Theater

of the

Avant-Garde

1890-1950
 Copyright © 2001 by Yale University.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Theater of the avant-garde, 1890-1950: a critical anthology /

edited by Bert Cardullo and Robert Knopf.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-300-08525-7 (cloth) - ISBN 0-300-08526-5 (pbk.)

I. Drama—20th century. 2. Experimental drama—History

and criticism. I. Cardullo, Bert. II. Knopf, Robert, 1961 -
P N 6 I I 2 . T 4 2 200I
808.82'9ll-dc2l 00-043891

A catalogue record for this book is available from the

British Library.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence

and durability of the Committee on Production
Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources.

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 To
Richard Gilman and Amo Selco
who taught us to love theater in all forms
 V)

c
o

Editors' Note xi

En Garde! The Theatrical Avant-Garde in

Historical, Intellectual, and Cultural Context 1
BERTCARDULLO

I . Franco-Russian Symbolism 41
Maurice Maeterlinck, Interior (1891) 45
Maurice Maeterlinck, "The Modern Drama" (1904) 55
Valery Briusov, The Wayfarer (1910) 64
Valery Briusov, "Against Naturalism in the Theater" (1902) 72

1 . Pataphysical Theater 77
Alfred Jarry, King Ubu (1896) 84
Alfred Jarry, "Theater Questions" (1897) 123

I * I n t i m a t e Theater/Chamber Drama 127

August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata (1907) 134
August Strindberg, from Zones of the Spirit (1907) 161

4 . Correspondences 169
Wassily Kandinsky, The Yellow Sound (1909) 173
Wassily Kandinsky, "On Stage Composition" (1912) 180
 5 . I t a l i a n Futurism 187
Umberto Boccioni, Genius and Culture (1915) 195
Francesco Cangiullo, Detonation (1915) 198
Filippo Marinetti, Feet (1915) 199
Filippo Marinetti, Emilio Settimelli, and Bruno Corra,
"The Futurist Synthetic Theater, 1915" (1915) 201

6 . German Expressionism 207

Reinhard Sorge, The Beggar (1912) 212
Yvan Goll, "Two Superdramas" (1918) 262

7 . Dada 265
|2 Tristan Tzara, The Gas Heart (1920) 272
Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto, 1918 (1918) 283

8 . The Yheater of Pure Form 291

♦ Stanisiaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, The Cuttlefish (1922) 297
.^ Stanisiaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, "On a New Type of
* Play" (1920) 321

9. French Surrealism 327

Roger Vitrac, The Mysteries of Love (1927) 335
Andre Breton, First Surrealist Manifesto (1924) 365

1 0 . The Theater of Cruelty 373

Antonin Artaud, The Spurt of Blood (1925) 378
Antonin Artaud, "No More Masterpieces" (1938) 382

I I • Russian Oberiu 389

Aleksandr Vvedensky, Christmas at the Ivanovs
(1938) 394
Daniil Kharms, Aleksandr Vvedensky, and others,
"The Oberiu Manifesto" (1928) 415
I I . American Dada and Surrealism 421
Gertrude Stein, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights
(1938) 425
Gertrude Stein, "Plays" (1934) 450

1 1 . The Theater of the Absurd 467

Arthur Adamov, The Invasion (1949) 472
Martin Esslin, "The Theater of the Absurd" (1961) 499

General Bibliography 503

Index 515
 O

Readers will find in the table of contents the titles of the plays and major
theoretical pieces included in the anthology. In addition, though, each part
contains biographies of the authors of those pieces, shorter critical excerpts
about their works, and select bibliographies of criticism. These briefer items
are not listed in the table of contents.
A few very minor changes have been made here to the pieces reprinted
from other sources, primarily for the sake of internal consistency of spelling
and for grammatical correctness.

We would like to thank Sarah Bay-Cheng and Kristen Tripp-Kelley for

their tireless devotion to, and invaluable work on, this project.
 E n Garde! The Theatrical
Avant-Garde in Historical,
Intellectual, and Cultural Context

