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Flaunting corruption

Barbara Day

Wednesday, 20th August 2008

Leaving
Archa Theatre, Prague

Rieger, meanwhile, is offered a post as adviser to the former secretary of his former secretary. Dignity should preclude accepting it, but a cache of his private letters has fallen into the hands of the press, and the sentence ‘I kiss you on the bumble-bee, my little piglet’ will soon be on everyone’s lips. In one of Havel’s eloquently logical speeches, Rieger demonstrates the need for advisers in a global world: ‘It is increasingly difficult for a top politician to know everything...at this moment I wish to serve this country where ... (it) most needs my help...Politics is service. We want well-rounded families. Long live growth!’

It would be wrong to say that Havel is satirising the democracy he was instrumental in bringing about, but he is attacking the political culture in which, 20 years on, corruption is still not only taken for granted, but — by some politicians — also flaunted.

The English-language première takes place at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond on 19 September.

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