Jean Genet, The Balcony

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Table of Contents
Jean Genet, The Balcony
Early Life
Literary Career
The Balcony (1956)
Illusion and Reality
Theatricality in The Balcony
The Balcony as Theatre of the Absurd
The Balcony as Ritual Theatre
Performance History of The Balcony
Bibliography:

Jean Genet, The Balcony

Paper: Paper 19, Option D, Modern European Drama (ii)
Lesson : Jean Genet, The Balcony
Lesson Developer: Jeetumoni Basumatary
College / Department: Ramjas College, University of Delhi

Early Life
Jean Genet (1910-1986)
Early Life
Jean Genet was a significant and controversial French writer. He was a novelist,
playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. He was born on 19th December, 1910, to
Camille Gabrielle Genet who is believed to have been a prostitute. After looking after the
infant Genet for seven months, Camille Genet put him up for adoption. An artisan family
of Charles and Eugenie Regnier volunteered to foster the infant Jean Genet and took him
to the village of Alligny-en-Morvan. There were many foster children in this village, yet
they were never fully accepted by the villagers. He reacted to this alienation by not
speaking in the dialect of the village, but in standard French. The individuals sense of
alienation from his surroundings that Genet portrays in his plays may have been realised
by him right from the early days of his life in Morvan.

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Though the Regnier family was affectionate towards him and he did well in his studies,
Genet began to steal and had a pattern of running away from his foster family. By the age
of ten, he had already gained the reputation of a thief. He was constantly moved from one
household to another, while he continued to steal or acquire the reputation of stealing.
Genet became acquainted with the French penal institutions before he was fifteen. In
1926, Jean Genet was taken to Mettray. He was sent to a penal colony that focused on
agricultural work. It was in this colony that Genet got access to homosexual relationships.
In 1927, Jean Genet escaped for a short time. In 1929, Jean Genet enlisted in the military.
For the next seven years, Jean Genet served the military in Morocco, Algeria and Syria
till his military service was interrupted in 1933. During this year, Jean Genet travelled
throughout Spain and France as a vagabond.
In 1936, Jean Genet again deserted the army. He travelled through Albania, Austria,
Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Nazi Germany, Poland and Yugoslavia. After he returned
to France in 1937, he continued to steal and spent time in and out of prison for theft, use
of false papers, vagabondage, lewd acts and other offenses. In 1949, when Genet was
threatened with a life sentence after ten convictions, Cocteau and other prominent figures,
including Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso, successfully petitioned the French
President to have the sentence set aside. Genet would never return to prison.

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Literary Career
Genet began to write during his incarceration. He began work on Our Lady of the
Flowers in 1941. He also began composing the poem Le condamn mort (The Man
Sentenced to Death). He printed the poem at his own cost and dedicated it to Maurice
Pilorg, a twenty-year-old murderer who had been executed. His novel Our Lady of the
Flowers was published in 1943 with the help of Jean Cocteau.

Jean Cocteau (1889 1963) was a French writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker.
Cocteau is best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929).
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g/800px-Jean_Cocteau_b_Meurisse_1923.jpg

Genet had introduced himself to Cocteau in Paris. Cocteau was impressed by Genets
writing and used his contacts to get his novel published. Cocteau seemed to have
immediately recognised Genets genius and literary talent. He became one of the first
vocal supporters of Genet.
By 1949 Genet had completed five novels, three plays and numerous poems, many
controversial for their explicit and often deliberately provocative portrayal of
homosexuality and criminality.

Jack Kerouac (1922 1969) introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948 to characterize a
perceived underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York. It referred to a group of
American writers who came to prominence in the 1950s. Its central elements were rejection of
received standards, innovations in style, use of illegal drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in
examining religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition.
Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac's
On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.

