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New Plays of Ionesco and GenetAuthor(s): Wallace FowlieSource: The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Sep., 1960), pp. 43-48Published by: MIT Press

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New

Plays

of

Ionesco

and

Genet

By

WALLACE

FOWLIE

The

parable

of

Eugene

Ionesco's

new

play,

Le

Rhinocdros,

s

simple

and

obvious.The

inhabitants

f a

small

provincial

own

are transformed

into

rhinoceroses.

At

first his

process

s

gradual,

and then more

and

more

precipitous.

The

protagonist,

whose

name

is

B6renger,

ike

that

of

the

protagonist

n Tueur

sans

gages,

sees in the

first cene one

or

two of theinhabitants f his townmetamorphosed.n the secondscene,

a

colleague

in

the

office

where

he works becomes

a

rhinoceros. n the

third,

his best

friend,

Jean,

is

transformed

efore

his

very

eyes.

n

the

last

scene,

his

mistress ushes offto

join

the

herd.

He

remains

alone,

the last soul in

the town to

resist

the

epidemic.

He refuses

o

comply

with

the collective

mania,

the standardization

or

nazification

of his

world.

The

parable

is on

the

sacred

ndividuality

f man. Alone

the

pro-

tagonist

B6renger

remains

faithful o

his vocation of man.

The construction f

the

play

follows

a

continuous

progression.

A

Sunday

afternoon

n

summeron the

public square

where

we see the

familiar picerie, afe' nd boulangerie fthe

provincial

own ntroduces

us to

most of the characters nd

to their

trivial

conversation.

Jean

up-

braids his

unkempt

friend

B6renger,

nd

the

logician

of

the

town

dis-

courses

on

the

number

of

paws

a

cat has. The

surprise

aused

by

the

first

ppearance

of

a

rhinoceros n thisFrench

own

s

rapidly

diminished

by

a

passionate argument

over its exact

description:

does it

have

one

or

two

horns?

The

office cene

where

B6renger

lmost

arrives

ate is a

continuationof the

stupid

arguments egun

in the

first

cene.

At

the

end,

Mme

Boeuf

arrives o

explain

the absence of her

husband.

He

has

become a rhinoceros nd is bellowingfromdown below. In fact,he

causes the

stairway

o

collapse

and the

members

f

the

office

taff

ave

to

be rescued

by

firemen.

In

the Barrault

production

at the

ThC6tre

de

France

(formerly

he

Od6on),

the

third

scene is

made into a

prodigious

pectacle

thanks

to

the

histrionic

gifts

of

William

Sabatier who

plays

Jean.

B6renger

(played

by

Barrault)

calls

on

Jean

in

the

morning,

nd

awakens

him

in order to

ask

forgiveness

or

his

stubbornbehavior

the

day

beforeon

the

square.

As he

moves back

and forth

between

his

bed

and

his bath-

room,

we

watch in

the

gestures,

he

movements

nd

the

voice

of

Jeanthe gradual metamorphosisf a man into a rhinoceroswho does not

realize

what

is

happening.

It

is

the

pivotal

scene of

the

play,

written

in

Ionesco's

now familiar

tyle

where the comic

and

the

hallucinatory

are

skillfully

used.

43

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44

The

Tulane

Drama Review

The

final scene

is

dominated

by

B6renger

for

whom Barrault has

found

an

excellent

characterization,

combining

of

pathos

and humor

which transform veryordinary ndividual into--not a rhinoceros,

but

a

hero.

The two

friends

who

visit

B6renger

n

his

room,

Dudard

the office

olleague

and

Daisy

the

typist,

ndergo,

before

his

very eyes

and

despite

his

arguments,

process

of

de-humanization.

hey

too

are

contaminated

y

the

disease

and

rush off t the end to

join

the herd of

pachyderms.

B&renger,

he

type

of

average

man,

grows

into the

stature of

pro-

tagonist,

because he is

not influenced

by

words

and

speeches.

In

an

almost

pitiful

way,

he

struggles gainst

the

exaltation

of all

the

others,

against

an

overwhelming

orce which

isolates him.

Slowly

at

first,

nd

thenmore and more

swiftly,

Wrenger

s forced nto an

experience

of

solitude.At the

end

of the

play

he

is

totally

lone after

bserving,

with-

out

always fully

understanding

t,

a

clinical

study

of

conformity

nd

contamination. his

solitude

of man

is at

the center

of

all of

Ionesco's

plays,

and

it

is

always

manifested

n

the same

way,

with the

same ad-

mixture f

irony

nd

burlesque

and

humor.

The

familiar

mannerisms f

Ionesco's

style

are

all

in the

new

play:

the ritual of

commonplaces,

he

sudden

eruption

of the

fantastic

n

the

most

drily

banal

scene,

the

meaningless

ists

of

words,

the

repeti-

tions.Buthe has added to Le Rhinocdros as he had added to lastyear's

play

Tueur

sans

gages)

a

parable.

By

definition,

parable

is

a

story

which

teaches,

nd

by

this

application

of

a

lesson,

onesco's

play

will

doubtlessreach a far

wider

public

than

his

previous

plays.

The

public

attending

he

opening

performances

t the

Theatre

de

France

have en-

joyed

the

play

and

understood t

meaning.

For the

first

ime in

his

career,

onesco

has

conquered

a

large

public easily

and

quickly.

n this

addition of an

allegory,

onesco

has

lost

some

of the

theatrical

urity

e

demonstrated

n

Les

Chaises and

La

Lepon

where no

didactic

element

blurred he

simple functioning

f

the

infernal

machine,

f the

anti-logicof our world.

However the thesis s not

developed

or

over-emphasized

n Le

Rhi-

nocdros.

At

one

moment n the

Barrault

production,

he

goose

step

is

used which

unfortunately

imitsthe

meaning

of the

tyranny

o nazism.

This

specification

may

well be

avoided

in

the

English

production

now

being

rehearsed

by

Laurence Olivier. It is to

be

hoped

also

that

Olivier

will

avoid the excessive

realism

of

Barrault's

first

ct,

both in

the

set

and the

mise-en-sctne.

arrault's

triumph

s in

the

delicate

combination

of

horror

and

whimsy

he

finds for the

characterization f

B6renger.

This characters in all theplaysand I imagine t is in Eugene Ionesco's

own character. t

is

surely

n the

role

of

Ionesco

in

L'Impromptu

de

l'Alma.

M.

Ionesco

has often

disclaimed

any

ownership

of

his

dreams

and

obsessions.

He sees them

as

part

of

the

collective

unconscious,

part

of

an ancestral

heritage,

legacy

of all the

ages.

On

several

occasions,

n







WALLACE

FOWLIE

45

articles and

interviews,

e

has

spoken

of a

feeling

of human

anguish

he

has been

aware

of

since childhood and which

he believes

comes

not

onlyfromhis life but fromthe life of man. It is a sense of isolation,

of

being

encircled

by

a

void,

and of

being

unable to

communicate

with

others.The

kind

of

banal conversation

orwhich

he

has become

famous

in his

plays

s

precisely

he

symptom

f

man's

inability

o communicate.

Ionesco's

speech

is often the

very

kind of

speech

we

hear

around

us

almost

everyday.

His skill is his

use of

this

kind of

speech,

the

force-

fulnesswith which

he

makes

us feel

man's

incapacity

to

express

his

fundamental

hought.

His

plays

often

give

the

impression

f

being

au-

topsies

of our

unacknowledged,

nvisible

manias.

Ten years ago, in May 1950,La Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald So-

prano)

was

played

before

an

audience

of

fifty

n

the

Th6itre de

la

Huchette. n

February

1960,

Le

Rhinocdroswas

performed

wo

or

three

times a week

before

large

fashionable

audiences in

the

ThCltre

de

France. The

plays

Ionesco

has written

during

these ten

years,

and

which

today

are

being

performed

n

Tunis,

London,

San Francisco nd

Helsinki,

are

close

to

his

obsessions.

They

are

in

fact

the

exorcisms

f

his

anxiety.

As

a

writerhe has

acknowledged

his debt

to the

surrealists.

His

ancestors re

Kafka and

Chaplin.

His

art

reminds

us

constantly

of the

anguish

of

Kafka

and the antics

of

Chaplin.

