Two Stage Versions of Montherlant's La Reine morte

Two Stage Versions of Montherlant's La Reine morte D. B. EDNEY • IN ITS CONTACT WITH THE PUBLIC since its debut in December 1942, La Reine morte of Henry de Montherlant has undergone a process of modification; the production that Paris theatre-goers have seen at the Comedie-Fran9aise in the late 1960s is different in several respects from the first version of the work. The production of Pierre Franck in 1966 gave a new light to the play which had previously been performed at the ComedieFran9aise for many years in a version directed by Pierre Dux. In addition to the changes in staging brought about by the new production, the text has also undergone gradual modification. As the work is a long one, several cuts have naturally been made for performance, and some of these are shown in the editions of the play published since 1947. (Other cuts have successively been made but not indicated in any published edition.) Whereas most of the early stage omissions appear in the printed text in brackets, some have disappeared entirely from the definitive version of the text. The author, then, has had some part in these changes. La Reine morte is an important play, not only because it has had considerable popular success and because it has won a place on the curriculum of universities as a great classic of twentieth-century French literature, but also because it is the first real work for the stage by Montherlant, who, after twenty-two years of writing novels and essays, turned to the theatre in middle age and became a successful playwright. The changes in the staging of La Reine morte are interesting, first, because they suggest a change in the interpretation of the meaning of the play, and second, because they show an evolution in the author's view of the theatre. In general the evolution of La Reine marte, both the text and its performance, shows a tendency towards greater sobriety, simplicity, and unity of tone. There is a movement away from the baroque profusion and extravagance of the original version and a desire to soften the extremes of monstrous cruelty and banal irony which break the sombre tone of the play. 13 14 D. B. EDNEY One instance of cruelty which is greatly modified in the text is the misogyny of Egas Coelho and Ferrante. This posed a particular problem for Montherlant, as he had become infamous for a disparaging attitude towards women with the publication of the novel cycle Les Jeunes Filles (1936-1939), where the hero, Costals, taken to be a self portrait of the author, pokes fun at his female admirers and in the last pages attributes all the evils of Western civilization to women. Some examples of this harshness towards women were to be found in the first version of La Reine morte. The first ordinary edition of the play published by Gallimard in 1942 had as its title La Reine morte ou comment on tue les femmes (The Dead Queen, or How women are put to death). The sub-title was dropped from 1943 on. Two sections of dialogue with misogynist ideas were omitted. The first is Egas Coelho's speech in Act II, Scene i, when he is attempting to convince Ferrante to execute Ines: No, indeed, there is no proportion! And it is always men who are killed, never women: that is not just. And, more than that, where the same crime has been committed, a woman is not put to death: that is not just. A woman, by her betrayal, delivers the army to the enemy: she is imprisoned for life and, gradually making the best of circumstances, since it is a law of nature that anything that lasts a while becomes less rigid, she comes to lead a life which is not totally devoid of amenities. But a man, for the same crime, is executed immediately.1 The second is in Act II, Scene iii, in the discussion between Ferrante and Ines: FERRANTE. Some people think that gallantry forbids punishing women . That is not my opinion at all: when a man and a woman commit the same crime, the punishment must be...