The Ideologies of Le Printemps 71: Adamov's "Metamorphosis" Reconsidered

The Ideologies of Le Printemps 71: Adamov's "Metamorphosis" Reconsidered GERHARD FISCHER I. ARTHUR ADAMOV'S CAREER as a dramatist is generally interpreted as the development of an existentialist avant-garde author to a politically committed, left-wing writer with clear Marxist preferences. His early plays, from La Parodie to Taus contre Taus, all written between 1947 and 1953, belong to the first dramatic expressions of what later came to be called Theatre of the Absurd; in fact, Adamov was one of the pioneers of this new theatrical form together with, but independent of, Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco. The next two works, Ping Pong (1955) and Paolo Paoli (1957), which established Adamov's international reputation, already constitute a turning point in his career, a first break away from the absurd theatre to a more concretely political, social and historical drama. Le Printemps 71 (1960) is usually considered the work that marks the completion of the playwright's "conversion " to Marxism: a play with an evident leftist political tendency, treating an historical topic which is of central importance to Marxist theories of the state and the revolution, i.e., the Paris Commune of 1871. The same Marxist tendency appears already in a publication by Adamov that came out in 1959; entitled Anthologie de 10 Commune,' this collection of documents, essays, eye-witness accounts of the Commune also includes a selection of texts by Marx, Engels and Lenin. Adamov's own statements, concerning both his artistic and intellectual 98 GERHARD FISCHER development and his interpretation of the Commune, likewise leave no doubt as to his ideological position.' He writes that he undertook the study of this period almost as "un devoir envers Ie premier gouvernement de la classe ouvriere dans Ie monde,'" and he comments on the aim and purpose of Le Prinlemps 7/: "Une piece sur la Commune de Paris, si elle est reussie, peut aider, doit aider, ceux qui auront la possibilite de la lire ou de la voir, a comprendre la lutte de la classe ouvriere. Et cette lutte n'est pas fmie.'" The play certainly seems to bear out the author's objective. One only has to look at a few of the play's guignols, dramatic interludes set with symmetric regularity between the scenes (tableaux) of the drama, in order to realize how Adamov has tried to present his ideological conviction. The gUignols add up to an allegorical mime-show of the historical events in which the enemies of the Commune are savagely caricatured whereas the figure of La Commune is heroically idealized. Perhaps the clearest indication of the play's political implication and of Adamov's view of the Commune is the final scene: an epilogue reveals a map of the world in which all "socialist and progressive countries'" appear in red; at the same time the International is being played. This scenic solution is evidently designed to furnish what is called the "optimistic perspective " in orthodox socialist literary theory, i.e., a device to suggest the continuing and eventually successful revolutionary struggle of the international proletariat. This interpretation of the Commune emphasizes the Marxist view of history according to which the example of the Parisian revolutionaries, even in their defeat, shows the way to the victory of the working-class movement in the future. It is no surprise, then, that critics have unanimously subscribed to the theory of Adamov's conversion to Marxism; according to the generally held view, Adamov was an "avowed Marxist at the time he wrote this last play [Paolo Paoli, G.F.]," who has repudiated "the philosophy of the absurd" and whose "theatre is thus committed and openly Marxist.'" Given the prima facie evidence of Le Printemps 71 and the remarks of its author about his artistic and intellectual development , given Adamov's interpretation of the Commune and his editorial emphasis in his Anthologie de la Commune, there seems to be little point in questioning this assessment. However, a careful consideration of the play reveals a number of inconsistencies in Adamov's dramatization of the Commune that can hardly be reconciled with his statements concerning the political implications of his play. A strictly Marxist interpretation of Le Printemps 71 is...