These four riveting one-act plays by Vaclav Havel, to be performed as double bills, could be called Laughter in the Dark. Life in totalitarian states such as Czechoslovakia under communism had its grimly comic side, as long as nobody heard you sniggering. Mountain Hotel could be a bizarre sanatorium: 11 inmates, living and partly living in shared isolation, free under surveillance, a meaningless existence in which alliances are made and unmade, odd habits are suspiciously observed and characters can be interchangeable. Director follows director, spouting the same optimistic clichés, like successive party leaders. This is a comedy of the stagnation of the spirit, of collective entrapment, of people who become puppets, desiccated and powerless.

Audience is a two-hander: Vanek (David Antrobus) is a dissident writer forced to work in a brewery. He approaches the foreman (Robert Austin) for a less exhausting job, but he fails: the foreman is a ruthless power puppet who enjoys what he thinks is his kingdom. Vanek, a Havel figure, reappears in Private View (played by Mike Sengelow), just out of prison, visiting old friends (Stuart Fox, Carolyn Backhouse). They are clearly well in with the regime and they treat Vanek to their idea of the good life. In Protest, Vanek (Christopher Naylor) tries to get a successful writer (Jonathan Guy Lewis) to sign a political protest. You can guess the result.

These last two plays are bitterly, painfully funny. Havel is presenting the true traitors: professional survivors, watchful and evasive, oozing well-trained sympathy and the polished sincerity of the liar, but never taking a risk. The actors are excellent: they make you look back in anger and laugh.

Editor's choice

• U2 at Nou Camp Stadium, Barcelona
• The 50 Best Movie Villains
• The 15 golden rules of theatre etiquette