Premiere of the play “Protest” translated into Catalan by a PhD student of the Faculty of Philosophy

The play will be on the theater from March 9 to April 2, at Sala Leopoldo Fregoli in La Seca-Espai Brossa.
The play will be on the theater from March 9 to April 2, at Sala Leopoldo Fregoli in La Seca-Espai Brossa.
Culture
(21/03/2017)

From March 9 to April 2, the Sala Leopoldo Fregoli of La Seca-Espai Brossa will offer the play Protest, by Václav Havel, in its Catalan translation by the PhD student of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Barcelona, Jordi Casasampera. The translation is part of the appendix of Casasamperaʼs doctoral thesis, on Platoʼs, Patočkaʼs and Havelʼs philosophy and dramatic art, which Casasampera will expose before summer and which is supervised by Josep Montserrat, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy.

This text had been presented in 2014 in Sala Beckett, in the program of the first edition of Barcelona Pensa, as a dramatic reading, by Pere Arquillé and Joan Carreras. The Czech director and producer Pavel Bsoneck saw this reading by chance and decided to produce the play and bring it to the professional scenario. The play is directed by Casasampera and in this occasion the actors are Jordi Gràcia and Carles Goñi.

Protest is the conversation between Vaněk -Havelʼs alter ego- and Staněk, former friend and writer who has assimilated Totalitarianism and has a good place in the field of culture. After a dose of hypocrisy, Staněk tells Vaněk the real reason he invited him, the favour he needs from a dissident used to commitment. Vaněk's response will trap Staněk between the personal benefits and the bad conscience, and will make him unfold all his rhetorical force. To sign or not to sign?
 

The play will be on the theater from March 9 to April 2, at Sala Leopoldo Fregoli in La Seca-Espai Brossa.
The play will be on the theater from March 9 to April 2, at Sala Leopoldo Fregoli in La Seca-Espai Brossa.
Culture
21/03/2017

From March 9 to April 2, the Sala Leopoldo Fregoli of La Seca-Espai Brossa will offer the play Protest, by Václav Havel, in its Catalan translation by the PhD student of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Barcelona, Jordi Casasampera. The translation is part of the appendix of Casasamperaʼs doctoral thesis, on Platoʼs, Patočkaʼs and Havelʼs philosophy and dramatic art, which Casasampera will expose before summer and which is supervised by Josep Montserrat, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy.

This text had been presented in 2014 in Sala Beckett, in the program of the first edition of Barcelona Pensa, as a dramatic reading, by Pere Arquillé and Joan Carreras. The Czech director and producer Pavel Bsoneck saw this reading by chance and decided to produce the play and bring it to the professional scenario. The play is directed by Casasampera and in this occasion the actors are Jordi Gràcia and Carles Goñi.

Protest is the conversation between Vaněk -Havelʼs alter ego- and Staněk, former friend and writer who has assimilated Totalitarianism and has a good place in the field of culture. After a dose of hypocrisy, Staněk tells Vaněk the real reason he invited him, the favour he needs from a dissident used to commitment. Vaněk's response will trap Staněk between the personal benefits and the bad conscience, and will make him unfold all his rhetorical force. To sign or not to sign?
 

Havel and the historical context of the playʼs writing

On January 1, 1977, the playwright Václav Havel, the philosopher Jan Patočka and the former member of the Communist Party Jiří Hájek became the three main signers of Charter 77, a protest text demanding respect for civil rights which the soviet government in Czechoslovakia had agreed to respect in the agreement of Helsinki in 1975, but which were constantly violated, such as the case of the arrest of the rock music band The Plastic People of the Universe.

The publication of Charter 77 led to the death of Patočka due police interrogations, and the imprisonment of Havel for four years. But before imprisonment, the later president of the Czech Republic wrote two essential texts: his famous essay The power of the powerless and his play now presented in Catalan for the first time: Protest (1978). This is the third short piece -after Audience (1975)- in which Havel uses the character of Ferdinand Vaněk, an autobiographic creation transcended by Havel and shared by several authors of the time and the following years, such as Tom Stoppard (Rock ʻnʼ Roll, 2006).

The reason Vaněk becomes a shared character is because of a dramatic principle that enables discovering a world. This engine of dramatic action is quite particular: shy, discrete and cordial, Vaněk will become, without any purpose, a real nuisance for his interlocutor. If philosophyʼs historical aim consists, according to Patočka, on “bringing all those who understand and feel inside the discomfort of this comfortable situation”, Havelʼs theater is an invitation to this journey, with an excellent use of the language, action and humor, made with comedyʼs wisdom.

This 2017 is the 40th anniversary of Charter 77, a crucial movement not only in the fight for civil rights in Czechoslovakia but also for Europeʼs soul in general.

Students of the University of Barcelona can purchase discounted tickets (10€).