Abstract
There is not so many world wide acclaimed authors who could be considered as "national" in two different cultures. Besides Samuel Beckett or Vladimir Nabokov, the third name could be added: Milan Kundera (*1929).
A Czech(oslovak) novelist who emigrated in France or a French author, born in the Czechoslovakia? Both and none at the same time, one could say. As a Czech historian of theatre, I should add that Kundera is not only a novelist but he has touched and affected the world of theatre and drama as well.
On top of that, his life is full of theatrical events and acts. And Kundera has played (and still plays!) an important role in dealing with the Czech(oslovak) history and the legacy of the communist era.
From the point of view of Czech readers and theatre makers, it is well known that Kundera has signed three plays during his long career. On the other hand, when a French reader opens and thumbs through two volumes of the "complete work" of Milan Kundera published by Gallimard in a prestigious "La Pleïade" edition, he finds only one play included in the book(s): Jacques and his Master (= Jakub a jeho pán / Jacques et son maître).
Not a trace (or maybe exactly only a trace!) of The Owners of the Keys (= Majitelé klíčů / Les Propriétaires des clés) or The Blunder (= Ptákovina / La Sotie). Even Kundera's play The Owners of the Keys has been translated in French in the beginning of the 1960s and even played in France back in 1969, not speaking about the fact that the play has met a large success on the Czech theatre stages in the 1960s.
To talk about Kundera's work is not an easy task: the work talks to you (as to the reader) and - at the same time - the author tries to guide you and explain how you should read it. However, Kundera repeats again and again that (let's generalize a bit): his work is (simply) his work.
But why shouldn't we try to have a look at his writings for theatre(s)? And to ask ourselves: what does theatre mean for one of the most translated and read novelists of the world? how are his plays accepted in his two homelands? and why, for God's sake, Kundera's play The Blunder (written in 1969) considered by its author - still in 1990 - as "unstageable" has lived a theatrical comeback in 2008 and is still played on the Czech stage in the season 2020/21...