Bert Cardullo

The plays, biocritical prefaces, and historical documents presented here,

together with theoretical manifestos and bibliographies, are designed to
provide a history of genuinely avant-garde drama, as isolated from twentieth-
century developments in conventional veristic forms. The materials assem­
bled in Theater of the Avant-Garde, 1890-1950 are thus meant to contribute
to a revisionist history of modern drama, for many still persist in viewing
modern drama as moving from the realistic (yet formally neoclassical) plays
of Ibsen and the naturalistic plays of Strindberg to the socially, politically,
and psychologically oriented "problem plays" of the twentieth century,
even if occasionally influenced by "techniques" from aberrant avant-garde
movements.
Take, for example, Tennessee Williams' misguided homage to the as­
sorted unconventional techniques of Expressionism in his "Production
Notes" to the otherwise romantically realistic Glass Menagerie (1944). Or
consider the frequently misunderstood and overborrowed "alienation effect"
of Bertolt Brecht (really a defamiliarizing or distancing device, which is not
the same as an exclusively anti-illusionistic one). Brecht is excluded from
Theater of the Avant-Garde not only because his dramatic work is already
widely available in English translation but also because he was primarily a
social realist whose real objection to the theater of Realism and Naturalism
was its psychologization of human character, not its rendering of surface
reality. Indeed, Brecht wrote his two greatest Schaustiicke, The Life of Gali-
leo (1939) and Mother Courage and Her Children (1941), in an effort to
bridge, not to widen, the gap between the often numbing prosaism of the
modern social-problem play and the sometimes indulgent ethereality of
 avant-garde drama. Using Expressionistic techniques this politically revolu­
tionary playwright created, one could say, an anti-Expressionistic drama that
evolved into mock-epic theater or faux-historical chronicle—with the cool,
detached style, direct presentation of character, and episodic plotting that
we have also come to recognize in related forms of narrative cinema.
|Jj It is time, and in fact late, to bring genuine dramatic Expressionism, and
* the major innovative tradition of twentieth-century theater to which it be-
O longs, into central focus. The problem in doing so has been that the plays
Z and documents of the tradition are hard to find. The writings of some of its
> major figures are scattered in out-of-print translations or have not been
j translated at all, and no comprehensive collection in English—or any other
u language, for that matter—gives adequate recognition to the place as well as
importance of the avant-garde in the development of a distinctive, freestand­
w ing theatrical sensibility and vocabulary. This anthology illuminates not
Z just a single national tradition or movement (as do Michael Benedikt and
h
w George Wellwarth's fine anthologies of French, German, and Spanish avant-
Z
•" garde plays or Walter Sokel's important collection of Expressionist drama),
4 nor even one style or posture (such as "Absurd" or "Protest") that cuts across
02
national boundaries, but instead the astonishing variety and daring of the
writers in all Western countries and theatrical movements who since before
the turn of the twentieth century have wrenched dramatic art out of every
one of its habits, including the most fundamental of them. Represented in
Theater of the Avant-Garde are particular movements, such as French and
Russian Symbolism, Italian Futurism, German Expressionism, and Dada-
Surrealism, seminal figures like Alfred Jarry, August Strindberg, and Antonin
Artaud, and Gesamtkiinstler like Wassily Kandinsky.
In bringing together the works of such disparate yet fundamentally simi­
lar pioneers, we go beyond a purely historical accounting for this new drama
to suggest intellectual and aesthetic contexts for theater and drama even
broader than those which have already been proposed by critics and histo­
rians as an explanation for the avant-garde revolution. What becomes appar­
ent when these writers are assembled within a single volume is that the new
movements were fed by the other arts as much as they were provoked by
conventional drama itself. Poets, painters, filmmakers, musical composers,
circus performers, architects, choreographers, photographers, cartoonists,
sculptors—any but professional or commercial dramatists—were the models
and sources for the radical shift in the aesthetics of theater and drama.
To speak only of the movies, their presence was continually felt through­
out the vigorous theatrical experimentation of the 1920s. On the one hand,
the theater was seeking a new area of activity that the cinema—potentially
the most literally representational or documentary "real" of the arts—could
not usurp; on the other hand, the theater frequently tried to explore ways of
imitating and incorporating the fantastic or visionary capability of film form.
Throughout Europe, the dramatic avant-garde repeatedly expressed admira­
tion for the dreamlike fluidity of film, its power to convey interior states of
mind, and its possibilities as a truly proletarian and antibourgeois art. Par­
ticularly in France, the Surrealist theatrical experiments of such writers as
Andre Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire, Louis Aragon, and Antonin Artaud
were perhaps better suited to the screen than to the stage, assaulting as they
did the theater's traditional objectivity or exteriority and its bondage to con­
tinuous time and space. And a number of Surrealists did indeed move from
the theater to the cinema, most notably Jean Cocteau.
In Germany, film was one element among many of the influences that
led to the development of dramatic Expressionism, with German cinema
and theater freely borrowing from each other during the twenties. The debt
to the stage of such pictures as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) has often
been noted, and, to cite only one example, the characteristic roving spotlight
of the Expressionist stage was an obvious attempt to control audience atten­
tion in the manner of a movie director. The attempts of the Bauhaus group
to create a nonrepresentational, manifestly manufactured "total theater" in
fact involved the incorporation of film into the ultimate theatrical experi­
ence, as did the production experiments of Marinettfs "Futurist Variety
Theater" in Italy.
The shift of drama to so simultaneously mechanical, democratic, and
subjective a model as the cinema is intimately connected, of course, with the
concepts of modernity and modernism. "Modernity" refers to the network
of large-scale social, economic, technological, and philosophical changes
wrought by the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. "Modernism"
is usually used to denote that period of dramatic innovation in all the arts,
from around the end of the nineteenth century (beginning with Symbolism
and Aestheticism but going as far back as the Romantic movement) up to
World War II and its immediate aftermath (associated with Absurdism),
when the sense of a fundamental break with inherited modes of representa­
tion and expression became acute. Modernism relies on a distinctive kind of
imagination, one whose general frame of reference resides only within itself.
The modernist mind believes that we create the world in the act of perceiv­
ing it. Such a view is basically anti-intellectual, celebrating passion and will
over deliberate and systematic morality.
 Most important, modernism implies historical discontinuity, social dis­
ruption, moral chaos, and a sense of fragmentation and alienation, of loss
and despair—hence, of retreat within one's inner being or private conscious­
ness. This movement rejects not only history, however, but also the society
of whose fabrication history is a record; modernism repudiates traditional
JjJ values and assumptions, then, in addition to dismissing the rhetoric by
* which they were once communicated; and in the process it elevates the
^ individual over the group, human beings' interior life over their communal
Z existence. In many respects a reaction against Realism and Naturalism and
> the scientific postulates on which they rest, modernism has been marked by
j persistent, multidimensional experiments in subject matter, form, and lan-
U g u a g e - These literary excursions revel in a dense, often free-form actuality as
opposed to a practical, regimented one, and they have been conducted by
poets and novelists as vital yet diverse as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace
Stevens, Stephane Mallarme, Arthur Rimbaud, Virginia Woolf, William
Faulkner, W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Rainer
Maria Rilke, and Thomas Mann.
Modernist or avant-garde, as opposed to modern, drama is similarly asso­
ciated, above all, with a pervasive, formal self-consciousness and inventive­
ness. The avant-garde thus becomes that element in the exercise of the
imagination that we call art which finds itself unwilling (unable, really) to
reiterate or refine what has already been created. Many would identify in the
avant-garde not merely a tendency to retreat from the maddening disorder of
the world for the purpose of creating, through art, an alternative, visionary,
eternal order but also a tendency to absorb the world's chaos into the work of
art itself. (The first tendency holds true for most writers of modernist fiction
and verse, as it does for the Symbolist Yeats. Among avant-garde playwrights,
however, most belong either in the second category —like Pirandello, the
Humorist of the Grotesque—or in both categories simultaneously, like Jarry,
the Pataphysician.)
It is possible, additionally, to identify in the avant-garde a thematic preoc­
cupation with the modern city and its technologies—and concomitantly
with the exhilaration of speed, energy, and rapid development, typical of the
Italian Futurists—as well as with the urban potential for physical, social, and
emotional dislocation. Renato Poggioli has described this avant-garde as a
culture of negation (1968, 107-8), and indeed its commitment to ceaseless,
radical critique—not only of the (bourgeois) art that went before it but
also, in many instances, of the sociopolitical institutions and instruments of
industrial-technological practice or power—may be seen as a prime instance
of the modernist emphasis on the creation of the new.
 In a rhetorical gesture utterly typical of the avant-garde, however, the
Surrealist poet and playwright Robert Desnos lambasted the very notion of
