A great theatre reveals not only itself and its story; it also reveals the viewer's story, and with it his urgent need to confront his own experience with the theme presented on stage. Such a play does not end with the performance; the curtain is only the beginning.

In his plays, Vaclav Havel has shown this true dramatic ability as have few in contemporary Czech literature. His key concern is the mechanization of man…. At the beginning of The Garden Party or The Memorandum, the audience is not dazzled by dramatic skills which elaborate on the subject; instead, there is mechanization itself, experienced as well as mediated by a manner which is technical and theoretical rather than dramatic.

Havel's potential as a playwright was once doubted by people who, however much they praised his literary talent, his analytical ability, his cutting aphorisms, thought he was too rationalistic and...