Theater in Paris

THEATER ~ p~S THE NUMBER OF PLAYS PRESENTED, and the uncertainty and hesitation of last season's theater in Paris, make it difficult to give a clear survey of the whole. Many plays were presented, the productions were often strikingly rich and original, and yet in few instances was anything really decisive created. It seems that the gap which has been evident in recent years between a rich and varied development of scenic writing and a petrifaction of propedy dramatic writing, still exists, and that the expectancy of a new and growing public, recruited in Paris by such producers as Jean Vilar, or in the provinces by Roger Planchon, Jean Daste, and many others, has not been met. THE FRENCH CREATIONS Certainly, it is not Fran~ise Sagan's humorous but slight play, Un CMteau en Suede, which will gratify such a public and mark a turning point in the evolution of the theater. The enthusiastic reception of the critics and of large audiences throughout the year might suggest one was wrong, but their applause goes. rather to a comedy-facile, agreeable , brilliantly performed on the stage of the Theatre de l'Atelierwhose child's vision of cruelty and love dispels harsh realities in favor of unexacting amusement. The technique is as old as it is inoffensive. Subject and style give no indication of concern with the theater as an art form, are derivative rather from Anouilh and even borrow certain devices from Boulevard Theatre while preserving, it has to be admitted, that "certain smile" peculiar to Fran~ise Sagan. The latest works of Jacques Audiberti and Felicien Marceau, La Logeu.se and L'Etouf!e-Chretien, less well received by the Paris public than the previous plays of these two authors, betray the same tendencies and the same facility-as does also Marcel Achard's L'Idiote. In an entirely different vein, Montherlant's new play, Le Cardinal ilEspagne, presented by the Comedie-Fran~aise, while it offers, within the limited perspective of its author, the culmination of his earlier pursuits , brings nothing new to the theater in general. Jean Genet's le Balcon, which had not previously been played in Paris and which was staged by Peter Brook in the spring of 1960, with its self-conscious violence, its contrived, and in the long run, conventional movement, hardly caused a stir and now seems-for all its sumptuous lyricism and the "total" aesthetic, allying rhythm, speech and gesture which its character as a 8ociodrame demands and which Genet might perhaps have pushed further-a much less interesting, less 172 1961 THEATER IN PARIS 173 provocative work than les Negres presented by Roger Blin some months before. Jean-Louis Barrault, at the Theatre de France has just given a useful account of the pretty Voyage of Georges Schehade. A play of dreams and the nostalgia of childhood-light, charming, full of humor and preciosity-it offers a refreshing stream of poetry, without achieving real resonance. It in no way compares with the revelation which l'Histoire de Vasco provided three years earlier. Only Samuel Beckett, in la Derniere bande, has taken a step which, if not a forward one, at least is interesting. Staged by Roger Blin at the end of the 1960 season in the Theatre Recamier-the T.N.P:s experimental theater which, sadly, for financial reasons Jean Vilar will next year have to abandon-it was linked in a double bill with Robert Pinget's Lettre marte, which draws its inspiration at the same time from the discoveries of the "new novel" (that of Michel Butor, Alain RobbeGrillet , Claude Simon, etc....), and from certain experiments of Samuel Beckett. Skillfully constructed, showing an accomplished technique, Pinget's play none the less lacks a distinctive accent, a life of its own. By contrast, la Derniere bande is couched in a style which is profoundly original-to originality of thought corresponds originality of technique. Its themes: memory, regret, time; its one character: Krapp -an old man who sits silently in front of his tape-recorder. Perversely frugal, the play is still successful. But to what extent has Samuel Beckett attempted something new? Does it represent anti-theater, as...