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THE THEATER OF ALBERT CAMUS celT IS NOT EASY TO BECOME WHAT ONE IS, TO REDISCOVER ONE'S ESSENTIAL BALANCE." -Albert Camus, Noces ALBERT CAMUS' EXPRESSION of "tragedy in modem dress" portrays men struggling with the emotional and psychological facts of alienation by means of man-made justice. Caligula (from the play of the same name, written in 1938, first performed in 1945), apprehending the alienation inherent in the human condition, exercises absolute power to match the absurdity of the world, inevitably to find the same terrible face of self-separation in his own mirror.1 Martha, Jan, and their mother, in Le Malentendu (1944), murder and misunderstand in a search for self-definition under "the injustice of sky and climate." The Plague divides the men and women of L'Etat de siege (1948) from their own dignity and, in the end, from their lives, by exercising a justice as logical and inhuman as Caligula's; and the terrorists of Les ]ustes (1949) attempt to redeem the myth of absolute justice with their lives, sacrificing the relative truths which alone are available to man. Those who seek self-identity fail to recognize the futility of such a task in an absurd universe. Those who deal in justice misunderstand the "pathos of distance" between mankind and the good. Writes Camus: There are no just men, only hearts more or less poor in justice. Living permits us, at least, to learn this and to add to the sum of our actions some good which will compensate a bit for the evil we have put into the world. This right to life which coincides with the Chance for reparation is the natural right of every man, even the worst. The lowest of criminals and the most incorruptible of judges here find themselves side by side, equally miserable and equally united.2 Alternating between a desperate lyricism which is well known to readers of his nonpolitical essays (L'Envets et fendroit, Noces, L'ete) and the enigmatic parables of his widely known recits (L'Etranger, 1. Albert Camus, Caligala (Paris, 1947). Throughout this article the other editions of Camus' plays are Le Malentendu (Paris 1947)' L'Etat de siege (Paris, 1948); Lea /uates (Paris, 1950). For the sake of brevity"a future r~erences are given in the text, with indication of act and scene, or, in the case of L .Mat de siege, part. All translations from the French are mine. In addition to these original plays, Camus' adaptations are: La Demiere fleur by James Thurber (Paris, 1952.); Lea Esprits by Pierre de Lariv"llY (Paris, 1953); La Devotion a fa croix by 1'edro Calder6n de la Barca (Paris, 1953); Un cas intere8sant by Dino Buzzatti (Paris, 1955); Requiem pour une nonne by WilliarD Faulkner (Paris, 1956); Le Chevalier it'Olmedo by Lope de Vega Carpio (Paris, 1957); Lea P08sBdes by Fyodor Dostoyevsld (Paris, 1959). 2.. Albert Camus, "RtIflexions sur la guillotine," in RBlle:rion8 sur la peine capitale, with Arthur Koestler (Paris, 1957), p. 169. 42 1961 THEATER OF ALBERT CAMUS 43 La Peste, La Chute), Camus' plays embody his thought in dramatic action at once tantalizing and obscure. Gabriel Marcel's judgment, that the theater of Camus fails as a dramatic presentation of his ideas, is frequently echoed, and not always, one must note, by critics who are primarily concerned with the possibilities of financial success. "The essential words," wrote Robert Kemp, theater critic for Le Monde, "are pronounced at moments when the drama, the brutal drama ... absorbs the spectator's nervous energy. It is a fine art, no doubt, to mingle thus action and thought, not to separate them," but, he concludes, "the most meaningful words pass so quickly and remain so mysterious that they only brush our consciousness."3 Germaine Bree questions the strength of the concrete situation to carry the full weight of the thought.4 To date, the only major staging of Camus in America has elicited mixed comment, but the accusation of oratory mixed with soliloquy, theatricality with intellectualism, seems to predominate.5 In his introduction to Revolte dans les Asturies, a four-act attempt at "collective creation" published in Algiers in 1936, Camus defines...

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