Unveiling the Void: The Presence of Absence in the Scenography of Jean Genet's The Screens

This essay explores in detail the scenography--visual aesthetic--of Jean Genet's The Screens. With reference both to the play-text and to various productions of the work from 1961 to 2004, the essay suggests that the set, costumes, and make-up of The Screens pose as a spatial metaphor for the dynamic between the void and the image that pervades Genet's oeuvre. The void constitutes an absence of absolute truth or meaning that solicits the inscription of signs and signification. Genet's void also highlights the artifice inherent in these signs. This destabilization produces the possibility for new and varied signiÞcations. I trace the movement of inscription, erasure, and reinscription both in the play's scenography and in its implicit discussion of anticolonial revolt and postcolonial possibility.