Redevelopment - or Slum Clearance - by Václav Havel (1987)
English version by James Saunders (1990)
from a literal translation by Marie Winn
Characters -
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ZDENEK BERGMAN, Principal Project Director, fifty-ish
LUISA, architact, about 40
ALBERT, architect, about twenty-five
KUZMA PLEKHANOV, architect (male)
ULCH, architect
MRS MACOURKOVA, architect
RENATA, secretary, about twenty
SPECIAL SECRETARY
FIRST SECRETARY
FIRST INSPECTOR
FIRST DELEGATE
SECOND DELEGATE
FIRST WOMAN
SECOND WOMAN
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© 1987 Václav Havel (author)
originally published by Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag Gmbh (Reinbeck bei Hamburg)
© 1990 James Saunders (English version)
published by Faber and Faber (London, England), 1990
ISBN-10: 057114265
ISBN-13: 978-0571142651
"This is a major work: a dense multi-layered allegory with its roots firmly in reality... It is set in a medieval castle in a historic town in Eastern Europe. Supervised by a state functionary and led by an emotionally chaotic project director, a group of architects struggle to come up with a high-rise building scheme that will destroy the ancient town's character and incidentally clear away its slums. On the realistic level, the play is about a universal architectural dilemma... But it also works as a political metaphor about the whimsical arbitrariness of autocracy... This is vintage Havel: creating a work that is both specific and universal, tragic and comic."
- Michael Billington (Guardian)
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