PhDr. Jaroslav Someš

"At that time I was very much on the move between Prague and Pilsen, or between home and the theatre. And it was such a silly time, because sometimes in Prague I felt I should be in Pilsen at work, and in Pilsen at work I felt I should be at home helping my mother look after my [seriously ill] father. And once I came from Prague to Pilsen and was told that I had to go to the director's secretariat to Mrs. Jaruška Rácová to sign something. I said what was being signed and I was told that it was... I don't think I'll pronounce it exactly now, but that it was an expression of loyalty to the regime. I had been quite reluctant to sign any big endorsements with the regime since the sixty-eight-sixty-nine, so I just didn't go there. And in the evening of that day, it turned out that only three people from the whole drama company - I don't even know how it was with the other companies, I think it was no problem - Pavel Pavlovský, Jarda Konečný and myself, didn't sign."

"There was that famous meeting where the actors decided to strike along with the students and issued that statement. And we grabbed that statement while it was still hot with Ivan and Ivana and their car and we drove to the Wolkers [Jiri Wolker Theatre], where they were playing Rumcajs, and instead of a thank-you party - because it was an afternoon performance, or for parents with children - instead of a thank-you party, we went out and read it there. I think we were the first theatre to read it. I remember there were a couple of colleagues who preferred to stay in the portal at that time. And the next morning was Sunday and it was going to be a morning and afternoon play and it was going to be Cinderella. So instead of that Cinderella, we came out, the way it was done then, we just read the statement, told them to go home. And also afterwards, in the passage - I wasn't there, so I don't know how much it was - Mr. Richter was attacked by some two gentlemen, and probably not just verbally, as to what he dares to do and how he dares to do it. He had a breakdown, they probably didn't hurt him too much, but he just sort make himself ill, not make himself sick that´s a bad word. He just stayed home for a while, but it wasn't out of cowardice, it was because it shook him up."

"At the same time, I received a repeated offer to teach at JAMU [Janáček Academy of Performing Arts]. Well, and I taught at JAMU for two months and my cadre materials came in and I got kicked out of JAMU, even in the middle of a lecture. The head of the department came, he wasn't happy, he was very embarrassed, but he had to do it. Well, that made me a little bit disgusted with Brno. I apologise to Brno. Moreover, at that time, the Husa na strinuzku [Theatre of the Goose on a String] was not doing very well, sometimes it was not playing, so to speak, it was schnawing, as they say in theatre parlance. But mainly it was about the JAMU, because when this happens to you, it really shakes you up a bit."

"My father, who - when he graduated in history - became the archivist of the town of Jičín. He married my mother in August 1940, and in November 1940 the Gestapo took the whole Jičín town hall and took it, including dad, because they were doing some illegal activities there, namely listening to London and publishing it on leaflets and doing things like that. So, actually, three months after the wedding and I guess let's say in the first or second month of pregnancy, mom sort of didn't know if dad was ever going to come back. So dad came back with her health damaged to the point of death, but he came back to us, knock, knock, knock. And so actually, when you have something like that happen, the family holds together terribly, it's terribly compact. And the de facto credo of the parents is to make the best of that family, and it really was."