The dramaturgy f Ionesco makes of his plays an art that is totally

autonomous,

xisting

y

tself

without

he usual

reliance

on

an

ideology.

The

play

itself,

s

it was

being

written,

made

its

own

discovery

f

reali-

ties

which

were not

defined

before the

text was

composed.

onesco

has

testified o

this

experience

of

playwritihg.

uring

the

very

plocess

of

writing,

he

dramatist

will

come

upon

unexpected

realities

and these

will

become

the richest

lementsof

the

play.

This

is

in

keeping

with

surrealistdoctrine

which

has

always

stressedthe

revelatory

power

of

the

imagination.

That

part

of a

play,

or

of

any

work

of

art,

which

is

ideology, s bydefinition otaland self-containedt theverybeginning.

It

cannot

possiblybring

out

what

Ionesco

calls

unexpected

realities.

A

purely

deological

play

is

therefore

demonstration f

what

has

already

been

demonstrated.

onesco

would

simply

laim

there s no

further

eed

of

demonstration.

The

creation,

he

writing

f

a

play

is

therefore

he

discovery

f

the

play.

It

is based

upon

elements f

surprise,

lementswhich

first

urprise

the

playwright

imself.

t would

be

significant

o

compare

the

explana-

tion which

onesco

has

given

of

his first

lay,

La

Cantatrice

Chauve,

with

the

various

explanations

of

his

critics

nd

interpreters.

hereas

onescohas called his

play

the

expression

of the

unexpected,

of

the

unusual

(insolite)

as it

rises

up gratuitously

rom

banal

language

and

action,

the

critics f the

playwright

ave

devised

many

ngenious

nd

contradictory

definitions.

hey

have

called it an

attack

on

the

English

bourgeoisie,

or

an

effort o

destroy

he

art

of

the

theatre.

They

have

defined

t

as







46

The Tulane

DramaReview

abstract

heatre

or

pure

theatreor

avant-garde

heatre.

onesco

claims

that

no one has

yet atisfactorily

efined

pure"

or

"avant-garde"

heatre.

If M. Ionesco has no specific ntention or plan, when he begins to

write

play,

he

agrees

that he

has

multiple

semi-conscious

r

ill-articu-

lated

plans

in his

mind. These become

precise

as the

writing

ontinues.

This

is

a

strong

tand

against

playwrights

ho

would reform

heworld

by

educating

it.

Ionesco

places

himself

mong

those

artistshostile

to

all forms

f

"truth"

or

"propaganda"

which

by

their

very

nature

seem

destined to

become

forces f

oppression.

At times

onesco

has referred

to two forces f

oppression

which he

considers

he most

dangerous

for

the

artist: he

sclerosis

f

the

bourgeois

mentality

nd the

tyranny

f

po-

litical

power.

All of

his

plays

illustrate he first

f

these,

and

Le Rhi-

nocdros eferspecificallyo the second. This is his twelfth lay.Twelve

plays

in ten

years,

not

one of which

was written

with

the

intention

of

being

"popular"

or

"demagogic."

In

the

1959-60

season,

among

the

smallertheatres

f

Paris,

the

newly

decorated

ThAtre

de

Luthce

has

replaced

Le

Babylone. Roger

Blin's

production

f

Les

Ntgres by

Jean

Genet is

the

unpredicted

uccess

f

the

year.

The

successcomes

from

many

sources:

from

he text

tself,

ne

of

the strongestwhichGenet has written or the stage; fromthemise-en-

scene

of

Roger

Blin

who

shows himself

xtraordinarily

ensitive

to

the

poetry

and the

dramatic ntention of

a

very

difficult

ext;

from

the

performance

f

the thirteen

Negroes

who

play

at

being

actors

with

the

seriousness nd

frenzy

f

children

convinced

that

their

game

is real.

Once

again,

in

the

history

f the

theatre,

poet

has created a

play

which

is

totally

outside

of

existing

trends

and

schools and

theoriesof

contemporary

heatre.

he

sumptuous

rose

of

Genet,

nterspersed

ith

argot

and

scatological anguage,

is

indeed

the art of

a

poet controlling

the action

of

the

play,

which s the

parody

of

a

ritualistic rime.

