Havel gets his due

"Vaclav Havel will finally collect his Obie Awards.

In 1968 he won an Obie, the Off Broadway theater prize, for his play “The Memorandum,” but since he was under house arrest in Czechoslovakia, he could not receive it in person. In 1984 Joseph Papp, the founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival, smuggled the award into Czechoslovakia and presented it to him in secret. Mr. Havel won two more Obies that he could not accept, for “The Increased Difficulty of Concentration” in 1970 and “A Private View” in 1984.

But on Monday night Michael Feingold, the critic and chairman of The Village Voice Obie Awards, will present him with a certificate representing all three prizes at a panel discussion at the Public Theater. The panel, which includes Wallace Shawn, Edward Albee, Israel Horovitz and Anna Deavere Smith, will discuss Mr. Havel’s work and its influence on American art."

- Campbell Robertson, Arts, Briefly.

Of course, he would still not be eligible for a Tony.