Rock `n' Roll

Somerville, Mass - Keeping with the theme of the moment, we went to see Tom Stoppard's play, Rock `n' Roll, at the Huntington Theatre. Tom Stoppard is another Czech émigré writer who fled Czechoslovakia, but he left as a small child, on the day of the Nazi invasion in 1939. Stoppard actually lived most of his life in England, but he was active in human rights issues in Central and Eastern Europe throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He uses both of his homelands for the setting of Rock `n' Roll, which follows the lives of a dissident living in Prague and a Marxist philosopher living in Cambridge.

The Czech protagonist, Jan, does not start out as a dissident. In fact, he is a Marxist scholar himself, and he believes in `socialism with a human face'. But even more than that, he believes in rock `n' roll. For Jan, music is the truest expression of opinion, emotion and individuality. Referring to his favorite band, the Plastic People of the Universe, he says: "They're unbribable. They're coming from somewhere else, where the Muses come from. They're not heretics, they're pagans."

So when rock `n' roll becomes antisocial and essentially illegal in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, Jan unwillingly becomes a dissident. He joins his musician friends in jail. They are not trying to make a political statement, but they are trying to make a creative statement. Sadly, under the communist regimes there was no room for creativity without politics.

In Stoppard's play, Jan is contrasted with his earnest and active friend, Ferdinand, who is always trying to get Jan to sign petitions and attend rallies to influence the communist regime. Jan resists such involvement: he doesn't want any trouble; he just wants to be left alone to listen to rock `n' roll. For him, the music is the message. As stated by the founder of the Plastics, "Rock `n' roll wasn't just music to us, it was kind of life itself."

Ferdinand doubts the legitimacy of the Plastic People of the Universe and their message, questioning what these long-haired rockers could possibly contribute to his dissident movement. Ferdinand works alongside Vaclav Havel, who is a part of the "official" opposition - political activists working within the system to try to reform it. The musicians by contrast disdain anything that is "official" - even if it is the opposition.

In the end, Stoppard seems to come to the conclusion that both sides of the movement are essential to stand up to the system. The official opposition did much of the work - circulating petitions, making speeches and advocating for change. But the musicians were uncompromising, genuine and passionate in their efforts to express themselves. That's all. They were the reminder that "life itself" was at stake in this battle.

We all know how Rock `n' Roll ends. The Berlin Wall is torn down. The Marxist philosopher becomes disillusioned. The dissidents become respectable members of society, taking jobs in the new democratic government. The Stones play in Prague.

It's a happy ending, to be sure, but there is a hint of wistfulness from Stoppard, especially when Jan's character announces that the Plastic People of the Universe are going to America. The Plastics endured communism without compromising; will they endure capitalism with as much courage?