Professional Foul

„Ethics is a very complicated business.“

Czech Theater’s spring play is Professional Foul by the late great playwright Tom Stoppard. It’s a story of dons and dissidents, sports stars and StB agents, set in 1977 Czechoslovakia. The play is a (mostly) humorous view of what happens when the unstoppable force of stark reality confronts the immovable position of staid morality.

A philosophy professor attends a weekend conference in Prague, where he plans to be “a tiny bit naughty”. When his assumptions about morality, ethics, and good manners are tested by the political regime of the country, he has to reconsider everything he thought he knew.

Originally written as a play of the week for the BBC as part of Amnesty International’s “Prisoners of Conscience” year, this is a unique chance to see the play live on stage, less than 100 km from where Tom Stoppard was born.

Born in Zlin, where his father worked for the Bata shoe company, Tomáš Sträussler escaped the Nazis with his family in 1939. He lived in England after the war, where as Tom Stoppard he became a famous playwright (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) and won multiple Tony Awards. As a screenwriter, he was nominated for an Oscar (Brazil, 1985) and won one (Shakespeare in Love, 1998).

In 1977, Stoppard visited his native land, where he befriended fellow playwright Václav Havel. Greatly moved by the story of the Czechoslovak dissidents, Stoppard wrote a series of works set in Czechoslovakia, including Professional Foul, which he dedicated to Havel.