In Our Lady of the Flowers (Notre Dame des Fleurs), Genet explores the journey of a
man through the Parisian underworld. Written during his incarceration, this novel is a
celebration of lowlifes and homosexuals living in the fringes of society. It is believed that
Our Lady of the Flowers, with its free-flowing, highly poetic language mixed with slangs
had an enormous influence on the Beats.
From 1946 to 1986, Genet would write five more novels namely, The Thief's Journal
(Journal du voleur) (1949), The Miracle of the Rose (Miracle de la Rose) (1951), Funeral
Rites (Pompes Funbres) (1953), Querelle of Brest (Querelle de Brest) (1953), Prisoner
of Love (Un Captif Amoureux) (1986). The Thief's Journal and The Miracle of the Rose
describe Genet's time in Mettray Penal Colony and his experiences as a vagabond and
prostitute across Europe. Querelle de Brest (1947) is set in the midst of the port town of
Brest, where sailors and the sea are associated with murder. Throughout his first five
novels, Genet subverts the standard moral values of his readers and celebrates what is
considered by society to be evil and lowly. We see criminals such as the thief, the
murderer and the prostitute raised to icons in these novels.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3PzbcNl2kOM/SqhnPsASQiI/AAAAAAAAALw/zwJFoZJSO
P4/s400/Maurice+Pilorge,+assassin+de+vingt+ans.jpg [Photo: Maurice Pilorg]

Sadomasochism is the combination of sadism and masochism. It means the deriving of pleasure,
especially sexual gratification, from inflicting or submitting to physical or emotional abuse.

Genet also wrote plays like The Maids (1947), Deathwatch (1949), The Balcony (1956),
The
Blacks (1958) and The Screens(1961). All of these plays explore the conflicts between
illusion and reality, life and death, good and evil, the strong and the weak, the old and the
young, the conscious and the unconscious. Considered to be the best products of his art,
Genets plays rely heavily on ritual, transformation, illusion and interchangeable
identities. The homosexuals, prostitutes, thieves and outcasts of his plays are trapped in
self-destructive circles. They express the despair and loneliness of a man caught in a
maze of mirrors, trapped by an endless progression of images that are, in reality, merely
his own distorted reflection. They enter into a ritualistic struggle with their oppressors.
Characters simulate roles of the oppressors or that of the oppressed in a highly stylized
and ritualistic manner until they are subsumed by those very roles.

Nihilism means an extreme form of scepticism that systematically rejects all values, belief in
existence, the possibility of communication, etc. Epic nihilism would then mean the
representation of that scepticism in epic dimensions.

In The Maids, two sisters called Claire and Solange take turns to play at being their
mistress. As the sisters engage in a sadomasochistic role-play every day, they are able, for
a short while, to live their dreams of freedom and a higher position in life through
language and costume. In Deathwatch, we see Maurice and Lefranc aspire to be in the
position of Green Eyes whom they see as God. They believe that if they can repeat what
Green Eyes has done, they can share in his godhead. Maurice and Lefranc constantly
argue in order to win the appreciation of Green Eyes. In The Balcony, Madame Irmas
brothel allows ordinary men to live out their fantasies of power for a short while. Genet
explores the human predisposition to prejudice and oppression in The Blacks, where he
shows a group of black actors donning white makeup in order to confront the most deep-
seated racial prejudices. Based on the Algerian war and the exodus of the French
colonialists from Algeria, The Screens has been variously characterized as epic nihilism
and theatre of hate.

The Balcony (1956)

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Published in 1956, The Balcony was inspired by Genet's contempt for society and
obsession with topics such as sex, prostitution, power, politics, and revolution. Set inside
a brothel where common men play men of power in their sexual fantasies, The Balcony
reflects on the emptiness of societal roles and how they are governed by the fetishization
of objects and symbols. Ordinary men are seen coming to the brothel to play the roles of
the traditional heads of power such as the Bishop, the Judge, and the General. Objects
and symbols that are associated with institutional authority are re-appropriated into an
underground culture that centres on a brothel called the Balcony. The Balcony illustrates
Genets awareness of the problems of subcultural existence in a society ruled by signs,
symbols, and rituals, an understanding he had been initiated into very early in life.

Fetishization: Excessive and almost irrational devotion to an object or an activity.

Spectatorial describes that nature of man which makes him an observer of events.

The play is aptly titled The Balcony foregrounding its nature of theatricality. The word
balcony means a platform projecting out from a wall and accessible through a door or
window from the adjoining room. It also means a gallery over the main floor in a theatre
or auditorium. In both the cases it refers to a place from where individuals may watch the
events that take place outside the house or on the stage. In other words, both the
meanings point to the spectatorial nature of human beings. Through the world of the
House of Illusions or the brothel, Genet explores themes like illusion versus reality,
role-playing and the nature of theatricality itself.