the "avant-garde," associated as it was for him with the Impressionists and the
Aestheticism of Cocteau. The dynamic of "negation," then, is not restricted
to a criticism of mass culture by everything outside it but operates within the
field of avant-garde artistic practice as well. Nothing is more characteristic of
the avant-garde than disputes within its ranks about which subgroup is most
deserving of the epithet. On the surface, the avant-garde as a whole may
seem united in terms of what it is against: accepted social institutions and
established artistic conventions, or the tastes and values of the "general
public" as that represents the existing order. Yet any positive program tends
to be claimed as exclusive property by isolated and even mutually antagonis­
tic groupings. So modernist art appears fragmented and sectarian, defined as
much by manifestos as by creative work and representing the amorphous
complexity of postindustrial society in a multiplicity of dynamic but unstable
movements focused on philosophical abstractions. Hence the use of "-isms"
to describe them: Symbolism, Futurism, Expressionism, Dadaism, Surreal­
ism, and the like.
All these modernist "-isms" nevertheless react against the same common
enemy: the modern drama of Realism and Naturalism—that is, the social-
problem play as fathered by Ibsen (if it was not pioneered earlier by Friedrich
Hebbel). Such realistic and naturalistic drama was based on the conven­
tional, long-lived triad of psychology (or motivation), causality (or connec­
tion), and morality (or providential design), but these problem plays ban­
ished theology as well as autocracy from their paradigm of human action, in
this way deepening the dramatic role played by psychology, sociology, and
linearity or linkage. That is, in modern drama, the patriarchal relationship
between God and the individual soul has been replaced by the adversarial
relationship between a person and his or her own psychology, the will to
comprehend the self, even as the patriarchal relationship between ruler and
subject has been replaced by the adversarial relationship between the indi­
vidual and society, in the form of society's drive to marginalize all those it
cannot or will not homogenize. Thus the fundamental subject of almost all
serious plays of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—in other words, of
almost all of modern as well as modernist drama—becomes the attempt to
resurrect fundamental ethical or philosophical certainties without resurrect­
ing the fundamental spiritual certainty of a judgmental God or the funda­
mental political certainty of a mindful monarch.
Modernist, or avant-garde, drama, however, took modern drama a step
further, by demonstrating that a play's movement could be governed by
 something completely outside the triad that links motive to act, act to logical
sequence of events, and logical outcome to divine or regal judgment. In
Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelleas and Melisande (1892), for instance, the
characters are led to the slaughter like sheep, but for reasons that are never
clear, either to them or to the audience. There is sequence but no causality—
w that is, one event follows another but is not caused by it. Even an otherwise
u
* representational work like Chekhov's hanov (1887) can intimate the avant-
9 garde by breaking down the connection between the psychology of its cen-
Z tral character and the causal pattern of his or her drama. There is a causal
> sequence leading to Ivanov's marital infidelity and suicide, but no sustained
j motive on his part—which is to say, one event is caused by another, but
U irrespective of this otherwise intelligent man's clear intent or wish.
Jf For the avant-garde, beginning in the late nineteenth century with Jarry,
|J if not earlier with such German visionaries as Ludwig Tieck, Georg Biich-
jE ner, and Christian Dietrich Grabbe, the nature of reality itself becomes the
!|j prime subject of plays because of a loss of confidence in the assumed model
H
for dramatizing human behavior and thinking about human existence: in
i other words, the representation onstage of the illusion of reality becomes
50
the demonstration of the reality of the illusion-making capacity, illusion-
projecting essence, or illusion-embracing tendency of the human mind.
Through the introduction of total subjectivity into drama—that mirror of a
supposedly external reality—the Symbolists, in particular, imagined a new
theatrical model, polyphonic in form and irreducible to rational analysis or
univocal interpretation, thereby opening the door for the subsequent avant-
garde movements that have dominated the stage in the twentieth century.
The world, which the realists and (to a lesser extent) the naturalists had
attempted to know fully and depict accurately, was revealed by the Symbol­
ists to be pure illusion—a veil of fleeting appearances behind which were
hidden deeper truths. It was what lay buried within the psyche and con­
cealed behind the mirror that this radical new poetics of drama proposed to
explore. Problems or issues of perception and epistemology thus subverted
prior certainties as the arena of artistic representation moved from outside
the human consciousness to within it. And the drama that emerged from
such an aesthetic was paradoxically more sacred—or sacrilegious—than sec­
ular, thus returning theater to its ritualistic origins. For its themes and tech­
niques, Symbolist performance happened to be drawn, as was Nietzsche's
Birth of Tragedy (1872), to church ritual, pagan rites, folklore, fairy tales,
popular superstition, and communal practices—in other words, to "primi­
tive" times before the advent of Realism. The locus of this visionary art was
not the here-and-now of daily life (as it was for the realists), not what can be
seen and experienced in our normal waking hours; rather, that locus was the
eternal bond of human beings to the unknown, to the mystery within them­
selves and within the universe as they journey toward ultimate extinction.
In striving to put onstage what common sense declared to be nondra-
matic and undramatizable, the Symbolists liberated playwriting from mech­
anistic notions of chronological time and Euclidean space; they enlarged
the frame of drama to include worlds and beings other than those inhabiting
the bourgeois theater—which, to more than one of its foremost practitioners
(among them Augustin Scribe, Emile Augier, and Alexandre Dumas /z/s),
had no need to be more than the echo of society's whispers. Moreover,
despite much adverse criticism, the Symbolists held firm in their conception
of the acting appropriate to the production of their plays, for they felt it
necessary to divert attention from external realism or representationalism to
the mysterious inner as well as outer forces that control human destiny. A
natural extension of this interest led the Symbolists to explore the possibili­
ties of puppet theater, which until then had been associated primarily with
crude, popular entertainment. Gordon Craig's vision of the ideal actor as an
Ubermarionette (itself influenced by Heinrich von Kleist's essay "On the
Marionette Theater" [1810]) was paralleled by Maeterlinck's belief that
puppets would be the most suitable performers for his early plays, and by
Aurelien Lugne-Poe's original intention of founding his Theatre de l'Oeuvre
as a puppet stage.
Indeed, marionette theater presents a natural Symbolist aspect. Because
marionettes are abstractions of the human form, individual experience does
not obtrude on our perception of them, as it inevitably does with a human
performer when the actor's personality comes into play; and their perception
or apprehension reaches full expression only subjectively, in the spectator's
mind, not objectively, on the stage. Symbolist designers took their own cue
from the puppet theater, and as a result of their subtly atmospheric or evoca­
tive efforts, theater artists became aware of the illogicality of too much literal­
ism in the procedure of a medium that is essentially make-believe. The
future, ideal stage of the Symbolists would thus be multiple, fluid, and
polyvalent: a point of departure for imaginary voyages into uncharted re­
gions. For such drama there were no fixed forms, prescribed rules, or conven­
tional models to follow. Disdainfully rejecting the theater of commerce with
all its practicalities, Symbolist poets wrote their plays for no existing audience
or playhouse, their works sometimes remaining unperformed for many years.
Nonetheless, Symbolism in the theater—as well as in poetry and paint-
 ing—was a truly international movement and spread not only throughout
Europe but also to North and South America and parts of Asia. Only when
the Theatre de TOeuvre closed its doors in 1899 did Symbolism begin to stir
in Poland and particularly in Russia, where, in addition to Valery Briusov,
the movement included Aleksandr Blok, Andrei Bely, and Leonid Andreyev
"j among its dramatists. Likewise, in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Ro-
J* mania, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and India, Symbolist theater enjoyed
W a second life after having been declared dead in Paris. Furthermore, rather
Z than deriving from a reactionary, escapist tendency (as has often been de-
> picted), Symbolist drama in Eastern Europe, Ireland, and India was a pro-
_i gressive or liberating force, awakening a consciousness of national and cul-
u tural identity, opposing all forms of repression, and protesting against the
drabness of regimented modern life.
< Symbolism, then, battled against all restrictions and limitations, includ­
UJ
X ing those which isolated theater from the allied arts of painting, poetry, and
H
UJ music. Taking its cues from Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk, on the one hand,
X
H and Mallarme's "theater of the mind," on the other, Symbolism aspired to be
♦ a total spectacle encompassing all of life. From our remove of more than a
♦
00
hundred years, that assault on the objectivity of the dramatic form seems an
essential first step—perhaps none has been as important—in the series of
modernist (and postmodernist) revolutions that have transformed the art of
theater from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day.
Each of the revolutionary movements and coalitions had its distinctive
character. They were shaped by forces as varied as F. T. Marinetti's artistic
expansionism, which sought to colonize all modernist manifestations and
individual creators for the Futurist empire (hardly by accident, Futurism
labeled war the supreme, health-bestowing activity); the libertarian individ­