A clue to

the dramaturgyf Les Ntgresis in a letterof Genet

published

in the

new

1958 edition of Les

Bonnes

(L'Arbalbte)

where

n

six

succinct

ages,

he

discusses

his

total

dissatisfaction

with the

formulasof

the

contem-

porary

theatre.

He

denounces

the

stupidity

nd

triviality

f

actors

and

directorswho seem to

base

their

art

on

exhibitionism,

n

characteriza-

tions

which come

from,

heir

obsessions

nd

dreams.The

Western

play

has

become

a

masquerade

for

Genet. He

advocates

threatre f

ceremony,

a

return

o

the

conception

of

the

mass,

of

a

theatre

for

nitiates,

where

the

high

dramatic

moment

would be

comparable

to the Elevation

in the

Catholicmass. In becominga diversion, n entertainment,hemodern

theatre

has

adulterated

the

significance

f

theatre.

Genet

suggests

hat

what

s

needed is

a

clandestine

heatrewhich the

"faithful"

would

attend

in secret.

Les

Nkgres

s

a

nightly

itual,

surrounded

by secrecy,

kind of

mass

celebrated

before

a

catafalque.

If

during

the

performance,

ne

thinks







WALLACE

FOWLIE

47

of

African

ceremonies,

of

black masses and

of certain

esoteric-erotic

bottes-de-nuit

n

Paris,

one is

constantly

ulled

back to the

specific lay

ofJeanGenet,to thepoet's creationwhichtranscends ll thehistrionic

types

t evokes.

The

play,

called

a

clownerie,

pens

with

a

dance,

a

Mozart

minuet,

performed

y

four

Negroes

(three

n

dress

suit

and

one barefoot

and

wearing

a

sweater)

nd

four

Negresses dressed

gaudily

n bad

taste).

As

they

whistle nd

hum,

they

dance

in

front f

a

casket.Five members

f

the

court

enter: the

queen,

her

valet,

the

governor,

he

judge

and

the

missionary.

t is

obvious

that

these are

Negroes

wearing

white

masks.

The

intricate

relationships

between the two

groups

of

actors

and

be-

tween

actors and

spectators

re

quickly

established.The

masked

mem-

bers of the courtare whitesas the

Negroes

see themwhen thewhites

are

in

power.

The

eight

black

dancers are

Negroes

as

they imagine

they

are

seen and

judged by

whites.

They

are

assembled to

enact

an

imaginary

crime

(the slaying

of

a

white

woman),

committed

by

real

Negroes

n

the

presence

of

false

whites.The

spectators

ense,

even

be-

forethe

catafalque

turns ut to

be two

chairs

covered with a

cloth,

that

this s a

ritualistic rimeon

the

nature

of

love which

the man in

power

feelsfor

the

one in

his

power.

n

this

case,

the

one

in

power

s

a

queen

who

demands

the

love

of

her black

subjects.

She is

supported

in her

desiresby a missionary nd a judge. The subjects,or the conquered,

are the

group

of

Negroes

who

are

uncontrollable,

who

are

constantly

moving

about,

uttering

houts of

laughter,

parodying

themselves nd

others,

xpressing nguish

and

anger

and

mirth

as if

they

ived in a

world

both

fictitious nd

real.

Intermittently

ttention

is called to

the

corpse

of

the

murdered

woman

who

is

supposed

to

be in

the

catafalque.

This

is

a

guarantee

for the

seriousness f the

ritual,

for

the

general

atmosphere

f

the

play,

which

s

one of

reprobation.

On

the level of

performance,

either

group

on the

stage

is allowed

to

deceive. As actorsneithergrouphas thede-sire to deceive. The

corypheus,

alled

Archibald,

often

harangues

the

real

public

in the

audience

and asks

them

to

observe

the

seriousness

of the

theatrical

public

on

the

stage.

Roger

Blin,

the

director f

the

production

t the

Lut&ce

still

vividly

remembered s the

director

nd actor of

Beckett's

n

attendant

Godot),

has

faithfully

ollowed all

the

performance

irections

given

by

Genet

in

his text.

