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In the 'Prague Spring' of 1968, Alexander Dubcek, First Secretary of the
Czech Communist Party, attempted a series of democratising reforms designed to
reconnect Communism with the public after 20 years of repression. Although
Dubcek was loyal to the Soviet Union, these reforms worried the regime of Soviet leader
Brezhnev, which invaded Czechoslovakia in August. Invasion dramatises
subsequent events from inside the Czech Presidium, drawing on the eyewitness
testimony of senior Party official Zdenek Mlynar and two years of journalistic
research.
Invasion begins by asserting that research, stressing its scrutiny of
Mlynar's testimony and the essential truthfulness of its dramatised scenes.
Dramatisation was a logical response to inevitable problems in securing access
to eyewitnesses. Events are largely dramatised from Mlynar's point of view,
complete with interior monologue. The interplay between drama and documentary,
which includes characters looking at events outside which are depicted through
real-life footage, is signposted in the introduction, in which the real Mlynar
meets the actor who plays him.
Dramatisation from Mlynar's restricted viewpoint heightens the tension and
humour of early scenes in which the Presidium is held under enforced military
'protection'. Though stopping short of assassination or disappearance, the
Kremlin summons key protagonists for negotiations once the Soviet Union fails to
impose a more obedient regime upon a public supportive of Dubcek. A sense of
unease builds as these one-sided negotiations push for the end of Czech
independence, in an atmosphere of moral dilemma and potential betrayal,
underpinned by memories of the bloodshed which followed the Soviet Union's
earlier occupation of Communist Hungary. After a powerful drama marked by
acclaimed performances, Invasion uses documentary voice-over to describe the
subsequent fate of its protagonists.
Writer David Boulton insisted that this dramatised documentary was
journalism, not fiction, but BAFTA labelled Invasion a single play, drawing a
heated response in the press from Boulton, who insisted that he was not a
playwright, and from the actor who played Dubcek, Julian Glover, who worried
about the implications that describing this work as fiction might have for
television journalism.
Invasion ends with Dubcek receiving an ovation while under effective house
arrest, poignantly emphasising the tragedy of a thwarted popular movement.
However, Dubcek ultimately returned to high office in 1989 after power was ceded
to a coalition government. A year later, Dubcek was shown Invasion, and met
Glover, in the World in Action programme 'The Reconstruction of Mr Dubcek' (ITV,
tx. 19/2/1990).
Dave Rolinson
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1. Essentially true (4:19)