ualism of Tristan Tzara's Dada; or Andre Breton's zealous defense of Surreal­
ist purity. Both within and outside these movements, however, the specific
genius of individual avant-garde writers and artists flourished, the distinctive
trace left by such individuals serving to remind us that historical categories
and groupings are often suspect, reductive, or artificial. As we shall see,
between Marinetti's machine-age bombastics and Kandinsky's abstract spir­
ituality, for example, lies a world of difference.
Wassily Kandinsky, for his part, attempted to disrupt the concept of tradi­
tional theater as a reproductive or representational mechanism by advocat­
ing a synthetic, spiritualized art that would redirect people inside themselves
and reveal the depths and heights of the human soul. Kandinsky believed he
could synthesize music, dance, poetry, and painting into one monumental,
self-contained, and self-defined art form, or rather temple of art. Futurist
synthetic theater, by contrast, rejected such an inward-looking art. For the
Futurists, literature, painting, sculpture, theater, music, dance, morals, and
politics should all be inspired by the scientific and technological discoveries
that had changed the physical environment, and that should correspond­
ingly change human perceptions. Human beings should, in fact, become
like machines, abandoning the weaknesses and sentimentalities of the past.
Influenced by the superman of Nietzsche and D'Annunzio, the Futurists
wrote of their own godlike being, who was aggressive, tireless, courageous,
inhuman, and mechanical. Early heroes, accordingly, were those who had
direct contact with machines: car drivers, pilots, journalists, telegraph opera­
tors, and the like. Later heroes represented a fusion of man and machine,
assured of immortality because the parts were interchangeable.
The Futurists' theories centered on the industrial age, with its machines
and electricity, its urbanization, and the revolution in the means of transport
and communication. Futurists welcomed the products of industrial society
with an all-embracing optimism, for they saw them as the means by which
people would dominate the environment and be able to extend knowledge
indefinitely. The speed and change of the industrial age were also funda­
mental to the Futurists' love of the modern and their rejection of the static,
lethargic past. The effects of the speed of transport and communication on
modern sensibility were such that people were now aware not just of their
immediate surroundings but of the whole world. The limits of time and
space had been transcended; it was possible to live through events both
distant and near at hand—in fact, to be everywhere at the same time. Simul-
taneita (simultaneity) was the word used by the Futurists to describe these
extensions of perception. In their works, different times, places, and sounds,
both real and imagined, are juxtaposed in an attempt to convey this new
concept to the public.
The Futurist embrace of simultaneity was accompanied by a desire for
synthesis. The Futurists held that the speed of modern life called for a
corresponding speed of communication in contemporary art, which was
therefore—unlike the conventional theater—to convey the essence of an
emotion or a situation without resorting to lengthy explanation or descrip­
tion. The sintesi teatrali (theatrical syntheses), then, were works of extreme
brevity and concentration, in which the conventional three-act play was
replaced by attimi (moments) intended to capture the essence and atmo­
sphere of an event or emotion as it happened. Movement, gesture, sound,
and light became as important as the written word, and in some cases came
 to replace words altogether. This reduction to what the Futurists regarded as
the essential part of the action was intended to create an immediate and
dynamic contact with the public, so that the audience would respond intu­
itively to a theater that was now synthetic, hypertechnological, dynamic,
simultaneous, alogical, discontinuous, autonomous, antiliterary, and unreal.
Ill
5 F. T Marinetti was determined from the outset to bring his movement to
< the attention of the greatest possible number of people. In common with
^ many other innovators in the arts of the time, he believed that art and
^ literature could have a determining influence on society, and he described
^ Futurism as the new formula of artistic action. The artist therefore became
^ the leader and promoter of the new ideas, and the forger of links between art
5i and action, art and society. The desire for ceaseless activity, the advocacy of
J- bravery and heroism, and the insistence on aggression, accordingly, led the
!" Futurists to go beyond mere theorizing. They involved themselves in a great
*~ deal of direct action, including their serate, or evenings, which usually con-
I sisted of readings from Futurist works of literature, and which often ended in
# a brawl. The serate doubtless gave the Futurists some general experience of
♦ the theater, whose importance for his movement Marinetti recognized, as
^ he did that of the spettacolo (performance) in particular.
Futurist performances became an ideal means of direct communication
with the public; the expectation was that audience members would react
directly and physically to what they saw and heard. Deliberate provocation of
the audience, partly for the sake of being aggressive, partly in order to break
down the barriers between audience and actors, became one of the impor­
tant techniques of the Futurist theater and influenced the staging of its plays.
The Futurists thus realized the polemical importance of theatrical tech­
niques very early on, and in this sense Italian Futurist theater represents
nothing less than the birth of the twentieth-century avant-garde. In its violent
rhetoric and actions, in its blatant self-promotion and willful disrespect for
the sacred cows of the (written) intellectual tradition, as well as in its all-
embracing (if prototypically Fascist) ideology, Futurism was the model or
stereotype for all the "-isms" to come.
Itself influenced by the Futurist synthetic theater, Dada had been
founded in 1916 by a group of expatriate artists in Zurich, but as practi­
tioners adopted the banner in Berlin, Cologne, and New York, the move­
ment became an international one. The Romanian poet Tristan Tzara, the
leader of the movement, moved to Paris, the major center for Dada, as it
would be later for the Surrealism that sprang from Dada's ashes. "Dada"
itself is a nonsense word, and as such is a clue to the nature of the move-
ment, which was anarchic, violently antitraditional, and vociferously anti-
bourgeois—at least in its rhetoric. Many of the Dada artists had been in­
volved in World War I, and the Dada movement has been understood as a
reaction of disgust toward a society that could sustain such a barbaric con­
flict. If the war was the end-product of a society supposedly built on the
principles of rationality espoused by Enlightenment philosophers, then the
means of protest against this society would have to be irrational.
As conscientious objectors in neutral Switzerland (the fount of the move­
ment), moreover, Dadaists were expected to desist from overt political pro­
test; Switzerland prohibited citizens or visitors from taking a strong vocal
stance on political occurrences beyond its borders, for fear that the country's
neutrality might be compromised. The Dadaists' impulses of frustration and
counteraggression had to manifest themselves in some way, yet if life had so
little meaning for a world that was organizing and sanctioning its own de­
struction, how could art matter? Hence the antisensical anarchy of Dada art,
whose pacifist authors wanted, not to escape from current events through
fantasy, but rather to reflect the chaos of their present to make the public cry
with laughter. Dada, in fact, struck out against all "-isms"—previous artistic
movements that had, in effect, exhaustively and systematically emphasized
the timeless and universal aspects of art without ever truly living in their own
particular moment.
This is the context in which Marcel Duchamp began to exhibit his
"ready-mades"—ordinary objects like bicycle wheels and the urinal he
named "Fountain," signed "R. Mutt," and presented as a sculpture. In doing
so, Duchamp offended against not only the assumption that art involves
creative effort but also the assumption that only certain things are appropri­
ate subject matter for art, which by definition would not include utterly
utilitarian objects. Indeed, the Dadaists maintained that the artistic act,
rather than the product, was first and foremost Dada; the tangible yield
developing from the imaginative act (the painting, poem, sculpture, or dra­
matic text) was merely a by-product of the real art. But best of all for the
antimaterialist Dada artists, the Dadaist use of language was not easily mer­
chandised. In the performance of a poem or a play, the Dadaists kept custody
of their work, letting only the experience of the language and its effects on
the listener stand as proof of its existence. Dadaists thereby succeeded not
only in creating a presence in society for the artist-as-performer (as opposed
to the actor-as-character) but also in keeping art out of the commodifying
hands of bourgeois marketeers, principally because the art itself was a matter
of heresay to those not fortunate enough to be present for the poetry reading
 or theatrical event. Dada thus sought to radically short-circuit the means by
which art objects acquire financial, social, and spiritual value; in this man­
ner, the movement fulfilled one definition of the avant-garde, which is an
attack on the foundations of artistic institutions themselves.
And attack the avant-garde did, for the term "avant-garde" is, after all,
UJ
S military in origin—however synonymous with "esoteric" or "incomprehensi-
< ble" it may now be—referring to the "advance party" that scouts out the
ji terrain up ahead of the principal army. The expression was first used mili-
z tarily around 1794, to designate the elite shock troups of the French army,
<
> whose mission was to engage the enemy first in order to prepare the way for
<
the main body of soldiers to follow. The expression was first used meta-
<
ii phorically beginning around 1830, by members of French revolutionary
H political movements who spoke of themselves as being in the "vanguard."
j!j Used as early as 1825, in fact, by the Utopian socialist writer Olinde Rodri-
I" gues and later by Charles Fourier's disciple Gabriel Laverdant, the term
I "avant-garde" was applied to the "men of vision" of the coming society-
