{"product_id":"the-beggars-opera","title":"The Beggars Opera","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Czech President Vaclav Havel, a force on behalf of international human rights and his countrys most celebrated dissident, first gained prominence as a playwright. During the period when Havel was blacklisted by the Czechoslovakian government for his political activism, productions of his work in and around Prague were regarded as subversive acts.The Beggars Opera is a freewheeling, highly politicized adaptation of John Gays wellknown eighteenthcentury work of the same name. The play, reminiscent of Havels earlier Garden Party and The Memorandum, is up to his best satirical standard. Like the Brecht\/Weill Threepenny Opera, Havels play uses an underworld milieu to explore the intermingled themes of love, loyalty, and treachery.Paul Wilsons new English translation of The Beggars Opera is lively, idiomatic, and sensitive to underlying linguistic and political issues. The Cornell edition contains an Introduction by Peter Steiner that details the November 1, 1976, premiere of the play in the Prague suburb of Horn Pocernice, the reaction of the Czech secret police, and the measures the government took to punish and discredit those involved in the production. Eleven photographsof the playwright, the actors, the theatre, and the actual performanceenhance the texture of the book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Havel, Vaclav \/ hardcover","offer_id":47846588285173,"sku":"DADAX0801438330","price":26.92,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/5804\/8501\/files\/71V3fiUeNFL.jpg?v=1773835110","url":"https:\/\/ergodebooks.com\/products\/the-beggars-opera","provider":"Ergodebooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}