The White Plague - September 2023
The White Plague
by Karel Čapek
TRANSLATED BY CATHY PORTER & PETER MAJER
This satire was written in Czechoslovakia in 1937. It takes place in a fictional country being led by a dictator, thirsty to fulfil his life’s purpose by invading the neighbouring countries. At the same time, the world is threatened by an increasingly dangerous pandemic.
Will the country’s leaders choose to fight the mortal threat of the White Plague or embark on a new war? In this classic, Čapek critiques populism, extremism, dictatorship and belligerency in a context that rings very true to modern day society.
Karel Čapek
* 1890 † 1938
Karel Čapek was a Czech playwright, novelist and journalist. Though nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times, he never received it. He was renowned for his novel “War with the Newts” and plays like “The White Plague”, “The Mother” and “R.U.R.” (a play which introduced the term “robot” for the first time)
An ardent supporter of free expression and pragmatic liberalism, he criticized the rise of both fascism and communism in Europe. Despite being on the Gestapo list, he refused exile and decided to stay in his country. He died of pneumonia before World War II (and before he could have been sent to concentration camp).
His wife, Olga Scheinpflugová, an actress, suffered Gestapo’s arrest but lived on to die on theatre stage from a heart attack while performing one of her husband’s plays in 1968.
You can see the play with different casts, each of which will give you a unique experience:
