Vinaver dramaturge by Anne Ubersfeld (review)

Book Reviews 585 plays like Les Chaises and Le Roi se meurl in which a comic overlay is placed upon essentia1ly tragic material. While this may have also occurred in Moliere's works, Norrish feels that Ionesco has shifted the "focus from the absurdity of human behavior to the absurdity of the human situation" (p. 89). The period from 1945 to J970 was a particularly rich and diverse moment in French tragedy and comedy and Norrish's study of these two genres and the changes experienced during this time touches upon all ofthe major dramatists of the period (discussions of Adamov, Arrabal, and Genet are included as well). He has also furnished solid analyses of many of the important plays. Yet. if anything, there is probably an attempt to provide too much information and too many analyses. Since the work is not particularly long (156 pages), the reader often has a feeling of moving quickly from one writer to another. In addition, the analyses of the plays sometimes become general accounts and do not focus on the central theme of tragedy and comedy. Moreover, at times, the study lacks a certain sense of surprise or newness, since the analysis of each dramatist tends to confinn what one already knows. On the other hand, this is still a highly useful study of recent French tragedy and comedy and it is important to recognize its validity. The work is written in such a way that someone with little or no knowledge of the French theater can read it profitably and the scholar of French drama can also find much of value. While the bibliography does not attempt to be complete, it is well selected and comprehensive. JOHN H. RED...LY, QUEENS COLLEGE, CUNY ANNE UBERSFELO. Vinaver dramarurge. Paris: Librairie TheaLrale 1989. pp.228. Fr. 98. Vinaver dramaturge is the first book-length study of the leading dramatist of Ie theatre du quotidien (Theatre of the Everyday), a movement which might be defined as a postmodem fonn of realism, or even naturalism. It includes writers in Gennan such as Kroetz, Fassbinder and Achtembusch, and the French playwrights Jean-Paul Wenzel, Michel Deutsch and Georges Michel. As an adjective"quotidien" means both everyday (as in everyday reality) and daily; as a noun (un quotidien) it is the lenn for a newspaper. Although diversity characterizes the writers of this group, they have in common their desire to remain close to the real and to express a political awareness of power structures. Vinaver in particular is an ardent clipper of news items; a number of his plays are based on the striking stories he kept for many years. Anne Ubersfeld, a prominent theatre historian recently retired from the Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris m), is the author of Le Roi et Ie Bouffon, etude sur ie theatre de Hugo de 1830 a 1839 (Coni, (974), Lire Ie rheiirre (Messidor, (981), L'Objer rM/irral (C.N.D.P., (978), L'espace rheorral (C.N.D.P., (979) and numerous essays. Her book is divided into two sections: uL'Itineraire" (a description of all Vinaver's plays including his three translation/adaptations) and •'Dramaturgie," a brilliant analysis of his themes, characters, fonn and language. Despite its objective tone, this book is a consecration. 586 Book Reviews A short biographical introduction infonns the reader as to Michel Vinaver's Russian origins. Born in Paris in 1927. he is the son of a cultured, distinguished Russian Jewish family which emigrated following the Russian revolution. His father was an antique dealer, his mother an attorney. A second emigration (to the United States) resulted from the occupation of France in the Second World War. As a result, Vinaver is at least entirely bilingual. A French patriot he enlisted in De Gaulle's Free French forces in 1944. After the victory of the Allies. the young man rejoined his family in New York. going on to Wesleyan University in Connecricut for his B.A. From the start he knew that he wanted to be a writer, and that he would write in French. He returned to his native . country where he pursued briefly an academic career while working on fiction (Lataume ou fa vie...