''The Increased Difficulty of Concentration'' is a play by
Václav Havel
Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...
. The English translation is by
Štěpán Šimek Štěpán () is both a masculine Czech given name, equivalent of the English Stephen, and a Czech surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given names
* Štěpán Hřebejk (b. 1982), Czech ice hockey player
* Štěpán Janáček (b. 1977), C ...
. It is a metaphysical farce, in which Hummel, an academic, juggles lovers, philosophy, and the questions from a strange machine called Pazuk, while trying to make sense of his life.
It was originally performed in 1969 in Prague at the Theatre on the Balustrade. It eventually won an
Obie
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given since 1956 by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theater artists and groups involved in off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions in New York City. Starting just after th ...
for its production at
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5  ...
.
The Havel Festival production page
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External links
Theater 61 Press website
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Increased Difficulty of Concentration
Plays by Václav Havel
1969 plays