The Garden Party at The Estates Theatre

Václav Havel wrote the absurdist comedy about the self-serving Hugo Pludek half a century ago. The play was first presented in 1963 at the Na zábradlí Theatre, staged by two giants of Czech theatre, Otomar Krej?a and Jan Grossmann. A year later, it set out on its journey to world stages. Havel’s work has remained topical, dangerously vivid, up to the present day. The story of an adaptive careerist, who prattles his way through to the company of liquidators and inaugurators, and who is able to strike the right poses and make the right noises so perfectly that ultimately not even his parents can recognise him, is very, very contemporary. Now, isn’t that absurd?