During the era of “normalization” that followed the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, “hooliganism” (Article 202) became the state’s preferred criminal charge to wield against dissident activities and performances. To the Anglophone ear, ‘hooligan’ is a slightly comic term, one that suggests a sense of playfulness that risks confrontation with authority. And in this lecture, I will argue that this carnivalesque mode perfectly captures Václav Havel’s theatrical and political collaborations with actor and fellow Chartist Pavel Landovský (1936 – 2014). After screening Landovský’s virtuoso performance as the clownish Brewmaster in Havel’s one-act play Audience, I will show how the pair’s legendary (and not always sober) exploits on behalf of Charter 77 helped generate enthusiasm for dissidence in a way not always accounted for by hagiographical treatments of Havel.