Illusion and Reality

The most important theme in The Balcony is the tension between illusion and reality.
Genet succeeds to show in the play how thin a line exists between illusion and reality.
The men who come to Irmas House of illusions do so in order to escape their everyday
reality and live for a while in the world of fantasy and grandeur. In order to fulfil their
lust for power and virility, these men act out various roles they aspire to by putting on
costumes of bishops, judges and generals and exercising their power over the women
who provide them service. Each one of these men revels in the illusion of power provided
by the costumes of important figures like the bishop, the judge and the general. To them,
reality is a threat. The real world demands that they must take responsibilities and
participate in the functioning of the society. Yet, the real world gives no power or
grandeur to ordinary man of the world. Since the truth of their being is unacceptable to
these men, they take recourse to fantasy where they have both power and prestige without
the function.
However, no matter how deep these men are emerged in their worlds of illusion and
fantasy, reality intrudes in one or another form. They are never allowed to completely
lose themselves in their fantasies. The sound of the machine gun fire from the revolution
outside, and screams and cries of women from the other salons in Irmas establishment
disturb the three men who play at being the Bishop, the Judge and the General. Moreover,
the women who assist them to realise their ideal state of being also frequently step out of
character. The Bishop, the Judge and the General themselves are seen to move in and out
of character in order to assure the truthfulness of the act.
There is always an element of realism that exposes the ideal state of being that each man
aspires to as fantasy. While the Bishop relishes forgiving the sins of the sinner, the
prostitute playing at being the sinner interrupts his fantasy by asking what he would do if
her sins were for real. When the prostitute playing the role of the thief admits to being a
thief too soon, the Executioner interrupts the illusion of the Judge giving the impression
that the scenes that take place in the privacy of the salons are scripted. The Judge would
have to meet with frequent interruptions from reality. At one point he himself would step
out of his role and would ask the girl if she was new to the brothel. At another moment,
he would enter into a long discussion with the Executioner about the revolution that is
raging outside. The Generals fantasy too is interrupted by reality when the girl who has
to pretend to be a mare refuses to wear the bit in her mouth saying that it makes her
bleed, and when his concern about the revolution forces him out of character for a while.
Reality not only threatens to intrude and take over the world of illusion, but it actually
does. The three figures of the Bishop, the Judge and the General are at one point required
to join Irma, who is dressed up as the Queen, to help quell the revolution. They abandon
the privacy of their world of fantasy and appear in the public as figures of authority.
However, it is a disaster for them as there is no longer any joy in playing those roles. For,
their fantasies and illusions have become real and in the process they have lost their ideal
states of being. They are forced to play the well-established traditional roles of power that
occupy popular imagination. The outcome is that they lose their individuality that was
defined by their wishful moving in and out of role-play. As reality intrudes and takes over
illusions, these men are no longer able to dream. The impersonators of the Queen, the
Bishop, the Judge, and the General appear to the masses who believe them to be the true
figures of authority. This only highlights the fact that the real world too is defined by
costumes, props and role-playing. The irony is that the impersonators had tried to escape
reality by those very costumes, props and role-playing in the illusory world of Irmas
brothel. The revolution which would have been the end of all illusions had it been
successful, crumbles because it too feels the need to be represented through an icon.
Genet shows that the real world of the revolution is as illusory as the world of the brothel
where men go to live their illusions.