statesmen, philosophers, scientists, and businessmen—whose actions would
give direction to the future development of humanity. It was only during the
last quarter of the nineteenth century, however, that the metaphor was trans­
ferred wholesale from politics to literary and artistic activities. Mainly at­
tached to them ever since, the metaphor has been used to identify successive
movements of writers and artists who, within the larger cultural framework
of modernism, generated a vital tradition of formal innovation or experimen­
tation and sociopolitical radicalism.
Mikhail Bakunin, for example, titled the short-lived anarchist journal he
published in Switzerland in 1878 L'Avant-Garde, and his aim in revolu­
tionizing aesthetics was to pave the way for social revolution. More than fifty
years earlier, however, Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon had proclaimed in
Uartiste, le savant et Vindustriel that "it is we artists who will serve as your
avant-garde; the power of the arts is indeed the most immediate and the most
rapid. We have weapons of all kinds We address ourselves to the imagina­
tion and to the feelings of man; and we must always take the swiftest and the
most decisive action.... There is no more beautiful destiny for artists than to
exert a powerful influence on society—this is our true calling—and to thrust
ourselves into the fray with all our intellectual faculties, at the peak of their
development!" (210-11, 216; my translation). To Saint-Simon, the avant-
garde artist was a soldier-priest in the service of progress, and Saint-Simon's
multivolume Oeuvres, published between 1868 and 1878, promulgated this
belief with a vengeance. Hence, toward the end of the nineteenth century,
certainly, the use of the term "avant-garde" had been extended to encompass
the idea of social renewal through cultural challenge rather than by means
of overtly political activity.
The avant-garde mentality, in its most rabid form, thus belongs to the
past hundred years or so. But if we look at the matter in the context of French
literary history, it is possible to suggest that we are not dealing with an
absolutely new and separate phenomenon; it is, rather, the effect of a long
and extremely complicated process, which is, of course, the general change­
over from the static or cyclical view of human existence to the evolutionary
view. And evolutionism is, fundamentally, a scientific concept. Therefore, if
my suggestion is correct, the term "avant-garde" is not simply a military
metaphor, used first in politics and then transferred to literature and art; it is
basically connected with science and with what is sometimes called the
scientific revolution: the replacement of the medieval belief in a finished
universe by the modern, scientific view of a universe evolving in time. The
scientific view affected political and social thinking long before it penetrated
into literature proper and the fine arts, and that is the real reason the meta­
phor was political first and literary or artistic afterward.
In France, the first real signs of the modern evolutionary view occur in
the seventeenth century, at the time of the Quarrel of the Ancients and
Moderns. (This quarrel was fought from either an essentially conservative
position—the championing of the ancient Greeks and Romans, codification
of aesthetic rules, insistence on decorum and the purity of traditional literary
genres, subordination of art to moral or social concerns—or a liberal one—
the championing of the moderns, pragmatic and flexible treatment of all
classical precepts, perception of art as an end in itself.) But the beginnings
of the development can naturally be traced back to the Renaissance—to
Copernicus, Machiavelli, and Montaigne—and, beyond the Renaissance, to
ancient Greece, where most ideas existed at least in embryo.
In seventeenth-century France, the first pale dawn of the scientific view
seems to have had little or no effect on the aesthetic attitudes of creative
artists, or at least on attitudes that were part of these artists' conscious make­
up. The extraordinary flowering of French neoclassical literature that was
contemporaneous with the quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns owed al­
most nothing to it. Even those famous French thinkers of the earlier part of
the grand siecle, Descartes and Pascal (like their Italian contemporary Gali­
leo), were not looking toward the future in the modern manner. It is true
that, as they made their mathematical and scientific discoveries and tried to
put their conflicting ideas in order, they made explosive statements. But we
 have no reason to believe that they themselves knew just how radically new
their thinking was.
In the eighteenth century, however, a dramatic change took place that
has often been commented upon. Although scientific evolutionism was not
yet fully established, the major thinkers of the French Enlightenment fore-
Ul
0 saw, or at least sensed, its implications. Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and
< Rousseau, all of whom had some knowledge of science, were in a sense
ji sociologists, trying to understand human life both as a dynamic process in
\ time and as a secular process that cannot be accounted for in religious terms,
< more especially not in the light of Christian revelation. These philosophes
^ were thus brought into conflict with orthodox Christian theology, which is
- based on the belief in a static relationship between human beings inside
h time and God outside time. The great controversy between science and
!{j religion, then—which was not to occur in England until the middle of the
*" nineteenth century, with Darwin's formulation of evolutionary theory—had,
1 for all intents and purposes, run its course in France by the end of the
+ eighteenth century.
♦ This historical situation is the fundamental reason for which the condi-
^ tions favoring the development of the avant-garde mentality were present
earlier in France than anywhere else. In France, by the end of the eighteenth
century, the modern evolutionary and secular view of the world had per­
vaded the consciousness of at least the intellectual elite. The situation that
Nietzsche would express so dramatically in the nineteenth century with the
phrase "God is dead" already existed before 1789. In fact, most of the great
nineteenth-century themes are already present in the French Enlighten­
ment: we can find intimations of Hegel and Marx in Montesquieu, Diderot,
and Rousseau; of Darwin and Freud in Diderot; of Freud and Sacher-
Masoch in Rousseau; and of Freud, Sacher-Masoch, and Nietzsche in the
Marquis de Sade. We might even say that the Marquis de Sade (himself an
antisentimental, even irrationalist dramatist in such works as Oxtiem, ou Les
Malheurs du libertinage [1791]) was the first great modern figure to go mad
over the death of God, and that this is why he has been revived with such
fervor over the past 175 years or so as the darling of successive avant-gardes.
In other words, the intellectual watershed, as I see it, is the Enlighten­
ment. In the two to three centuries since, many sincere, ingenious, and
elaborate attempts have been made to effect a compromise between the
modern scientific view of the universe and the old Christian view, and the
French themselves, from Auguste Comte and Hippolyte Taine to Henri
Bergson and Simone Weil, have been particularly active in this effort. But it
seems obvious that no reconciliation has been brought about. The two
different ways of looking at matters exist side by side, and the extremely
tangled aesthetic history—not to speak of the social and political history—of
the last 250 years or so can be seen in terms of the tensions between these
attitudes and of the growing predominance of the scientific worldview.
A crucial contribution of the Enlightenment was the concept of history
as the continuously unfolding tale of human life on earth, seen, of course,
against the backdrop of a much greater time scale—the evolutionary de­
velopment of the universe. This view presents human life as a process in
time, which we can illuminate to some extent as we look back, or speculate
about as we look forward, but which bears no definable relation to anything
that might exist outside time—that is, to eternity or God. This is what is
meant by "the death of God," and the implication is not only that no per­
sonal entity behind the universe provides us with a moral law, but also that
human life can be given meaning, if it has any at all, only within the flux of
history. And, if I may be allowed my largest generalization yet, the increasing
prevalence of avant-garde attitudes reflects the growing effect of this percep­
tion that we live only in time and have to find our values in time.
Avant-garde artists and thinkers sense the problem of finding values
within flux, and they are trying—often perhaps neurotically—to adapt to
what they see as the movement of history by anticipating the crest of the next
wave (la nouvelle vague); alternately, they may be trying to escape from the
dilemma of perpetual movement by finding some substitute for eternity—
that is, some God-substitute. Quite often they are trying to achieve both ends
at once, and that is why so many avant-gardes have both a progressive and a
nonprogressive aspect. Insofar as they are nonprogressive, the expression
"avant-garde" is a misnomer, because the movement is not forward but to
the side, or even backward in time to pre-Enlightenment attitudes. It occa­
sionally happens, for instance, that an avant-garde artist (like the Expres­
sionist Reinhard Sorge or the Symbolist Paul Claudel) is consciously re­
converted to or reconfirmed in Christianity, and usually to old-fashioned
Catholicism, because it offers the best escape from the cycle of change.
Nonetheless, during the first phase of the Enlightenment (which con­
tinued well into the nineteenth century), considerable optimism prevailed
about the possibility of arriving at the permanent truth concerning human
nature; it was thought that, in the search, art might be used as an instrument.
The French philosophes had looked back over history, had seen it as a record
of success or failure (but mostly failure), and had assumed that over time,
they and other thinkers would evolve a concept of humankind that would
 allow them to correct the course of history. If history was such a record of
crime and injustice, this was because it had not played out in accordance
with human nature. Once that had been defined as a natural phenomenon
like other phenomena, without all the mythical accretions of the past, so­
ciety would right itself, and the generations of the future would find them-
UJ

