Miloš Dvořák

"We were here (in Prague - ed.) with Snítilý (manager of the State Theatre of Zdeněk Nejedlý in Ústí-upon-Labe - ed.) and with Chundela (art director of The Theatrical Studio - ed.) to see the final year students of DAMU (Theatrical Academy of Arts - transl.). That was the class with Tomáš Töpfer, Lábus and Petr Vaněk, so when we were speaking with them after a graduation performance in The Disc (Disk), then I know they didn't make a very good impression on us, because someone had promised them that the whole class would go to Jablonec. And we asked: 'Who could have promised you that?' Because we were in the same region, and we know how it was with finances at the time, right. Someone had promised it to them, and we said: 'How much money do they have for you?' And someone, I don't know if it was Töpfer or someone, said: 'Well, they have some twenty or forty thousand to start with, and something we have to earn.' Just simply naïve ideas. Of course it was ridiculous, and obviously that's not what happened in the end. The only outcome was that Petr Vaněk ended up with us, the only one of that class."

"He was an exceptional person. That was one advantage of Ústí, that when Evald came there, he obviously stayed there, and so he spent all the time between rehearsals with us, right, so you have this person by your side who is - well, who is special, but it's hard to explain, you'd have to know him. He was - it didn't really look like he was directing, he always came there - but everyone says that about him, right, everyone who worked with him, even afterwards at Na zábradlí ('On the railing', a Prague theatre - transl.), he would say: 'Well then, children, what will we do with it, well?' One time I saw him get slightly angry, he raised his voice - and that was during a, as they call it, a technical rehearsal, right, that's when they bring in the props - the ones that are actually supposed to be in the play. And there wasn't much of it that time, that was to do with Diogenes (the play 'Diogenes the Cynic'), some sort of fences that were a bit different in the end from what they brought there. He sort of flew into a rage and started stomping on them, saying this wouldn't do, this wasn't what he had in mind. But that was maybe the only time I saw him angry. Something like Krejčík (the director Jiří Krejčík - ed.) I guess."

"The way I saw it, or the way we talked about it afterwards with Marie (wife, actress in TTS - ed.), was, when we joined the theatre, in Kadaň as well as in Ústí, in that horrible city, it was much worse than now, that we would be there just for a while, that it wasn't permanent. But I think everyone who came there understood it that way. But I got stuck there for twenty-five years, and that's most of my life gone. But when I look back on it, I think it was worth it. I'm glad I was where the action was, that I had the chance. And after all, like I said to start with, what I had wanted was a life of theatre, so that wish actually came true, that I did in fact, with the Theatrical Studio, I might say, that I'm really happy that I was there, even though 'there' stood for Ústí, right."

"I was sitting on the pavement outside the house and suddenly opposite me - some lady lived there, Nepokojová was her name - leaned out of the window, towards the people on the street, and she started shouting: 'Peace is here!' - I didn't know what that was, so I ran home to ask, and because of that I remember it so well, how I asked mum, she was home, dad was probably at work: 'What is peace?' Kind of like, I don't know if the word was banned during the war or whether I just hadn't heard it yet, right."

"That was a kind of, I wouldn't like to say, excuse. He could say that too, right, but basically he had a couple of drinks more, and he had this idea that he has to get from the theatre to the big theatre, because that's where he lived, on Lidice Square. And they were building something there, I don't know if it was Labe (a shopping centre - ed.) or what. There at the bus station or somewhere was this fence, like you have around construction sites, and he crashed into it and caused some seven hundred crowns in damages. No one was hurt, not him, not anyone else. They didn't catch him there, but by the time he got to the theatre in his car - which was also still mobile - then they were waiting for him and they snatched him up, right. Well obviously, that's the correct thing, there were some laws about that, there always are, but it's true that - Tomáš Töpfer told me the story at the time, he was in Ostrava beforehand, right, and there was this actor there, or he was the boss even and he was in television all the time, Vochoč his name was, who was driving drunk in Ostrava just a short time before this incident, and he crashed five cars, parked cars that is, and of course they didn't even prosecute him, because he was their man."