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[Terry Hand's production of The Balcony by Jean Genet at the RSC in 1971]
Apart from the men, the dichotomy as well as the merging of reality and illusion can be
seen even in the women of the brothel such as Irma, Carmen and Chantal. Irma is the
scriptwriter and in fact director of the plays that goes on in her salons. She packages
dreams and fantasies and sells them to her clients. She rules the world of illusions and yet
is never influenced by it. Unlike the brothel patrons who need to worship their images in
an imagery charade, Irma sees no need to worship her own image. However, she is also a
prisoner of the artificial world that she has created in her brothel. Despite not
participating in the charades, she feels integrally tied to the game of role-play. Hence, she
is reluctant to leave the security of her house of illusions and masquerade as the Queen,
for that, then would be the end of her individuality. It is only by recognising that reality
and illusion are closely linked that she would survive through this transformation.
Carmen is seen to be equally happy in the world of illusions despite knowing that it is
unreal. While she is linked to the real world by the presence of her daughter and her
desire to be with her, she would at the same time never leave the world of illusions. For,
reality frightens her too. She loves to play roles in the play written by Irma, for it is only
through these roles that she exists. This love for playing roles is seen even in Chantal,
another prostitute. She gives up the house of illusions for what appears to be the real
world. She joins the revolution. However, to be in the real world for her meant to do
exactly what she had to do in the brothel. She became an icon of the revolution, the only
difference being that while earlier her clients were dependent on her for realising their
roles, now it was she who was dependent on the revolutionaries for the fulfilment of her
role. For her, the revolution turns out to be only a mirror image of the brothel.

Icon signifies a representative symbol and that which often inspires veneration.
Charade and masquerade both stands for a pretence intended to create an appearance.

Theatricality in The Balcony

Genets thesis in The Balcony seems to show that the execution of power is dependent on
its theatricality. More than the function of a role, it is the appearance, the prestige and the
very performance of the role through established ceremonies that seem to make power
what it is. Therefore, it is not surprising that even their friends fail to recognise the three
figures as impersonators of the Bishop, the Judge and the General. Within the play,
theatricality can be defined by role-playing or play within the play, costumes, and
theatrical voice adopted by the men who play at being the Bishop, the Judge and the
General.
The play within the play is integral to Genets theatre. The presence of the motif of the
embedded play shows that what is central to Genets theatre is the question of spectacle,
the questions of acting and watching. The term play within the play indicates an inner
play within an outer one and its presence helps in re-examining the relationship between
art (work of imagination, fantasy, theatre, etc.) and real. The clearly demarcated positions
of the spectator and the actor are problematized in The Balcony when characters move in
and out of the inner play to the outer play. This is further complicated when the Chief of
Police steps into the mausoleum to play the role of himself as played by Roger.
We see Irma first as a spectator to the inner private plays of the Bishop, the Judge and the
General. She becomes an actor herself when she appears in public as the Queen. She
steps out even from that play when towards the end she bids the audience to return to
their world, more unreal than the spectacle that they have seen. Just as Genet writes the
play called The Balcony for an audience who pay to experience it, similarly, Irma is also
the playwright of the various plays that take place in her salons. She too writes for people
who pay her in order to experience her work of art.
Genet has blurred the boundaries between the inner play and the outer play in The
Balcony by extending the spectacle of the inner play (that takes plays in Irmas brothel) to
the outer play (when the three figures appear in public) and vice versa as well as
extending that idea to the world outside the theatre. If we go by what Genet is actually
implying through Irmas last speech, we would have to look at The Balcony as being
already a play within the play (represented by the real world of his audience).

Metatheatre comes from the Greek prefix 'meta', which implies 'a level beyond' the subject that
it qualifies. This term was created by Lionel Abel. Metatheatricality is a device used by a play to
draw attention to the literal circumstances of its own production, such as the presence of the
audience or the fact that the actors are actors, and the play is only a play and not real life.

The play within the play in The Balcony reflects Genets concerns about the questions of
performance, and the spectator-actor relationship. The outer play as well as the inner play
constantly draws the audiences attention towards its theatrical nature. The Bishop, the
Judge and the General are concerned about the authenticity of their appearance and role
just as Irma is. The last scene where Irma tells the audience to return to their homes
which in truth is an extension of the very play they have seen, establishes The Balcony as
a metatheatre.

[Performance of The Balcony at Nimbus Theatre, Minneapolis, 2011]

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The Balcony as Theatre of the Absurd

Martin Esslin, in his Theatre of the Absurd (1960) identified a number of playwrights whose
works express the contemporary situation of the modern man. He noted that there is a sense of
alienation and isolation in the plays of these playwrights. He looked at the works of these
playwrights as an expression of the philosophy of the absurd, which finds its basis in the
meaninglessness and purposelessness of life expressed by Albert Camus in his The Myth of
Sisyphus (1942). According to Esslin, these playwrights, instead of discoursing the absurdity of
life, simply presents a life (which is absurd) on stage. The playwrights that he identified are
Samuel Beckett, Eugne Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, etc.. Esslin
identified in Genets theatre, the individuals feeling of impotence as he feels trapped in the
meshes of society.

