Vaclav Havel's "Leaving' at the Wilma (3rd review)

Few individuals have deserved to lead their country as much as the former Czech President Vaclav Havel. A short list might include George Washington, Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi and Winston Churchill.

For no more arbitrary a reason than his "bourgeois heritage," the communist government discriminated against Havel's career prospects, threw him in prison when he protested, and denied him the opportunity to see his works realized. Like Mandela he persisted, like Gandhi he fought, like Churchill he inspired, and like Washington he became the father of a new nation.

But I don't have to struggle against my hero worship in order to fairly evaluate Havel's Leaving, now receiving its American premiere at the Wilma. His first new work in 20 years draws potent allusions to Shakespeare and Chekhov, employs illuminating allegory, and although allegedly non-autobiographical, serves fittingly as a summation and farewell letter to the Czech people. However, in Leaving's disingenuous political message Havel muddies the merits of his own success.

Fear of obsolescence

Havel's play opens on former Chancellor Vilém Rieger (David Strathairn), now holding court ceremoniously in the backyard of a state-owned villa. He bickers with his secretary, gets upbraided by his longtime companion Irena (Kathryn Meisle), and indulges the wanton admiration of a Ph.D. grad (Mary McCool's Bea). The arrival of his former rival Klein (Trevor Long) adds a twist: Rieger could stay on at his villa if he betrays his principles and shuts his mouth about the current regime's abuses.

Leaving's literary allusions to The Cherry Orchard and King Lear shine through with compelling relevance, finding their modern counterpart in a former head of state who fears obsolescence in a country that no longer needs him. And although it becomes slightly tiresome, the allegorical author's voice that intrudes illustrates the idea that only art allows a man to justly act like a dictator.

Under Jiri Zizka's direction, the production embodies the sense of dreamlike theatrical magic that only the Wilma can consistently conjure. From the first moments of seeing the set and hearing the incidental music, to the exceptional performances that carried both the humor and the tragedy, I thought, "What a privilege to sit here in this chair, in this building wrought by artists capable of producing such an effect."

From Bedford Falls to Pottersville?

But while the production soars, the message stammers. Much like Havel, Rieger came to power on a message that promoted the good of "the individual free human citizen constantly learning new skills and steeped in family values." Around the globe Rieger spoke of how "humans are made for freedom." In a dream-like sequence, we witness this ultimate symbol of the liberated individual in a naked, dancing man (Mark Cairns)— an ideal celebrated in Witold Gombrowicz's Operetta, another Eastern European import recently seen at the Wilma.

Klein, by contrast, embodies the dissolutive vagaries of the free market. He wants to bulldoze old estates to throw up shopping centers, casinos and sex parlors. Trevor Long's vulgar portrayal encourages us to sympathize with Rieger and detest Klein— if not as someone causing the downfall of a nation, at least as a politician bent on blinding it to corruption with constant consumerist spectacle. Frank Capra endorsed the same notion in It's a Wonderful Life, where a hedonistic and crooked Pottersville replaced Bedford Falls in the absence of one noble savior.

Similar shifts have occurred in the Czech Republic since Havel came to power in 1989 on a message of freedom and humanistic self-realization. The residential block where I lived in Prague after his presidency offers two non-stop casinos, a sex parlor, four bars and restaurants, all of which sat a tram stop away from a multiplex bookended by a 20-screen cinema and Carrefour, Europe's version of Wal-Mart. I'm sure that no one satisfying his or her multitude of desires cares that the entire complex abuts a mansion where Mozart once lived.

However, Havel laments the liberalism that led to these conditions. Throughout the play, Rieger chants his mantra of personal freedom while vacillating before the whims of every new character. Later, his pants continually fall down.

No sympathy from the Sodomites

But I don't sympathize with Rieger. This Sodom-ized Prague— though comparable in size and population to Philadelphia— boasts three opera and ballet companies to our one of each, a symphony of similar stature, an equal amount of theaters and concert venues, and Czechs can buy alcohol anywhere, gamble legally, possess small quantities of pot, and purchase prostitutes of both sexes. By any measure, Czechs today are freer than Philadelphians. Havel should take his successes where he gets them.

Nor can I endorse the kind of lunacy that considers Bedford Falls a better place to live than Pottersville, any more than I could believe Paris or Prague or London sans McDonald's would become more elevated. I can't believe that a man who led a revolution in which rock 'n roll played such an important part (Havel's translator played in the banned band Plastic People of the Universe!) would ever think that the Czech Republic would float like an Athenian island into the global economy. Or that he'd feel disappointed when it didn't happen.

Here this reflective play misses the key point: Leaders like Havel and Rieger fight to give their people what they deserve. Politicians like Klein merely give them what they want. The former, who matter when we need them, we worship. But if they can't follow us into the promised land of freedom, we're not the ones leaving them behind.♦


To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.
To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.
To read a related commentary by AJ Sabatini, click here.