I've been a proud memeber of the Iowa Playwrighting Program when the Head of our Department, Bob Hedley, introduced me to a group of visitors as "Playwright from Belgrade who came to America so he can write freely". By then I was already familiar with the censorship in America. I found it even more dangerous because not many people would acknowledge it's existance.
It was easy to write under Communism: you knew what the taboos were and and you stayed away from those subjects unless you wanted to risk serious consequences. Some choose to play naive and attack taboos in hope that authorities may decide to grant them an exit visa instead of sending them to jail. In some rare cases yhe risk payed off and those lucky few coild enjoy the dissident status somewhere in the West. Some of them were only too happy to avoid everyday hardships of life under communism.
But, there was this one writter who kept an open eye and after a very brief observation wrote:
Without any censorship in the West, fashionable trends of thought and ideas are fastidiosly separated from those that are not fashionable, and the latter, without ever being forbidden, have little chance of finding their way into periodicalls or books or beeing heard in colleges. Your schoolars are free in the legal sense, but they are hemmed in by the idols of the prevailing fad. A selection dictated by fashion and the need to accomodate mass standards frequently prevents the most independed-minded persons from contributing to public life and gives rise to dangerous hard instincts that block successful development.
THE MAGNIFICENT SOVIET ROBINSON a two act comedy by H.D. Branko inspired by a short story by Ilf and Petrov as translated from Russian by Dan Mihailovic. CAST: Lavrentsev .......... Phillip Peterson Raisa ............... Anna Baker Larissa ............. Glenda Solis Moldovantsev ........ Boban Zarkovic Deus at Machina ..... Elgy Gillespie Secretary Andropov .. Mia Interlandi - Ferreira Editor Raytzev ...... Branko Misic: MALJCIKI by IDOLI, Belgrade. Copyright PGP RTB 1980. Transportation: SMOOTH MOVING Photo: SERGE VEIVODA Stage Design: KLARA PRASIL Director: H. D. Branko