"Torn Dialogues . . . Torn and Lacerated Dialogues . . ." Jean Vauthier

UTORN DIALOGUES ... TORN AND LACERATED DIALOGUES JEAN 17AUTHIER " JEAN VAUTHIER, THE DRAMATIST, does not belong to any theatrical school. He is primarily a poet who uses the theater as his vehicle to express himself. Vauthier brings to the stage dense and tortured conflicts in which his brilliant imagery, with its symbolic overtones and intricate rhythmic effects, serves to give the story its compactness and its momentum, depth, and darkness in which situations are pushed to the extreme. To say, however, that Vauthier has not undergone the influence of theatrical innovators would be misleading. In Vauthier we see aspects of Jarry and Artaud. Like his two predecessors, Vauthier assaults his audiences: he trumpets harsh animal sounds; there are screams, whines, paroxysms of gestures, laughter, brutal and exciting explosions. Vauthier's characters frequently recall Ubu, with their puppet-like, wooden movements, their violence, and sado-masochism. At the same time Vauthier uses the stage as Artaud suggested, as a vehicle for a total, emotive experience. His intention is to break down those barriers of custom and .habit in social man; and also, the formal or traditional barriers separating actor and audience . Once the social and dramatic conventions are breached, the audience is free to engage in a complete emotional experience, brought I. about by a visceral empathy between themselves and the figures on stage. In the four plays under present discussion Captain Bada (Le Capitaine Bada), The Character Against Himself (Le Personnage combattant ), The Prodigies (Les Prodiges), and The Dreamer (Le Reveur), similar themes reoccur; the theme of the poet vis-a-vis himself , vis-a-vis women, society, God. Questions are posed in an attempt to answer anguishing problems. What is the poet's reality? How much can the poet give of himself? How much pain can he bear? Captain Bada is like a tapestry woven into complex and intricate symmetrical patterns. Bada, the protagonist, the poet, appears first on the scene: a lean and exotic figure wearing black tights. He becomes involved in a variety of situations which expose his lovehate for God, his poetical endeavors, his flight from women (and his need for them), his shifting moods, his violence, and his sensuality. 40 1966 TORN DIALOGUES ••• 41 He is more than a character revealed: he is a character cut open. Finally, we see what Vauthier intends: the embodiment of irreconcilably contradictory attitudes in a single person. Bada moves constantly. He leaps on a stool; he strikes poses, grotesque, malicious, angelic-he is in perpetual stir, physically and emotionally. Pulled in opposite directions, Bada cannot resolve the forces which are slowly eroding him and eventually will destroy him. Should he devote his life to religion? or should he marry Alice, the· twentyyear old girl who loves him? When Alice first appears, Bada preserves silence; then, as if devil-possessed, in trance-like state, he hails her as "Temptation," "Seductress." A little later, he tells her that he is possessed not by her, but by divine fire, and marriage is unthinkable because he has transcended the flesh. When Alice offers her help in his literary efforts, he seizes her wrists in a sadistic rebuff and engages in a monologue in which he invokes the sea, the night, the mysterious forces of nature, his own drives and emotions which have been deadened by years of inactivity, and frustration. But Bada is unable to escape society's imperative and he marries Alice. He is convinced that she will insure his happiness. In the second act Alice, dressed in ritual wedding veil, considers any sexual act a violation of her person. Now the attitudes are reversed . Alice is reserved: Bada hunts her down. Their antagonisms, dramatized in a way reminiscent of Strindberg and Ionesco, reach down to the most basic conflicts between male and female. Alice cannot understand Bada's flights into poetry, and the more he takes flight in his own creativity the more hateful she appears to him. In the final act she becomes the hard and ruthless guignol puppet which pops out from behind the curtain screaming "Bravo'" Bada has tried to create a great work which could save him. Alice mocks his efforts: "Is that all you've accomplished?" Bada...