, and a new musical inspired by Havel’s life and work, Vaněk Unleashed, book by Susan Galbraith, music and lyrics by Maurice Saylor. Both are directed by Susan Galbraith and feature the same central character: Ferdinand Vaněk, Havel’s autobiographical alter-ego who appears in several of his plays. In a meta twist, Drew Valins portrays Vaněk in both works. Protest is easily the strongest of the two plays. However, both are compelling, and the two works, shockingly different in form, are in conversation with each other. Together, they make a special night.

Both plays are meant to unsettle the audience, but they’re also inherently appealing: full of hope and the possibility of redemption, not despair. Brimming with life. For all the warning bells sounded—and how disturbingly relevant this show is to life in Trump’s America—The Havel Project reminds us that the stubborn determination of the individual can undermine totalitarian systems, and that revolutions can be born of childlike imagination and whimsical fun.

Protest, first performed in 1978, was written by the legendary Czech dissident and playwright Václav Havel, who went on to lead the Velvet Revolution and become the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. This deceptively simple play, about two men meeting in an apartment and weaving their way through an uncomfortable conversation, is also deceptively powerful. Alliance’s production makes full use of the material, letting the intensity build until we are lifted out of the mundane and into something extraordinary, beautiful, and terrifying. The space underground, and the unique acoustics, is also perfect for Protest: David Millstone as Staněk bellows with self-righteousness and desperation, letting his voice echo down the tunnel. We get the feeling that his voice might go on forever and that his fury and fear might escape into the world above.

Staněk is an intellectual who sympathizes with Czech dissidents. But he’s long since compromised the ideals of his youth for a comfortable life, writing for television and living in a lavish apartment. Vaněk, a dissident playwright and stand-in for Havel himself, is an old friend visiting. Recently released from prison, unable to find well-paying work, followed frequently, and dressed in scruffy attire, Vaněk illustrates the reality of living one’s ideals. His plays can only be performed in secret apartment productions, in private living rooms, because his writing is banned by the state. Now he’s come to ask his old friend to sign a petition, which demands the release of a young man from prison, only to learn that Staněk is also intent on securing this man’s release. When Staněk learns that the protest is already written and the petition ready to sign, he is thrilled but also terrified. This one signature, we learn, would likely cost him his job and his way of life.

Though at the beginning of the play we might pity Vaněk for his station in life—by the end we pity Staněk. In holding onto his comforts, his safety, and his supposed freedom, he’s unwittingly lost his freedom. He cannot speak. He cannot act. The farther he rises, he farther he has to fall. Vaněk by contrast has liberated himself. Having allowed comfort and safety to be stripped from him by the state, he’s freed himself from the tyranny of the state. He is complete, while his pampered friend is incomplete and longing for redemption. As Havel tells us in his classic essay “The Power of the Powerless” (written the same year as Protest), the dissident “rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game. He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth.”

Staněk could have been a cartoonish character, or an obviously bad guy, but Havel writes him with a surprising amount of compassion, and Millstone plays him with range and nuance. At first the character does seem one-note, and annoyingly condescending to his supposed friend. But as the play goes on, Millstone peels back layers so that we see to the hear of the character. We see and hear a full symphony filled with subtlety, careful deliberation—a character reaching for the life he wishes he was brave enough to choose. A brilliant bit of staging occurs during one of Staněk’s long, tortured monologues when curtains are pulled down to reveal prison bars. Metaphorically, this man is in prison, though he will never set foot behind literal bars.

Both plays feature  simple and bare-bones set design. The audience sits around the stage in chairs—not traditional, built-in theatre seats.  Minimal sets and props are employed, and when actors move staging or use it in a new way, absurdist elements emerge. A desk is a metaphor for power, and then, when actors crouch under it, a symbol of the way trappings of comfort imprison us. Prison bars are moved around the stage, changing our perception of what prison is. Costuming is simple, at times feeling like it could have just been improvised, which is a cool effect that contributes to the absurdist fantasy. In Vaněk Unleashed, some characters play more than one part, and they transform not by changing completely, but by adding or peeling off layers. The small space, small audience, and informal staging create the effect of an intimate gathering, like the secret apartment performances that showcased the banned plays of Havel and other dissidents. 