Q selves in a social context that would allow the full, harmonious expression of
< their inherent possibilities.
li We now come to what I believe is the crux of the matter: in recent times
^ the Enlightenment hope of ameliorating the definition of human nature has
^ come to seem more and more illusory, at least to a great many important
^ thinkers and artists. When the philosophes assumed that it would be possible
ii to define human nature and create the perfect society, they imagined they
h were looking toward the future, but in fact they were falling back onto a
|jj static conception. The accumulation of knowledge has shown not only that
•" human beings are part of the evolutionary process but that they are, as the
I only animals with culture, an exceptionally changeable part. It is possible to
^ talk about the nature of the noncultural animals, such as the lion or the tiger,
♦ because that nature has not altered appreciably in the course of recorded
"-1 history. But the more we learn about human beings, the more we realize that
their so-called nature has included such a bewildering variety of customs,
attitudes, beliefs, and artistic products that it is impossible for any one person
to comprehend more than a very small part of the range. Moreover, we are
more aware than ever before of the complex and mysterious forces at work
within ourselves, forces that we do not wholly understand and therefore
cannot wholly control.
In other words, as some modern thinkers—in particular, French thinkers
such as Andre Malraux—are fond of putting it, the death of God is now being
followed by the death of Man (Temptation, 97). However much some people
may wish to reject the past, precisely because they find it so difficult to
contemplate, the knowledge of it weighs on them as an immense repository
of largely unassimilable data, while the future stretches ahead, a vista of
endless and ultimately meaningless change. The sheer fact of living in time
thus becomes a form of existential anguish, because history is no more than a
succession of moments, all in a way equally valid or invalid. Human nature,
having ceased to be a unifying concept, henceforth describes only the suc­
cession of human manifestations.
And of course this anguish of living in time is accompanied by the twin
anguish of contingency, the sensation that scientific law holds sway over
animate and inanimate nature, entirely without intelligible reference to
human consciousness and emotion. The result is a metaphysical dizziness or
nihilistic despair over the very concept of human nature, which combines in
all sorts of complicated ways with both the pastoral myth of original human
nature and the millennial myth of ultimate human potential. Let me now try
to indicate some of the consequences of all this for avant-garde art in general
and avant-garde drama in particular.
It is because people have been trying, since the Enlightenment, to un­
derstand matters rationally and scientifically that they face these dilemmas.
Hence the widespread, often fascinated, disgust with the idea of science,
which is taken as a further justification for the flight from reason. Hence also
the search for methods of producing a sensation of mystic depth—in other
words, an apparently meaningful, although ultimately incomprehensible,
relationship with the transcendent—namely, something beyond ordinary or
everyday existence. If nothing can be given a meaning in the general tran-
sitoriness of history, everything can be given a sort of mystic weight through
existentialist awareness, which may range from hysterical euphoria to re­
signed nausea. In its extreme form, this awareness even eliminates the need
to create a work of art. Anyone can be an artist, simply by picking up a stone
or a found object, or drawing a line around some fragment of the given world
and seeing it as an embodiment of mystery. This helps to explain collages,
cut-outs, and the cult of the object among Surrealists and other avant-garde
litterateurs.
Such randomness is also connected with the dream, on the one hand,
and, in its more frantic manifestations, with madness, on the other. Both are
forms of unreason that have been much cultivated by different avant-gardes.
It is interesting that while medicine and psychiatry, which are scientific in
intention, try to interpret dreams and madness in rational terms, some avant-
gardes have reverted to the medieval attitude and accept the dream or the
madman's perception as a truth higher than that perceptible by the sane or
the waking mind. This inclination is particularly noticeable among the
Surrealists and their descendants, who have taken Rimbaud's prescription
about le dereglement de tous les sens (the disordering of all the senses) very
seriously and who find in Freud's work their justification for an enlightened
form of irrationalism.
Moreover, since language is normally the vehicle of articulate meaning,
it is in connection with language that the problem of meaning versus mean-
inglessness occurs most acutely among avant-garde writers. For some, all the
ordinary uses of language are too comprehensible, so these avant-garde
writers adopt various methods designed to break through language to a
 mystery that is supposed to lie beyond it; or, in the interests of escaping from
mutability, they adopt imaginative ways of putting words together, yet, un­
like classical authors, avant-gardists ignore the purportedly changeless aspect
of human nature in their writing.
At one end of the scale are dramatists as different as Antonin Artaud and
Ill
5 Gertrude Stein, who dispense with their existing languages almost altogether
< and replace them with collocations of more or less onomatopoeic sounds.
^i (In rejecting cogency of plot and idea in favor of the sensuality or pure form
* of gesture and space as well as language, Stein was probably the first thor-
^ oughgoing American avant-garde dramatist.) These sounds could be in-
^ tended as a return to the voice of our original pastoral or primitive nature,
- like the barking of dogs or the mooing of cows, or perhaps they are supposed
H to make us feel that all language is futile, since no language provides the key
!|! to the meaning of the evolving universe. Then come those playwrights, like
*■ the Dadaist Tzara, who treat words as objects, like the objects of the avant-
I garde painter or sculptor, and try to dissociate them from the articulate
4 meanings they might have in a sentence.
♦ As a performance phenomenon and as dramatic art, Dada disposed of or­
00
ganic contexts by removing from language its readily recognizable character
of communication. The Dadaist poet hacked up words and rearranged their
syllables, exalting the outcome as new language whose meaning camped
sometimes in inflection, sometimes in the resemblance to other, fixed words.
Indeed, Dada poetry actively inconvenienced—or indeed eradicated—im­
mediate comprehension by aggrandizing language into art and then depriv­
ing that art of a clear and consistent aesthetic. Like Dada poetry, the Dada
stage was an experiment in language, meddling with the word in order to
reduce viewers' comprehension of theme, setting, and metaphoric meaning.
For the Dadaists believed that language, like other representational art forms,
required revivification if it was to escape from lifeless intellectualism. Lan­
guage, for them, had lost its artistic probity: as a tool, it was used to sustain
ideological power structures, in the form not only of overt political propa­
ganda but also of truistic everyday speech. When Tzara demanded a poetry
intentionally divorced from standard syntax and punctuation, he was not
only exercising anarchism against the tyranny of Realism and Naturalism in
the arts; he was, in addition, rebelling against both communication and the
possibility of communicating Dada creativity (as well as desperation) to the
rest of the world.
Of course, writers have always been aware of words as objects with a
shape, a rhythm, and a feel in the mouth, but traditional artists combined
this sense of words as tangible entities with the elaboration of more or less
coherent statements. Coherence had become such a despised characteristic
by the early twentieth century, however, that many dramatists tried to elimi­
nate it, just as the so-called literary or narrative element had been removed
from much painting and sculpture. The play was meant to be sheerly a
juxtaposition of words that did not allow the mind to pass through it in the
usual way and so slip back into the cycle of time. The normal comprehen­
sion of any sentence is necessarily an act in time, so that if you could halt
comprehension, the words would become or might appear to become ulti­
mate fragments of the universe, thereby producing a semblance of eternity.
Andre Breton took a militant stand against all procedures that tended to
destroy just such an approximation of eternity—and with it the enigma of
existence—by submitting the unknown aspects of human words and actions
to rational analysis. Breton's First Surrealist Manifesto (1924) therefore at­
tacked the psychological novel directly and, by implication, similar ap­
proaches to the drama. But Breton conceded that dialogue as verbal com­
munication was the most suitable channel for what he called automatic
writing. "It is to the dialogue that the forms of Surrealist language are best
adapted" (34), he declared. And in an effort "to restore dialogue to its abso­
lute truth" (35), Breton rejected the use of dialogue for polite or superficial
conversation. Rather, it was to be a confrontation of two streams of spoken
thought, neither particularly relevant to the other or having any inherent
sequential order, but each provoking a spontaneous response from its op­
posite number. As a psychic release in which the speakers dispensed with
decorum, Breton considered, such dialogue, when written down, was "auto­
matic" in the sense that it was as free as possible from the mental mechanism
of criticism or self-censorship on the part of the author(s). One of the first
pieces of writing acknowledged as "Surrealist," the play The Magnetic Fields
(1919), on which Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault collaborated, was just
such a form of dialogue: a juxtaposition of two soliloquies verbally bouncing
off each other.
Finally, language might be used to create a puzzle, a conundrum, or a
game, as Jarry did in Caesar-Antichrist (1895). This is not quite the same
thing as a sheer object, for it allows a kind of circular movement of com­
prehension within the terms of reference of the game itself. Here the writer
produces a construct according to his own arbitrary rules, or to rules founded
on the unexplained vagaries of his particular temperament, and we are
intended to enjoy it as a sort of metaphysical trompe-Yoeil. The game pre­
sents the appearance of meaning, for the language of which it is composed
 conveys sense up to a point, but it is really a self-sufficient linguistic labyrinth
from which the mind is not intended to escape. Such a work offers no exit to
any reality other than its own and hence can be seen as a kind of antirealistic,
quasi-Absurdist statement unto itself. Its overdeliberate arrangement is,
in the last resort, equivalent to the randomness of some other avant-garde
UJ
Q works.
< A common denominator among most avant-garde movements, in par-
^1 ticular those which sprang up between 1910 and 1930, was skepticism about
^ earlier modes of perception—skepticism, that is, about the possibility of
^ articulating meaning through the logic of language or the language of logic.
^ Realism, together with its more complex descendant, Naturalism, had been
ii based on the assumption that material or positivistic reality can be dis-
\r covered and articulated through the systematic application of the scientific
j|j method to objective or observable phenomena. The resultant tendency to
■■ ignore subjective elements and the inner life led, in the view of avant-garde
1 artists, to an oversimplified view of the world. By contrast, as we have seen,
^ the Symbolists, Aesthetes, and neo-Romantics had sought truth in such
♦ abstractions as mystery, destiny, beauty, and the ideal, which is to say that
02
they placed ultimate reality outside our human ken. The dramatic move­
ments to come were as deeply concerned with truth and reality as their
predecessors had been but, finding the old definitions and formulations in­
adequate, they sought new ones. In this pursuit they were not antiscientific;
rather, they attempted to incorporate scientific discoveries into a more com­
prehensive vision of the world. And that revised vision was prompted as
much by World War I, as I have already suggested, as by anything else.
The assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sara­
jevo on June 28, 1914, started a four-year period of slaughter and mutila­
tion. Among the victims was the well-made realistic play. Although the
nineteenth-century theater was not killed outright in the first of the great
world wars, it did receive a series of blows from which it would never fully
recover. The stable world of the prewar era, reflected in a theater that had
catered to a bourgeois audience and had held the mirror up to their iives,
manners, and morals, began to disintegrate. With a million killed at Verdun
and another million during the Russian offensive of 1916, with countries
appearing, disappearing, and reappearing on the map of Europe, what did it
matter whether Mme Duclos committed adultery with her husband's best
friend, or whether M. Dupont succeeded in marrying off his daughters?
After the horrors of mechanized war, the theatrical depiction of the material
and financial problems of the bourgeoisie seemed irrelevant, even obscene.
The realistic tradition and the well-made play were of course only maimed
