Bohuslav Holý

“I’m not sure to what extent this was happening, certainly on the level of dramaturgy someone was interfering. The censors had this special term for it, subversion, meaning that there was some form of political sabotage or protest present in the piece. And of course, we especially looked for it in every piece and tried to highlight it. When we did the Rag Ballad by Voskovec and Werich, it gave us the delightful opportunity legally to say on stage: ,Instead of bread, we chew on slogans.’ There was always something that for us meant resistance. The censors were looking for these subversive moments and tried to suppress them. I don’t remember any unpleasant times for instance during rehearsals. The directors mostly felt like us. And I don’t remember a director who would be a devoted communist. This is what I have always loved about the Alfa theatre, and why I have been so happy there until today.”

“I have this memory. In 1969, we were watching the Czechoslovak ice-hockey team on TV playing the Russians at the world championship. In those days, our ice-hockey players’ emblem was a Hussite pavise shield with the red communist star over it, and some players had already plastered the red star over. As a way of protest. And our national team defeated the Russian team. Prague exploded in riots. The crowds took the Aeroflot, the Russian airline shop, by storm. Here in Pilsen, we watched the ice-hockey and then we took to the streets. It was a large crowd. We were walking from the Slovany neighbourhood to the Náměstí Republiky square. More and more people were joining us, and they were chanting things like: See the Russians fuming, when the Czechs are scoring! As we were getting closer to the square, the tune had already changed, and now the crowd was chanting: Death to the Russians! It had escalated quickly. There were radical sentiments in the society against the occupation and the occupying forces. That’s what I sensed at the time, anyway. What happened after, the period of checks and political purges, was a huge let-down.”