Georges Schehadé: The Transfiguration of a Poetic Theatre

, GEORGES SCHEHADE: THE TRANSFIGURATION OF A POETIC THEATRE Georges Schehade's first play, Monsieur Bob'le, produced in 1951, was generally acclaimed by critics as a highly original and significant contribution to the modern poetic theater, thus setting the pattern of criteria applied to the interpretation of his theater. With the recent production of his latest play, L'Emigre de Brisbane, it is incontestable that Schehade'scaptivating poetic idiom is the most salient characteristic of his theater. Analyzing SchehadC's first plays, Jacques Guicharnaud had very perceptively summarized his method: "Each play goes out to meet the spectator on his own ground instead of beginning with a dazzling avant-garde attack.... Then the language becomes increasingly metaphorical, the images increasingly obscure, the situations increasingly unreal. ... Everything happens as if the poet were taking the spectator by the hand and gradually leading him into his universe of enchantment."l Although Schehade has never really renounced this characteristic method of his, it is not difficult to detect a humorous vein that has had a progressively heavier admixture of irony coalescing with paradoxes and parody. It is evident that the land of mystery is more easily identifiable in terms of the contemporary social and political scene. Persisting in its inveterate refusal to return to naturalism, while using abundantly the nonverbal elements of music, dance, and ritual, Schehade's theater seems to be drawing more copiously on comic effects that, having lost much of their original gaiety, unselfconscious naturalness and spontaneity , leave almost an aftertaste of cultivated sarcasm and selfparody . It is the Schehade protagonist who has suffered most from this metamorphosis of the author's attitude. Schehade's first protagonist, Monsieur Bob'le, is a kind of prophet and sage whose personality irradiates an illuminating and purifying effect on his village people. Yet he himself remains enigmatic and shrouded in mystery. He suggests a certain image and at the same time, its paradoxical opposite. His speech so often contradicts his actions, his actions belie the impression he has just created of himself . He prays to the Virgin, but there is a kind of mocking unortho1 Jacques Guicharnaud, Modern French Theatre (New Haven, 1961). p. 162. 151 152 MODERN DRAMA September doxy in his attitude that suggests that he is an unbeliever. Happy at the village of Paola Scala where everybody admires and loves him, he decides to leave and the reason for his departure is money. For the benefit of his village people he leaves his lifework, the Tremandour , a collection of meditations, strange proverbial maxims, paradoxical axioms that lend themselves to ambiguous and facetious interpretations. During his absence, in order to counsel and encourage his people he sends his messenger and disciple, Marco, with the long-awaited news. Marco casts a spell on the assembled village people with his enchanting account. But his gestures are ridiculously pompous, his performance is accompanied by bizarre clownery, and he turns out to be a crook who disappears with the metropolitan's silver candlesticks. On his return to Paola Scala Monsieur Bob'le is taken ill aboard a ship and brought to a hospital. Paola Scala, the serene, mysterious land of poetry, beauty, and happiness, is replaced by another world, the world of harsh realities peopled by bigoted scientists, insensitive officials, and obtuse intellectuals. Although Monsieur Bob'le dies in the clutches of this ugly world, his death is not futile and absurd. Monsieur Bob'le, the poet and the sage, has also gained a victory. Alexandre, a drunkard and parasite who had agreed to keep vigil at Monsieur Bob'le's deathbed to earn some money, becomes gradually awakened to feel the atmosphere of serene goodness and beauty that Monsieur Bob'le's presence inspires. Converted to Monsieur Bob'le's faith, Alexandre is determined to find Paola Scala where "Ie bonheur est un evenement tres ordinaire."2 This vision of salvation through the contagious presence of poetry, benevolence, and innocence lingers on in Schehade's next play. The principal theme in La Soiree des Proverbes is youth with its concomitants purity, intransigence, and illusion. This main thematic strand is interwoven with its dichotomous counterpart-old age, debasement , and loss of faith. The plot of...