and shell-shocked; they continue to drag out a senile existence in the rest
homes of our commercial theater.
The Surrealist writer and painter Andre Masson described the artistic
revolt of the twenties as having its origin in disgust with "the colossal slaugh­
ter" of World War I, with the "obscene 'brainwashing' that had been in­
flicted on civilians," with the "militant stupidity" and "sick society of the
years 'between the wars'" (81, 96, and passim; my translation). Angrily re­
jecting the past, avant-garde dramatists also rejected traditional ways of re­
garding and portraying reality; or they lost confidence, to repeat the phrase
used earlier, in the customary model for dramatizing human behavior and
thinking about human existence—the representational one. These play­
wrights created daringly experimental drama that reflected their new ways of
seeing people and the world. And if the Great War exploded old conventions
and preconceptions for these artists, then the Russian Revolution of 1917
(preceded by the dress rehearsal of 1905) showed them that the most sacred
structures were subject to violent change.
Indeed, the October Revolution and World War I go hand in hand, for
the former appeared to rescue the universal values of the French Revolution
of 1789 from the European ashes of Verdun in 1916. October 1917 restored
faith in the power of human agency (a power that would not be without its
significance in the theater) at a moment when the carnage on the Western
front seemed to prove that human beings were the helpless playthings of
historical forces. For the entire European Left, the Russian Revolution sym­
bolized the resumption of history's forward march—and so it was seen,
through thick and mostly thin, by many if not all leftists, until the counter­
revolution of 1989. Certainly neither international communism (with its
rhetoric of the enemy class) nor nationalist fascism (with its rhetoric of the
enemy race) would ever have become ruling creeds in the twentieth century
had bourgeois society not thrown itself into the abyss of 1914. It was World
War I that transformed both political "-isms" into agendas that spoke to
the resentment, exhaustion, and horror of the men who returned from the
trenches.
Communism's own accomplishment, and the source of its appeal, was to
formalize the terms of the bourgeoisie's guilty conscience, its remorse at its
failure to practice what it preached: the idea of universality or action in the
public interest, as well as the equality of all citizens, ideals the bourgeoisie
claimed as its primary innovation and the foundation of democracy, but
each of which it constantly negated through the unequal distribution of
 property and wealth perpetuated by the competition of its members. And
communism gave expression also to the aesthetic self-loathing of the bour­
geois, their secret belief that money twisted the soul and that they knew the
price of everything, yet the value of nothing. In this sense, the rise of commu­
nism was inseparable from the rise of Romanticism, the artistic rejection of
lit
o all that was narrow, miserly, and vulgar about bourgeois capitalism.
tt
< In Russia, such rejection, and the revolution that went with it, became
ll the starting point for the new, theatrically and cinematically as well as polit-
^ ically and economically, and it made the Soviet stage pre-eminent for
\ experimentation during the dozen years after Lenin's arrival at the Finland
^ Station. Pilgrimages to Moscow to see the productions of Evgeny Vakhtan-
y gov, Aleksandr Tairov, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Nikolai Akimov, and Schlomo
J- Mikhoels, and Sergei Eisenstein became mandatory for anyone interested in
!J! the future of the theater, or in the work of a Russian Futurist dramatist such
■■ as Vladimir Mayakovsky. As the pro-Marxist, pro-Soviet, yet artistically inno-
I vative Mayakovsky—whose Mystery-Bouffe (1918) enjoys the odd reputation
♦ of being both the greatest Bolshevik and the greatest Futurist drama—once
♦ wrote, the violence of World War I made a Futurist of everyone. As a result of
02
^ the war, all stability, and all expectation of what is normal or can be taken for
granted, were destroyed.
The Russians Daniil Kharms and Aleksandr Vvedensky belonged to the
Oberiuty, the last wave of postrevolutionary modernist writers able to express
the new sense of uncertainty and repudiation as well as eagerness for novelty
before being suffocated (like Mayakovsky before them) by Stalinist socialist
realism—which would permit no confusion or commingling of revolution­
ary politics with revolutionary artistic methods. While stressing their rejec­
tion of representationalism, the Oberiuty also wanted it understood that,
unlike some of the earlier twentieth-century avant-garde groups, such as the
more extreme Futurists and the Dada-Surrealists, their goal was not to di­
vorce art from life but only to reflect the illogicality, fragmentation, and
chaos of the life around them in a different, nonrepresentational way: by
jarring the perceptions with unexpected, disjointed configurations of reality
mixed with unreality; then by exploiting what such a collision of elements
could yield in the way of shock, upset, and humor.
If Westerners were unaware of the Russian Oberiuty at least until the
early 1970s, they were equally unaware during the twenties and thirties of a
lonely and misunderstood figure, the Polish painter-playwright-novelist-
philosopher Stanistaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. "Witkacy," who had recently re­
turned from the tsarist army and direct observation of the Revolution, was
creating in the third decade of the twentieth century a proto-Absurdist the­
ater and a theory of abstract drama based on an analogy with modern paint­
ing. In this theater, meaning would be defined solely through internal scenic
construction, the only logic would be that of pure form, and the only psy­
chology would be that of bizarre fantasy. In the West, German Expressionists
such as Ernst Toller and Georg Kaiser were themselves radically transform­
ing dramatic structure and staging, but, unlike Witkiewicz, Kharms, and
Vvedensky, with an impact that was soon felt across the Atlantic in the
United States. As a result—and partly on account of the United States' "S
increasing "globalization" after its successful participation in World War I— 9
American theater joined the international mainstream of experimentation §
for the first time, as it produced the avant-garde drama of the early Eugene 5
O'Neill, E. E. Cummings, and Gertrude Stein. .y
After World War I, France, which had enjoyed commercial rather than jj
artistic leadership in the field of drama as the nineteenth century marched in jf
lockstep from Pixerecourt and Scribe to Sardou and Labiche, immediately s:
regained its traditional importance in the avant-garde, and not only through ^
the theatrical innovations of Jacques Copeau and his students (Louis Jouvet, ♦
w
Charles Dullin, Gaston Baty, and Georges Pitoeff). The French also reas-
serted their prominence in drama through the avant-garde experiments of
such Surrealists as Philippe Soupault, Benjamin Peret, Louis Aragon, and
Roger Vitrac, who—in the wake of a world war both imperialist and mecha­
nized—portrayed the ambiguity and irrationality of existence with incon­
gruous juxtapositions, with nonsense and non sequitur, and with humor and
irony. (Guillaume Apollinaire was the first to use the term "Surrealism," in
the preface to his play The Breasts ofTiresias [1917]: "When man wanted to
imitate walking he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg—and in
the same way he has created Surrealism unconsciously" [56].)
Artaud, whose radical insights bore fruit a generation later, himself be­
gan his work as playwright, actor, director, theorist—and prophet—during
this renaissance in the French theater. And though in Italy Pirandello had
shattered the traditional conceptions of representational theatrical illusion
and unified dramatic character, it was the French productions by Dullin and
Pitoeff that brought the Sicilian's dramatic vision to the rest of Europe and
America—so much so in our own country that Six Characters in Search of an
Author (1921) has surely become the most frequently anthologized, and
deservedly the most influential, of avant-garde plays. (For this reason, we felt
no need to anthologize it yet again here.)
Whether it was French or Italian, German or Russian, the theatrical
 avant-garde of the post-World War I era was not revolutionary only in an
artistic sense, however; as I have noted, it was also revolutionary in a socio­
political sense, which was itself complemented by a psychological revo­
lutionism. The patron saints of the theatrical revolutionists of this period
happened to be an unlikely pair, Sigmund Freud and V. I. Lenin. (Coinci-
Ill
Q dentally, in the year before the Russian Revolution, Lenin lived directly
< across the street from the Cabaret Voltaire, the famous Zurich cafe that was
^ the birthplace of Dada.) Implosions and explosions, dreams and revolutions,
^ the conquest of the irrational and the triumph of the proletariat—these
< psychological and sociopolitical extremes lent form and substance to the
^ avant-garde theater of the teens and twenties.
ii Expressionism and Surrealism, the two major movements in painting
H and drama of the period, unite the subjective and the societal, dream and
i" revolution, with the aim of transcending and transforming reality by releas-
*" ing the subconscious and leveling all social barriers. In their rejection of the
I old society, the Surrealist heirs of Dada looked eastward, toward Moscow, for
♦ fraternity as well as inspiration and maintained a prolonged, if stormy and
vacillating, attachment to the French Communist Party and the Third
02
International—an attachment that thus privileged social or political revolu­
tion over the spiritual revolt of Artaud's theater of cruelty. Unlike the war­
mongering Italian Futurists, the German Expressionists, almost to a man,
were pacifists. Social change, for them, grows out of the dream of spiritual
rebirth, and the grimly realistic therefore moves with shocking rapidity in
their work toward the fantastic and the visionary.
The extremism and distortion of Expressionist drama derive precisely
from its closeness to the dream. Indeed, in its crude aspects, Expressionism is
nothing more than dramatized daydream or fantasy. In its subtler and more
interesting examples, however, Expressionism approaches the concealing
symbolism and subliminal suggestiveness of night dreams, if not nightmares.
Innovatively, Strindberg called the experimental plays he wrote when he
passed beyond Naturalism dream plays: namely, To Damascus (1888-1904),
A Dream Play (1902), and The Ghost Sonata (1907). In them the projection
and embodiment of psychic forces take the place of the replication of exter­
nal fact; and the association of ideas supplants the construction of plot based
on the logical connection of cause and effect. The old structural principle of
causal interrelations linking character, incident, and action thus gives way to
a new structural pattern, closer to music than to drama—the presentation of
a theme and variations.
Instead of being mimetic, the acting in Strindberg's dream plays, like that
in German Expressionist drama, would be "musical" as well. Rather than
seek to reproduce everyday behavior on the stage, the expressionistic actor,
according to Paul Kornfeld (in an epilogue appended to his play The Seduc-
tion [1913]), should combine passionate rhetoric with trancelike ecstasy,
and "not be ashamed of the fact that he is acting. . . . The melody of a great
gesture says more than the highest consummation of what is called natural­
ness. Let him think of the opera, in which the dying singer still gives forth a
high C and with the sweetness of his melody tells more about death than if
he were to crawl and writhe" (7-8).
Strindberg's dream plays in turn became the inspiration for German
Expressionists such as Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller, Reinhard Sorge, and Wal­
ter Hasenclever. Unlike the French Surrealists of the twenties and thirties,
though, the Expressionists rarely reproduced actual dreams, with their shift­
ing planes of reality and gross distortion of the "laws" of time, space, and
causality. Instead, the structure of many of their plays resembled the formal
pattern or movement of the human mind in dream and reverie. Not by
accident, the influence of Strindberg coincided with that of psychoanalysis
(Freud's Interpretation of Dreams having appeared two years before A Dream
Play), and, in its Freudian form (as well as later in its Jungian one), psycho­
analysis had decisive significance for Expressionism. But even before Freud,
German philosophy from Schelling to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to­
gether with the intellectual atmosphere in Germany in the wake of Roman­
ticism, had offered intimations of the subconscious. Even those Expression­
ists who were not conversant with the actual works of Freud, then, were
undoubtedly familiar with the climate of thought that had given rise to
psychoanalysis in the first place.
In adopting an episodic dream structure, the German Expressionists not
only rejected the tradition of the well-made play and openly defied the ideal
of an objective recording of everyday life, on which "realistic" theater had
been based. In league, paradoxically, with the realists and naturalists, they
also turned against the disdainful aloofness from contemporary urban reality
that characterized those writers who sought to revive the Romanticism or
even the Neoclassicism of the past. Along with the dominant art of bourgeois
society, the Expressionists rejected, unmasked, and caricatured the mores,
