Viktor Spousta

"When I went to the MNV (Local committee) to ask, I said that we had an amateur ensemble, that we had staged a play called The Beggar's Opera by Brecht, but because we were not singers, it was adapted as a drama and that we wanted to perform it in front of our friends. Yeah, of course they did, only they said that they couldn't charge admission and that a man from the national committee would come to supervise. That's all, so it was all right. So we had to straighten the chairs in that hall, the rows, we did everything. And when it came to the actual play, it was wonderful. So I had, I had a problem there, I just got a blackout, a terrible blackout. And now I thought Polly was going to help me. So I went back one line, that I asked a question, and instead of helping me, she said, but you've already asked Macheath about that. So I was totally screwed, I was really desperate, the clue might have been shouting so that the last person in line heard it, I didn't hear anything. So I said sorry, I have to ask what's next. And I went to ask the clue. There was such a thunderous applause, huge, and even Vaclav told me afterwards that he felt I had done it on purpose. But it wasn't on purpose, I actually had a blackout. Then it finished as it was supposed to finish."

"From what I remember, when I was born we were in Kaprova Street. There was quite a big flat there and he had his publishing house, he was a book publisher, he employed my cousin, a man called Robert Hýzner. He was then accused of being an exploiter, he had one employee and I say, this was in my early childhood, so literally what the volume of work was, I don't know, I just know that unfortunately he was defeated by the currency reform. He had a book that he'd split at the time and he'd commissioned the printers to print it and it was right around the time of currency reform. And actually, because of that, he didn't have the money to pay the printer afterwards, so he was paying it off for a long, long time. He had to sell what he could. The money, the old money that was there before, because he had it ready to pay the printer, I remember him throwing it in the stove and saying that the heat it would give was more than what he would get in the bank."

"The hall at the Čelikovský´s was so packed that people were standing there. That alone. Now there were quite interesting people sitting in the front seats. Landovský, Chramostová, Tříska was there... So you thought, geez, look at this, here come such aces to see us. And I'd say it didn't hurt me, but I started to get stage fright. I got one blackout, too. It was such a terrible blackout that the hint was screaming and I couldn't hear it. So I just told them to excuse me, that I didn't know what was next, that I had to go ask. That got a huge applause, but so huge. Václav said to me after the show, 'Did you do that on purpose?"

"At that time, when we had already rehearsed The Beggar's Opera, Andrej actually came up with the idea of where we would perform it. So I said that we always played at the Čelikovský's in Xaver. They knew me at the National Committee (and they knew) that I was doing it there. Eventually my wife was there... I went there and quite officially asked for the fact that we were a theatre company, that we had staged The Beggar's Opera - that it was by Brecht, but it wasn't a singing play, because we wouldn't perform it, that it was like a drama. I didn't mention, of course, by whom it was transcribed. And they did, that of course we can. The only thing is they'll send someone from them to see it when we play it. And that we're not allowed to charge admission. That was their only condition."