SOURCE: "Private Views, Public Vistas," in Th e New Republic, Vol. 190, No. 10, 12 March 1984, pp. 27-9.

In the evaluation below of A Private View, Brustein argues that Havel has made Vaněk the spokesman for his own views, and in so doing has "created for himself an insoluble problem: how to dramatize the cowardice of others and contrast it with your own heroism, without appearing impossibly self-righteous. "

I am late in reviewing Vaclav Havel's A Private View at the Public Theater for reasons that suggest how political considerations can inhibit one's critical judgments. I have not greatly admired Havel's dramatic writings in the past (I found The Memorandum, for example, a post-Absurd-ist contrivance hamstrung by crude linear plotting), but in view of the courageous public actions of this Czechoslovakian dissident, it somehow seemed insensitive to be making aesthetic judgments on his techniques. How does one criticize the art of...