Havel and Jan Werich

In letter 53, Havel responds to news of the death of Jan Werich.  Werich was an early mentor of Havel's -

"...he took me on at Theater ABC at a time when I had no prospects whatsoever....He had one exceptionally important influence on me: he helped me realize...that theater can be something incomparably more than just a play, a director, actors, audience and an auditorium: it is a special focus of social and intellectual life, helping to crate the 'spirit of the times' and embodying and manifesting its fantasy and humor; it is a living instrument of social self-awareness, one that is, in an unrepeatable way, lodged in its own time."

Werich was a much older man, who's roots went firmly back to the time of Capek and Masaryk.  He belonged to an "avant-garde, with its wonderfully brash self-confidence and messianism" that arose in the "humanistic traditions of the First Republic."  The years seem to have left Werich disillusioned however -

"From several recent conversations with him, I gathered he was afflicted by a deep skepticism and resignation, an isolated, sad, bitter and disaffected man, without faith and without hope.  For someone who loved living so much and who in a way was the embodiment of love for the world and everything good in it, this development must have radically (though perhaps subconsciously) undermined his zest for living - and this, as we know, is one of the most destructive of diseases."

Vaclav Havel
Letters to Olga