Václav Havel: OPENING

Michal and Viera invited their quiet and unassuming friend Fridrich over to show him their home, to demonstrate everything they had managed to acquire and buy, and to reveal the things they had surrounded themselves with. They demonstrate to him how they live, while at the same time pointing out how wrong his own life choices have been, as he distances himself from mainstream society and refuses to conform. This confrontation yields no shortage of grotesque and even absurd moments and situations.

Václav Havel’s one-act play was written in the mid-1970s as part of the so-called “Vaňkovky,” a series featuring the same main character—a sort of alter ego of the author himself. At the time, Havel was a dissident, a man on the margins, out of the game. From this position, the main character of *Vernisáž* also confronts the society of his time, engages with it, and holds up a mirror to it.

NOTICE: PERFORMANCE SUITABLE FOR AGES 15 AND UP.

Venue: National Theater / Small Stage