When the repertoire of the Czechoslovakian National Theatre was controlled by the ruling Communist government, Bockerer was an approved play. The party permitted this obscure 1948 piece by Ulrich Becher and Peter Preses because of its anti-Nazi and pro-worker stance, and because the one communist activist in the World War II comedy-drama was presented with sympathy. Four years after the velvet revolution that toppled the play’s bureaucratic admirers, and nine months after the establishment of Slovakia as a fully independent nation, Bockerer seemed an ironic choice for the newly freed Slovakian National Theatre to present on its first American visit.
The Slovak’s performance was the consequence of a casual 1992 visit to Bratislava by peripatetic Cleveland Play House artistic director, Josephine Abady. Along with administrator Dean Gladden, Abady was returning from Russia, having developed an exchange with Volgograd’s New Experimental Theatre. But Bratislava yielded its own connections, and within a year a second Play House exchange was in place. Abady’s production of The House of Blue Leaves toured to both Prague and Bratislava last July, causing great excitement in the latter city where the President and Prime Minister of Slovakia both welcomed the visiting Americans.
Uncouth but wise
Looking for money to take the Slovaks to Cleveland, National Theatre director Dusan Jamrich simply called on his emerging nation’s Minister of Culture, who, despite hard economic times, funded the whole affair. By mid-September, 30 actors and technicians had arrived in Ohio, prepared to present the American premiere of Bockerer to an enthusiastic Cleveland audience, all willing to fiddle with crackling headsets to receive the simultaneous English translation.
Bockerer (the name is derived from an old Germanic word meaning “one who balks more”) is not an especially distinguished piece of writing. The title character of the melodramatic play is an uncouth but wise Austrian butcher who resists the encroachments of Naziism, while other more pretentious but less astute citizens (including the butcher’s own wife and son) either join the invaders or remain passive. Much of the play’s highly physical humor comes from Bockerer’s folksy but defiant good nature, a buffoonish demeanor that saves him from trouble and frustrates the Third Reich.
What party officials missed
Performed in loosely linked episodes heralded by titles strung across the stage on banners, Bockerer has a rough Brechtian style with none of the requisite intellectual or political pungency, and too much overwrought pathos, especially surrounding the death of the butcher’s Nazi-sympathizing son.
Still, the shortcomings of the play barely detracted from the poignancy of this exchange. Under Peter Mikulik’s direction, the consummately professional Slovak actors reveled in physical comedy and broad characterizations. Leopold Haverl was entertaining in the title role, offering a poignant mix of emotional excitement and adroit technique. Watching the elderly, expressive faces of the ensemble, one was struck by how rare it is to see so many senior actors on an American regional stage, especially in small roles usually reserved for interns. At the end of their visit, the Slovaks took their bows until almost midnight, reluctant to leave the stage. Viewing the final post-liberation scene of the play, in which Bockerer notes that constant vigilance is required lest another group appears to restrict freedom, one realizes why the theatre kept performing this play, and what party officials missed.
Haverel the actor has obviously long made sure his adoring Slovak audiences knew that the communists were as much the object of his warning as the Nazis were Bockerer’s. In Cleveland, there was perhaps just a special note of happiness in his voice.
