A Constant Struggle for Freedom : Edward Albee in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F23%3A00131258" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/23:00131258 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004544130_003" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004544130_003</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004544130_003" target="_blank" >10.1163/9789004544130_003</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
A Constant Struggle for Freedom : Edward Albee in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic
Original language description
Czech productions of Edward Albee’s dramas have been a drama in themselves, revealingly aligned with crucial phases in the country’s political history. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was first staged in Czechoslovakia in 1963, coinciding with the author’s visit to the country during rehearsals. Albee’s instant popularity among audiences ran parallel to an intense critical dispute over the nature of his writing. While one group of critics argued that the play was realist and critical of American values and thus prevented potential censorship, another welcomed Albee as a representative of the fresh, young, and progressive absurdist strain of theater reflecting a general thawing of the Communist regime in the country at the time. A second phase in Albee’s reception began with the Czech production of A Delicate Balance in 1969. That play, understood as a commentary on the 1968 Soviet invasion that effectively ended the Prague Spring, marked Albee as a problematic author for Czechoslovak censorship, a stigma that lasted until the end of the Communist regime in 1989. In the phase unfolding since then, Czech productions of Albee have seen continuous struggles over interpretation. The Czech “director’s theater” staging tradition led to a disregard of stage directions, prescribed scenography, and actors’ ages, thus shifting the plays’ message significantly. Through case studies of several landmark productions in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, this chapter presents a history of Czech Albee productions and criticism as a constant struggle for freedom of various kinds: of interpretation, speech, and artistic expression.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60206 - Specific literatures
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach
Others
Publication year
2023
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Albee Abroad
ISBN
9789004544123
Number of pages of the result
21
Pages from-to
15-35
Number of pages of the book
208
Publisher name
Brill
Place of publication
Leiden
UT code for WoS chapter
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