Largo Desolato: A Play in Seven Scenes [rare books]

A biting drama by the famed playwright and statesman at his creative and ironic best. Vaclav Havel gives us the comically absurd and seemingly autobiographical account of Professor Leopold Nettles, a revered but reluctant revolutionary whose most recent book has irked the totalitarian government in power. The authorities demand a retraction; his friends and fans clamor for heroic defiance. Besieged by an onslaught of internal demons, whining lovers, suffocating followers, and inef- fectual government thugs, the professor sinks nearer and nearer to crisis, unable to confront the conflicting demands that rule his life and leave him tormented by neurotic inertia. One of Havel's best-known plays, Largo Desolato vividly drama- tizes the multiple contradictions of the intellectual trapped in a totalitarian nightmare.