Jiří Wohanka

“I had been telling you the truth when I said it was dangerous, as it indeed had been like that, as one day, I was summoned by the Kladno police. And they told me that they got this information from Prague (Praha), from Špalíček, where the Civic Forum had its main office, that someone had been looking for me at the theatre and that some people wanted to kill me, so they were ordered to watch over me, so they were letting me know. And they were following my car and guarding me, so that no one would beat me up. And at the time, someone wrote 'Voháňka Havla' on the wall of the theatre, which made me quite proud, but unfortunately, I didn't take a photo. I still regret that.”

“There was this quite interesting situation, as we decided that we would go on stage – Brousek again, me and Honza Civiš, who was the dramaturg at the theatre and also an excellent singer (he had been singing at some opera house) – we would read the declaration, tell the people why we wouldn't be performing, and he would start to sing the national anthem. And as we went to the stage in that beautiful theatre in Boleslav, the whole ensemble gathered in the side gangways to show their support. We said what we wanted to say, but there were also militiamen in the audience, not just those grannies and grandpas. So it was quite an absurd situation. We read the paper, we had been explaining why we wouldn't perform and at that moment some people started yelling at us and some were applauding. That was quite absurd. And with all this yelling, Honza Civiš started to sing like in an opera – Where is my home ... Most of the people got up but the militiamen remained seated in protest. And they were yelling at us, my apologies to women and children, 'Fuck off, comedians! How dare you?!' It was just surreal. We finished singing the anthem. Before we went on stage, the ensemble decided that I would be the strike committee's spokesman. As I was living in Kladno, besides other things. So we would run away from the theatre, or maybe just... We were just leaving the theatre, telling ourselves: 'Let's get out of here fast, before the militiamen would pull themselves together, grab some guns and begin to shoot.' Well, that was quite an ugly situation.”