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Interview with Jean Audureau BETTINA L. KNAPP Interviewer's Note: JEAN AUDUREAU, born on July 2, 1931, in the West of France, has been living in Montpamasse in Paris since 1957. His first play, In Memphis There is a Man with Prodigious Strength, was staged at the Marais Festival in Paris (June, 1966) by the well-known director Antoine Bourseiller. His second, The Young Man (1974), was performed at the Theatre des Amandiers at Nanterre and was directed by P. Debauche. Avant-garde critics acclaimed both works. The Maul opened at the Theatre Oblique in Paris in 1978 and was directed by Henri Ronse. Audureau's theatre is poetic and mysterious. A world of phantasmagorias , of wild images, brash and mellifluous sonorities and cadences is brought before the viewer. Here, myth and reality cohabit, each parading about in its own distorted, capricious and very personal form. Q. How did you manage to have your first play staged at the Marais Festival in Paris? Such a prestigious theatrical space is usually reserved for the best-known dramatists. A. By a strange coincidence! When I finished my first play, In Memphis There is a Man with Prodigious Strength, I decided to send it to Antoine Bourseiller. I thought he would be a perfect director for it. I waited awhile. Then, much to my surprise and delight, he accepled it 163 164 BETTINA L. KNAPP for production. It seemed incredible. To think that such a famous director would accept the work of an unknown- seemed impossible. Later on he told me that he saw in my play the very things he had been looking for in the theatre. Bourseiller, as you know, believes that a director's work should not be hidden. It is as creative and as constructive in its domain as the play itself. "Une mise en scene doft se voir!" he says. Unlike Roger Blin, for example, who feels that the director should remain invisible, that the play is the thing-and should speak for itself- Bourseiller is convinced that the director should reinforce the playwright's vision with his own. These two concepts are at variance in contemporary theatre- the world over. Bourseiller has his own style which, depending upon the play he chooses to stage, ranges from realism to surrealism, to expressionism and beyond. He enjoys shocking his audiences; surprising them when the action calls for it. Sometimes his mise en scene is abstract, though very personal at the same time, as in the case of Moliere's Don Juan. Bourseiller loves symbols. So do 1. I was fortunate not only in having him as my director, but also in being given the Hotel de Sully, the best stage area in the entire Marais Festival, for the production of my play. The "academic" critics- the one from The Figaro whose name I shall not mention here- did not look upon my work in a favorable light. But this is to be expected, and, actually, I take it as a compliment. He probably thought me quite impertinent. On the other hand, the avant-garde critics understood me perfectly. They loved my play. Q. Were you influenced by any specific playwrights? A. The answer is no! But in this regard I want to quote- with affection- one of France's finest critics who, unfortunately, died several years ago-Jacques Lemarchand. When writing about The Young Man he said: "The Young Man bears no theatrical influences- at least not any in the theatre within the past ten years.'" This remark applies not only to my second play, but to my first one as well- and to my third. Q. Did you develop a taste for the theatre? Or did you love the theatre at an early age? A. I think that my love for the theatre was inborn. Ever since I can remember, I was an incorrigible dreamer. And I'm still a dreamer. In my solitude-or my loneliness- I am forever inventing new faces, new characters, new situations- new sensibilities. I am madly in love with the world of the imagination- and with the imaginary! Q. Can you tell us something about the themes in In Memphis There is...

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