SOURCE: "Shall We Dance?: Reflections on Václav Havel's Plays," in Cross Currents: A Yearbook of Central European Culture, Vol. 10, 1991, pp. 213-22.

In the essay below, Goetz-Stankiewicz traces the dance metaphor through Havel's plays.

At fifty-three the Czech playwright Václav Havel has arrived at a crossroad in his life that he hardly could have foreseen. He has been catapulted by the political events in Central Eastern Europe from his writer's desk in a quiet country house in Northern Bohemia to the president's office in Prague's Hradčany Castle, and his life has undergone a change that could hardly have been more drastic. Today his dramatic oeuvre, written over a period of about twenty-five years, comprises nine full-length and four one-act plays (in addition to some early short pieces for stage, television, and radio). When audiences will be able to see a new play by Havel is an...