David Millstone is the true star of the night. When his Staněk yells at his old friend, defending his choices while lamenting the ultimate price he has paid, his voice reverberates through the underground space, and we are hit hard with the reality of a character who, ironically, is suffering because he does not want to suffer. He is the emotional heart of the production. But Drew Valins, in a suitably understated performance, is perfect as both incarnations of Vaněk, careful to subtly distinguish the character in each play, so that he is performing two variations of a singular thread. In Vaněk Unleashed, Valins anchors the absurd, ever-twisting narrative, and Michelle Eugene stands out as Eva, Vaněk’s blunt, no-nonsense wife.

Vaněk Unleashed is a weird, ambitious, absurdist, and usually delightful new musical. Inspired by the four years Havel spent in prison from 1979 to 1983 and using many lines from Havel’s writing, particularly his letters to his first wife, Letters to Olga, the play blurs the line between fact and fiction. It also blurs the line between the character Vaněk and Havel himself, as the character interacts with real and imagined people and struggles to preserve his sanity, his hope, and his morals. Moving between spoken conversation, song, and silent vaudevillian antics, the production is fresh and certainly something I had not seen before. Despite the subject matter, it never weighs down the audience, instead unleashing a spirit of whimsy and spontaneity. The idea that you can be free if you can imagine freedom is a powerful one.

Yet Vaněk Unleashed feels uneven. At times the production confuses and disorients the audience in a delightful way—using the methods of the “theatre of the absurd” to sweep us away from logic and rational arguments. At other points, the play’s narrative is hard to follow, and the lack of exposition leads to the sort of confusion that pulls you out instead of in. Though it’s by no means necessary, I would suggest reading up on Havel in links above or here, because context will help fill in some gaps. Another source of confusion is the music: the sung lyrics are often difficult to understand, particularly when Michelle Eugene and Meghan McCall’s voices reach high and operatic. The women’s voices are spectacular, but the acoustics of Dupont Underground do them no favors.

Ultimately, both plays make me think about the tenuous state of democracy in our country, and whether my own actions (or lack of action) make me complicit. I want to identify with Vaněk, but find myself identifying with Staněk, in an uncomfortable way. Because let’s face it: most of us are not Vaněks, or Havels. Most of us don’t sacrifice as much as the character or the man. Vaněk is an ideal that I aspire to, and a reminder that I could do more, that I could dig deeper for my inner dissident. The Havel Project calls to mind Republicans who refuse to speak out against Trump, as well as any of us who are outraged privately by our political reality but don’t risk much to make it better. These plays are a chilling reminder of how lucky we are, what our reality could look like in a less free society, and the importance of action and hope. Hope in the face of darkness, and the belief that the actions of the individual matter: this is what sets Vaněk apart. So let’s hold onto our hope, and our stubborn determination to be free.

The Havel Project is presented by Alliance for New Music-Theatre, in collaboration with the Embassy of the Czech Republic. Performances take place at Dupont Underground:

19 Dupont Circle NW

Washington, DC 20036

Running Time: About two hours with an intermission.

Performances run through November 17. For tickets and full schedule, visit www.newmusictheatre.org. Performance warning: this production uses strobe-like effects.

Norah Vawter is DCTRENDING’s Local Authors Editor. She earned her M.F.A. in creative writing from George Mason University. She has published articles, fiction, and poetry in The Washington Post, Healthline, Scary Mommy, The Nassau Review, and Stymie, among others. Norah is querying her first novel, an excerpt of which was shortlisted for the RopeWalk Press Editor’s Fiction Chapbook Prize. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.