Jiří Fisher

“That was a very, very bad time. I got a job after graduation, I was offered a position as an actor in the Petr Bezruč Theatre in Ostrava. It was after the time when the members of the new Činoherní klub (The Drama Club) with Honza Kačer, Hrzán, Nina Divíšková had left the Petr Bezruč Theatre in Ostrava and they went to Prague, where they established The Drama Club and a new environment was being created there. And people from JAMU (Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno – transl.‘s note) who had graduated one year before us had gotten there; many of my friends were there and I was offered a position as well and so this was how I got to the Petr Bezruč Theatre. And it was a good decision, a perfect decision. But we are talking about 1970, when the political screenings started after the occupation. The Party members went first, they were screened and then we, non-Partisans, went. And one of the basic questions was: ‘What is your opinion on the entry of the Warsaw Pact armies to Czechoslovakia?’ And of course, at that time, since I was young and bold, I literally told them: ‘Well, you see, as for my opinion on this, firstly, it is my private matter, and if I knew and if I wanted to go and confess, I know where to go.’ Literally I said it like that. Well, what it caused quite a stir. There were various Party members in the committee, and there were some members from the theatre as well. But at that time they were given an order by the Party’s regional committee - of course I learnt about this only later - that they ought not to fire anybody after the political screenings. There were so many idiots like me… But instead they had been instructed to wait for the first breach of discipline in the theatre. And I gave them a chance immediately, because the theatre director at that time, Saša Lichý, wrote a very pro-regime play, already back in the 1950s, and it was called Black Hand and well, it was an incredible bullshit. About Young Pioneers. And after the screenings he gave me one of the lead roles, the role of some Pioneer. Well, that was simply not possible. I thought, well, no way, I cannot… They are kidding me, I cannot act in this play. And again, I stress this, it was a decision. And so I decided that I would simply not appear in that play. I went to him and I said: ‘Mr. Lichý, please don’t be angry at me, but I will not act in this play.’ He said: ‘Well, you will.’ I said: ‘No, I will not act in it.’ He replied: ‘Yes, you will. And tomorrow is the first run-through, and I am expecting you there.’ And I did not come for the run-through. They sent a messenger for me. I said: ‘No, no, no, I am not going there, I will simply not recite the words.’ – ‘But you understand the possible consequences...’ I said: ‘Yes, I understand. But I cannot look at myself in the mirror later, after all this, and say, well, fine, it’s alright, I will play the role of some Pioneer for you and we will do something. No!’”

“Well, and then there was a period when nothing much happened and then another of my idols, actor and director Jan Kačer, came to Brno, and he brought the play One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. A famous version of the even more famous Miloš Forman’s film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We started rehearsing it, it was beautiful work and it was from a completely different source than the director Krejčík, for instance. I think that Jan actually comes from the tradition of Alfréd Radok, of Mr. Schorm, which is kind in a way, when he actually indirectly offers something to the actors and then he artificially and he very cleverly manipulates with them. The actor then feels that it was his idea, but he had been actually gently, beautifully and painlessly pushed there by the director Jan Kačer. We rehearsed the play and there was a great committee, a censoring committee, that came to the first or second dress rehearsal and they looked at it and said: ‘No, that cannot be staged. The director, Mr. Kačer, has deviated from the directorial intention, and the anti-socialist note is very clearly palpable in the play.’ Well, they simply banned it. And now we are getting to another point of decision. What to do with it next? Some comrades come and they destroy two and a half months of work, they throw it away and they just say, now, you cannot stage it, because it is an anti-socialist nonsense. Well, actually most of my colleagues bent their backs and they said, all right, then, so we will not stage it. We had a little boy, our son who was not even one year old, and I thought, no, no way, this cannot be, we cannot do it like this. And so I wrote an open letter to the minister of culture Klusák. What was behind this? How come that somebody can just come and say that the play is not to be staged, although it had been approved before, and so on.” – “Did you get a reply?” – “No, no reply came, never, but the director of the drama department at that time - I forgot his name - well, he told us: ‘Look, I have a new play for you, instead of the Cuckoo - his name was Oldřich Vykypěl, I just remembered. He was an actor, too, and by the way, in the play he was to have the role of the Chief, who tears out the water fountain block and breaks the window and runs away from the institution. He came and he said: ‘I have a great play, an excellent play, for you, as a substitute for the Cuckoo, and it is called Paganini and Frištejnský,’ and then he looked at us and said: ‘But guys, don’t be crazy, it is set in a loony bin, too.’”