In The Balcony society is symbolized in the image of a brothel providing its customers
with the illusions of power. As individuals feel impotent in their positions and isolated
from their surroundings, they go to Irmas House of illusions in order to attain
fulfilment. These individuals try to attain fulfilment in a series of ritualistic events and
elaborate ceremonies.
At first, we see three similar scenes where the stage directions tell us the presence of a
chandelier, an unmade bed and mirrors that reflect the image of the roles being played. In
the mirrors are reflected the larger than life figures of the Bishop, the Judge and the
General in their full grandeur and power. However, we soon realise that what we are
seeing on stage are only enactments of ceremonies devoid of function. The roles played
in Irmas salons are purely ritualistic divorced from their function. We also realise that
Irmas world of illusions is only an inverted reflection of the real world which is
governed by the same rituals and ceremonies, and hence is equally absurd.
The Balcony can rightly be called an absurd theatre because it is a play which strips away
the mask of the society itself, by holding up a mirror to it and showing it to be as unreal
as any play. Irmas last speech for the audience emphasizes the fact that the play is a
fantastic representation of the world which is equally fantastic. Genet's message is that
reality is unattainable since one cannot have a control over it.

Mime: Theatrical technique of suggesting action, character, or emotion without words, using
only gesture, expression, and movement.
Allegory: A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning. It serves
as an extended metaphor.

The Balcony as Ritual Theatre

Ritual theatre can be considered to be as old as the genre of theatre itself. Western theatre as we
understand today is believed to have originated during the annual festivals in honour of
Dionysus, the Greek God of wine.
While the theatre survived, the other rituals associated with the festivities have been long dead.
But what was carried forward was the idea of a collective (actors and spectators alike)
performance with the aim of purging repressed emotions.
Many 20th century playwrights revealed a kind of nostalgia for the origins of theatre and the
primitive and ancient rituals. One such playwright was Antonin Artaud who attempted to renew
theatre through a resurrection of its mystical quality and a creation of a theatrical language that
will voice the inner turbulence of the human spirit. In his theatre, language took a backseat and
allowed images, gestures, sounds to do the talking. Theatre should be a mirror of life, but
enhanced and taken to an extreme. There should be no limits in achieving an emotional response.
The phrase Theatre of Cruelty was coined by him as a drastic action taken to its most extreme
effect on stage. The experience of theatre should, according to Artaud, include the audience as
part of the experience. Artauds theatre is, by its very nature, a ritualistic theatre. It is intended to
be full of passion and emotion in order to provoke an emotional reaction from the audience. It is
intended to be void of rationality in order to probe at the mental status quo of the audience.

The theatre of the absurd can also be understood as a new combination of a number of
ancient, even archaic, traditions of literature and drama. It is therefore characterised by
many ancient traditions such as miming and clowning, the tradition of dream and
nightmare literature, allegorical and symbolic drama, as well as the most ancient tradition
of the ritual drama.
Genets The Balcony is often interpreted as an attempt to capture the ritualistic element in
the Mass. Scene after scene the characters in the play are shown to enact a ritual which
takes on a ceremonial tone. In reference to the play, the word ritual can be interpreted in
two ways; (a) repeated imitation of an act devoid of its original intent or meaning, and (b)
as ritual associated with the religious ceremony and the sacred. The men who come to the
brothel play the roles of traditional figures of power. But they do so by adopting only the
symbols and outward appearance of those figures and not the function. In Irmas house
of illusions men are able to purge themselves of repressed feelings of irrationality and
impotence in an absurd world through the ceremony of rituals In order to look at the play
through the second meaning of the word ritual, we will have to look at the stage
directions given by the playwright in the beginning of every scene. Specially, in the first
scene where we see the Bishop, the playwright demands that the setting has to be like a
church.
The elaborate ceremonies enhanced by the use of mirrors as props help in interpreting
The Balcony as a ritualistic play in the sense that Artuad uses the term. The men who
come to the brothel are purged of their repressed feelings of powerlessness and impotence
when they ritualistically play the roles of the Bishop, the Judge and the General. When
they see their image reflected in the mirrors, they recognise the symbols of power and
authority and achieve what in their terms is their ultimate sense of being.