His

company

of

Negro

actors,

who

come

from

various

coun-

tries,

nd

who

speak

in

various French

accents,

have

been

remarkably

trained in a

performance

o

spirited,

o

animated

as

to be

physically

exhausting.M. Blin has succeeded n creating t theverybeginning nd

maintaining

until the

very

end,

the

dramatic

ambiguity

which

is the

central situation of

the

play:

namely,

the

conflicting

elationships

be-

tween

actors and

public

on

the

stage,

and the

public

in

the

audience.

Blin has

not

neglected

an

even

more

subtle

relationship,

hat

existing

between

the desire

of

the

actors to

amuse

themselves

s

they

act,

and







48 The

Tulane Drama

Review

their

desire

to

amuse us

in

the audience at the

same

time.

The invisible

presence

of

Roger

Blin

is

felt

throughout

he

performance.

He

is

the

masterof ceremonies, hemasterof the strange iturgywhichunfolds

with

alternating

pasms

of

humiliation and

fury.

At

every

point

Blin

brilliantly

upports

the text of

Genet.

He

neither

explains

too much

nor

over-simplifies.

ot

only

has he

trained

his actors

n

a

complicated

stage

choreography,

ut he has

harmonized

heir

ensibility

ith

a

secret

rite.

It

would be futile to

interpret

es

N~gres

as a satire

on colonialism.

The revolt of

hatred which the

play

depicts

s much

deeper

and more

universal.The

Negroes

who

speak

the

opulent language

of

Jean

Genet

give expression

o

a

rage

which

goes

far

beyond

the

rage

of

theirrace.

The

oppression

fromwhich

they

uffers so

hostile,

o

incomprehensible,

as

to be

easily

the

oppression

of

mankind. The

nightly

disappearance

of

a

whitewoman

by

a

process

f

magic

s

one

way

of

exorcism,

ne

way

of

rediscovering

reedom nd

purity.

Genet's

play

is an

incantation,

n

hallucination. The

white face of the sacrificed

s

merely

he

symbol

of

obsession.

At the

beginning

of the

play,

one

of the actors

says,

"Nous

sommes

de

grands

enfants.

Que

nous reste-t-il?

e

Th6ftre "

("We

are

children.

What is left

for

us?

The

Theatre ")

This is

surely

one

of

the

clues for

an understandingfLes Negres.The parodyof thewhites in the char-

actersof the

court)

s in

juxtaposition

with the

parody

of

the

blacks

by

themselves.

n

the

earlier

play

of

Les Bonnes

(The Maids),

Genet studied

the

curious

bond

of

duplicity

between

the mistress

f

the house

(Mad-

ame)

and her two maids. In

Jean-Paul

Sartre's

ong

study

of the

psy-

chology

and the art of

Genet

(Saint

Genet,

comedien et

martyr),

e

analyzes

the

persistence

f

this theme in

all the

writings

f Genet.

A

strangely

istorted ove

joins

the

saint

and

the

criminal,

he

guard

and

the

prisoner,

he

policeman

and the

thief,

he master nd the

slave,

the

white nd theblack. In one senseperhapsLes NegrestestifiesoGenet's

understanding

f

Sartre's

tudy

of

Genet.

In

another

sense,

the

play

is

about

the

meaning

of

theatre,

bout the

distinction

between

a

role to

be

played

and

a

human

existence,

about the

relationship

between

a

ceremony

nd

life.

The violence

which is enacted in

this

play

is

not

real.

The

ritual is

a

symbolic eremony.

No

corpse

is

in the

coffin.

here

is

actually

no

coffin.At the end

of the

play,

Archibald

affirmsome

of

his

opening

speeches:

"Nous sommes

des

com6diens,

et

nous

avons

organis6

une

soir6e

pour

vous divertir."

"We

are

actors

and

we have

organized

an

eveningforyour entertainment.")n Les Ntgres theNegroesplay the

personal

drama of

Jean

Genet,

according

to

Sartre,

which

is the

agon

between

the

actor

and

the

martyr.

t

is

a

play

of

vast

philosophical

m-

plications:

the drama of

a

man

who must

play

the

part

of

a

criminal n

the

very

ociety

which

has

ostracized

him

because of

his

crime.



new plays of ionesco and genet

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