Jiří Fisher

“And meanwhile we also played one performance in Off-Broadway, in Village in the Greenwich House Theatre and it was called Ceremony in Bohemia, and it was a very nice performance about a court trial with VONS (The Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Persecuted – transl.‘s note). It was actually almost a documentary, about the members of VONS. There were the figures of Havel, Dienstbier, Bednářová, Benda - I played him, Němcová - my wife played her, young Němcová, who was also played by my wife, and so on. And people from Voice of America arrived to see the play. They wanted to report about it in their broadcast. They came to us after the performance and they said: ‘Look, wouldn’t you like to work for Voice of America? You speak Czech, you can speak English, and if you take translation tests and voice tests, we are certain that you would pass.’ At that time I told him: ‘Well, I don’t know, but I don’t think so,’ because at that time we still believed that we could develop our career as actors quite well. But some two or three months later the phone rang: ‘Look, we are adding two hours to our broadcast. Come, it would be great.’ And after that lost film, I said: ‘Fine. All right, let’s go. We will go there, we will go to Washington, and we will see, for one year, let’s say, it may turn out well. It may be nice. If we don’t like it, we can always go back.’ I passed the tests and we went to Washington, D.C. And well, this one year turned into thirty years in Voice of America. Since it was paid quite well, and it was interesting, and it was a very creative job and we also felt that we were somehow contributing into the mess that was taking place there, in the communist Czechoslovakia.”

“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!’”