Antonin Artaud (18961948), was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director. He is
best known for The Theatre and Its Double (1938), which contained the two manifestos of the
Theatre of Cruelty.
The idea of a theatre of cruelty was first introduced by Artaud to describe a form of theatre that
he hoped would unleash unconscious responses in audiences and performers that were normally
inaccessible. He wanted audiences to find in the theatre not an area for escape from the world,
but the realisation of their worst nightmares and deepest fears. He felt that the focus of theatre in
the west had become far too narrow--primarily examining the psychological suffering of
individuals or the societal struggles of specific groups of people. He wanted to delve into the
aspects of the subconscious that he believed were often the root cause of human beings
mistreatment of one another. Through an assault on the audiences' senses, Artaud was convinced
that a theatrical experience could help people purge destructive feelings and experience the joy
that society forces them to repress. He believed that this purge could happen not through
language, but through gestures, mime, screams, etc.

Robert Brustein, in his Theatre of Revolt: Studies in Modern Drama form Ibsen to
Genet(1964), believes that by embodying many of Artauds precepts about ritualistic
drama, Jean Genet created what can be described as the modern equivalent of mystery
religions (Brustein).

Performance History of The Balcony

The Balcony received its world premiere in London on 22 April 1957, in a production
directed by Peter Zadek at the Arts Theatre Club. Genet was present during the opening-
night performance. But he almost disrupted the performance when he accused Zadek of
the "attempted murder" of his play resulting in his eviction from the theatre. About the
production, Genet is quoted to have said, My play was set in a brothel of noble
dimensionsPeter Zadek has put on stage a brothel of petty dimension.
Two years later in 1959, the play was produced at the Schlosspark theatre in Berlin under
the direction of Hans Lietzau who used a colour TV set for Irma's surveillance and
switchboard machine. The first New York City production directed by Jos Quintero
opened Off-Broadway on 3 March 1960. This production shortened the text considerably.
Peter Brooks French production in May 1960 too did the same, and along with many
others he also took the liberty of cutting down the entire scene of the rebels in the cafe.
While the New York production was very well received and won the 1960 Obie Awards
for Genet for Best Foreign Play, Peter Brooks production got a mixed reaction.
Genet, however, had serious problems with the way his plays were presented on stage.
Probably, because of this he felt the need to write a note How to Enact The Balcony in
1962. The note opened with In London, at the Arts Theatre I saw it The Balcony
badly enacted. It had been equally bad in New York, in Berlin and in Paris I was told.
It cannot be known for sure if Genet was ever happy with any production of The Balcony.
Nevertheless, it has been revived frequently in various versions and has attracted many
prominent directors such as Erwin Piscator, Roger Blin, Giorgio Strehler, and JoAnne
Akalaitis. It was even adapted into a film directed by Joseph Strick in 1963
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DAGmNz9_Ir0].

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/The_Balcony-DVD_Cover.jpg

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Paperback, 1991.
Genet, Jean. The Balcony. Trans. Bernard Frechtman. Worldview Publications: Delhi,
2001.
Haney, William S. The Reality of Illusion in Jean Genets The Balcony in Integral
Drama: Culture, Consciousness and Identity. Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2008.
Innes, C.D. Holy Theatre: Ritual and the Avant Garde. CUP Archive, 1984.
Markus, Thomas B. Jean Genet: The Theatre of the Perverse. Educational Theatre
Journal, Vol.14, No. 3. October 1962. Pp. 209-214. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3204460
Accessed: 15/02/2015.
Plunka, Gene A. The Rites of Passage of Jean Genet: The Art and Aesthetics of Risk
Taking. Associated University Presses: Cranbury, 1992.
Sheaffer-Jones, Caroline. Playing and Not Playing in Jean Genets The Balcony and The
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reflection. (ed) Gerhard Fischer and Bernhard Greiner. Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2007.