Le Maître fou: Genet théoricien du théâtre (1950–1967) (review)

The book’s title suggests that Genet, alongside Craig, Brecht, and Artaud, might be considered as one of the twentieth century’s great theatre theoreticians. Moraly therefore focuses on Genet’s texts both on theatre and, more broadly, on aesthetics, from his study of Cocteau (1950) to his essay ‘L’Étrange mot d” (1967) and including writings on his various plays and also on Léonor Fini, Rembrandt, Giacometti, and ‘The Tightrope Walker’, texts in which, Moraly rightly states, Genet analyses his own views on the creation, function, and power of art. Unfortunately, Moraly omits Genet’s often immensely detailed stage directions and end-of-scene commentaries, which in themselves constitute an essential part of his approach to dramaturgy. Indeed, Moraly’s study touches only briefly on the practical application, by theatre directors, designers, and actors, of Genet’s theories. This notwithstanding, the chronology with which the book begins is a real asset. Covering the period 1950–67, it locates Genet’s writings on theatre and art within the context of his engagement with stagings of his and others’ theatrical works. However, details from this chronological list are rarely integrated into the main body of the book. The brief allusions Moraly does make to stagings are pertinent and fascinating — he mentions, for example, an Israeli production of Les Nègres containing Ethiopian Jews — but remain frustratingly fleeting. Moraly’s study not only offers scant detail on the practicalities of interpreting Genet’s texts for theatre, but in general provides little analytical commentary. He rightly states that ‘Genet, lui, invente une nouvelle manière de parler de l’art: ouvertement subjective, contradictoire, humoristique’, describing Genet’s theoretical writings as ‘des poèmes’ (p. 179). But, like poems, Genet’s texts solicit interpretation and elucidation, which Moraly does not fully provide. Instead, the texts are quoted at length — unnecessarily, since all are published — and are explicated in terms that have been rehearsed in Genet studies for several decades: Genet entreats the artist to take risks and isolate her-/himself like a saint in order to conquer new aesthetic frontiers (points made in the 1950s by both Sartre’s Saint Genet, comédien et martyr and Bataille’s La Littérature et le mal); and this rejection of convention and conformity enables a ‘metaphysical’ aesthetic that rejects realism, reason, and the constraints of life in favour of artifice, ‘la folie’, and the freedom of death, which is unknown and which can therefore be reimagined and reinvented (a point made in Derrida’s Glas in the 1970s and by a host of other critics since). The book’s great value lies outside its discussion of Genet as a theatre theoretician. Moraly’s strength and flair are illustrated in his glittering array of references to authors with whom Genet came into contact. Comparisons he draws between Genet’s own life and works, and those of the artists about whom he writes, are astute and insightful. His meticulous analyses of Proust, Claudel, Ghelderode, and Cocteau, among others, shed new and original light on the influences that shaped Genet’s philosophy, thematics, and aesthetics. Moraly’s latest study of Genet does indeed make an invaluable contribution to Genet studies, but, quite simply, suffers from bearing a misleading title.