precepts, and institutions that denatured its urban reality, whose prevail­
ing authoritarian temper—whether in Wilhelmine Germany or Hapsburg
Austria—they opposed. Thus, like the other avant-gardes of its time, Expres­
sionism constituted not merely an aesthetic revolt but also an ethical and
sometimes even a political one, closely allied with humanitarian principles
 and socialist reform. However, since this revolt was in many cases neither
specific nor rational, but instead vague and emotional, the otherwise pacifis-
tic movement numbered among its members some who were afterward, in
an apparent about-face, to contribute their support to militant communism.
The Bolshevik Revolution and Freudian psychoanalysis, then, tore down
a both the external conventions of society and the internal walls of the self.
< No wonder the walls and conventions of the realistic theater were also
li demolished—walls between stage and auditorium, actor and audience, au-
^ thor and play, together with the conventions of illusion, character, and plot.
^ It had been demonstrated that reality, the basis for "realism," was neither
^ objective nor unchanging, neither absolute nor unified, but instead relative
SJ and fragmented. And with the loss of belief in objective, immutable truth
H understandably came the eclipse of illusionistic, representational playwrit-
j|j ing and staging. The human psyche, psychoanalysts showed, was a heap of
*" fragments, not an integrated whole; an entire society, the Bolsheviks proved,
I could be blown up, and with it every value that it had cherished, every belief
+ that it had promulgated.
•
♦ The avant-garde writers of the twenties and beyond investigated dramatic
CD
w
form precisely for the purpose of expressing this shattered reality; instead of
holding a mirror up to nature, creating an illusion of reality, or reflecting the
surface of the world, they smashed that mirror, imagined illusions within
illusions, and generated apocalyptic visions. It was in order to depict human
society and human nature in constant, often violent, upheaval and disin­
tegration, to uncover subterranean faultlines in politics as well as people,
that the new playwrights adopted the fluidity of dreams and the chaos of
revolutions as dramatic devices. Avant-garde drama between the world wars
thus reflects not the private domestic life of that period, but rather its gross
communal instability: its shifting planes of reality, changing perspectives
on society, drastic transpositions of time and space, and manifold takes on
personality.
Many of the new movements placed considerable emphasis on multiple
images of personality, for example, through their exploration of the sub­
conscious—probably because Freud's theories provided a semiscientific ex­
planation for forces that the Symbolists had relegated to the realm of fate,
mysticism, or the supernatural. Through the subconscious, the subjective
and the objective worlds could be brought into logical relation onstage that
synthesized the views of both the realist-naturalists and the Symbolists. And
through the psychological probing of the Surrealists, the vast realms of the
mind offered material for new explorations in performance, apart from any
concern for objective representation. Freud's theories were given new di­
mensions, moreover, by the work of Carl Jung. Beginning with Psychology of
the Unconscious (1912), he argued that Freud's description of the structure
of the mind is incomplete; to its three divisions of id, ego, and superego
should be added a fourth, the "collective unconscious"—a division beyond
the reach of psychoanalysis, for "by no analytical technique can it be brought
to conscious recollection, being neither repressed nor forgotten" (319).
The collective unconscious, according to Jung, is "nothing more than a
potentiality... which from primordial times has been handed down to us in
the specific form of mnemonic images, or expressed in anatomical forma­
tions in the very structure of the brain" (319), incorporating "the psychic
residua of innumerable experiences of the same type" (320). In this manner,
Jung pushed the concept of the unconscious one step further and suggested
an explanation for psychological responses not accounted for by Freud. He
went on to declare that there are essentially two kinds of art: the kind based
on the personal unconscious and that based on the collective unconscious.
The first is limited by the author's personal vision, but the second is more
significant because it captures (through archetype, myth, and symbol) expe­
riences embedded in the collective unconscious, which are the ones best
suited to compensate for what is missing from our lives in the present. From
the point of view of avant-garde dramatists, Jung, in so extending Freud's
conception of the unconscious, was implicitly arguing for a reality that is far
more complex than surface appearance would suggest.
New developments in physics were to prove as far-reaching as those in
psychology. Beginning in 1905, Albert Einstein began formulating his the­
ory of relativity, which constitutes the most revolutionary, precise statement
of perceptions of time and space that have greatly influenced not only
twentieth-century science but art and literature as well. The theory is revolu­
tionary precisely because, in formulating it, Einstein sought to incorporate
both spatial and temporal dimensions. Newtonian physics had depicted
space as static and absolute by treating both time and point of view as fixed;
starting with Einstein, space came to be seen by contrast as relative to a
moving point of reference. To the three spatial dimensions, he added the
fourth dimension of time, in the form of movement; and the faster the
movement, the greater are the changes in the perceived dimensions of both
time and space.
Even though Einstein saw mass, length, time, and simultaneity as rela­
tive, he never doubted the orderliness of the universe, and he sought to
harmonize the variables through mathematical formulas. Less scientifically
 oriented minds, however, were more attracted to the idea of relativity itself
and elevated it as a principle by which they could not only question the
linear progression of time or the related principle of inexorable, determinis­
tic causality but also postulate the purely subjective nature of human percep­
tion. For many the possibility of firm or absolute truth had vanished forever,
iu
5 in the same way that it had disappeared around a century before for the
< German Romantics in consequence of Kant's notion that "pure reason"
jj. cannot penetrate the essence of things, that the intellect cannot determine
*j what is truth and what merely appears to be truth, that all perception is
^ finally subjective. (This idea was expressed in his Critique of Pure Reason
[1781] but later qualified—like Einstein's theory of relativity—and recon-
<
- ciled with a belief in God's moral law in both his Critique of Practical Reason
K [1788] and his Critique of Judgment [1790].)
jjj Kant's notion—which for Kleist shattered his Enlightenment belief in
•" the power of reason to comprehend the universe and to perfect life on
I earth—lay at the heart of German Romanticism. Henceforth, the outer
world was abandoned in favor of the inner, reality was created by the imagi­
nation, higher consciousness was gained through the unconscious, and the
generally valid was reached by way of the most individual. But whereas
Romantics like Tieck and Grabbe escaped from objective reality into a
world of fairy-tale fantasy, literary satire, or nationalistic folklore, Kleist in­
corporated the obduracy of that reality into such dramas as Penthesilea
(1808) and Prince Friedrich of Homburg (1811) and in this sense showed
some affinity for the classicism of Goethe and Schiller (themselves erstwhile
Sturmer-und-Dranger)y which had attempted to reconcile spirit and matter
by harmonizing the inner and outer worlds.
As a result of Einstein's work, however, the changed conceptions of time
and space were soon evident on the surface of artistic forms (in addition to
being manifest at their spiritual core)—particularly in their organizational
patterns. Space in painting, for example, had since the Renaissance been
conceived as fixed, and objects had been shown from a single point of view at
a specific instant in time. In fact, the entire logic of perspective painting was
based on this convention, which was grounded in Newtonian physics. The
first major break with tradition came in the late nineteenth century when
Paul Cezanne began to include in one painting objects that could be seen
only from different "eye-points." But it was Cubism (usually said to have
begun in 1907 and to have reached its height just before World War I) that
first systematically introduced into a single painting several points of view,
no one of which had more authority than the others. The Cubist paint-
ers, among whom Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were the leading fig­
ures, sought not only to break down objects semigeometrically, into cubes,
spheres, cylinders, and cones, but also to provide several views of the same
object simultaneously. Cubism thus represented an attempt to deal analyt­
ically with space and to incorporate the dimension of time into painting.
Similar attempts were made in drama, where time has traditionally been
treated as linear (and events occur in proper succession from beginning to
middle to end) rather than as simultaneous or relative. Just as fixed space had
governed most painting, the orderly or sequential passing of time had gov­
erned drama, with most plays being unified through a cause-and-effect ar­
rangement of incidents that mimicked Newton's own theory of causality
(according to which every thing or occurrence in the universe has its cause
or origin). Less often, an overriding thought, theme, or thesis had been used
to unify otherwise seemingly random, disjointed incidents (as in Aristopha­
nes' comedies and the medieval mystery plays). Nearly all nonrealistic dra­
matists have adopted some variation on this method, for most have orga­
nized their works around some central idea or motif, although the specific
form of organization—musical, say, as in the case of Strindberg's Ghost
Sonata, mentioned earlier, Mayakovsky's "bouffe" (comic opera) of a mys­
tery play, or, even later, Sam Shepard's Suicide in B-Flat (1976)—depends in
large part on the assumptions the playwright has made about reality.
Before the modern period most dramatists had assumed, of course, that
ours is a logical universe presided over by a just God; behind any apparent
chaos, therefore, lay ultimate harmony and justice. But as I have tried to
make clear, avant-garde drama was directly affected by the new god of
science—by new scientific discoveries and the advanced technologies of the
machine age, in their constructive as well as destructive capacities. For this
reason, the plays of the Expressionists, Futurists, and Surrealists have an
essentially new tempo or rhythm that mirrors the fast pace of industrial life,
the thrilling speed of the airplane, the automobile, and the motorcycle, and
the quick cuts of edited film. Such drama overwhelms the spectator with its
abrupt images and movement more in keeping with the sports arena and the
movie screen than with the predictable pace of bourgeois, boulevard, or
Broadway theater or even the Symbolist temple of art (where earthly dis­
continuity, illogicality, and obscurity could still be absorbed, reconciled,
or overruled in a transcendent, ideal realm). Furthermore, avant-garde
drama playfully calls attention to itself as drama, to its own artifice and
spectacle (as realist or naturalist plays never would), and exuberantly com­
bines esoteric art with popular culture—with the circus, the cabaret, even
 the jazz of the twentieth century—in a way not seen since the two apogees of
Western theater: those of ancient Greece and Elizabethan England.
All the playfulness and exuberance ended, however, with the rise of
fascism and the arrival of World War II, as an entire generation of artists was
geographically displaced, politically silenced, morally co-opted, or simply
LU
5 executed (the fate of the sometime Surrealist Federico Garcia Lorca). State
< repression of the avant-garde was most conspicuous, of course, under the
li totalitarian regimes of the Soviet Union and Germany, in which, respec-
^ tively, avant-garde practice was denigrated as "formalist" and "degenerate."
^ In both cases, avant-gardism was stamped out because it conflicted with, or
merely failed to serve, official government policy. The dramatic decline of
<
ii the European avant-garde in the 1930s is thus connected with a paradoxical
J- feature of the avant-garde ethos: avant-garde artistic practice can flourish
jjj only under liberal political regimes, which are willing to tolerate vigorous
*" expressions of dissent against the state and society. In this respect the avant-
I garde bites the hand that feeds it, or conversely, in Poggioli's words, it pays
4 "involuntary homage" to the bourgeois liberal democracies it attacks (106).
♦ World War II was thus a turning point not only in the individual lives of a
00
great many artists and intellectuals but also in the history of the avant-garde
as a whole. Avant-garde drama written after World War II, like the drama
produced between the two world wars, was to be affected by new scientific
discoveries and the advanced technologies of the machine age, but in this
case those which made possible the splitting of the atom and the demented,
conveyor-belt efficiency of gas chambers—which is to say, technologies
whose immediate effect was overwhelmingly negative—indeed, incompre­
hensibly catastrophic. The horrors of World War II, especially the systematic
displacement and extermination of vast numbers of people, created a crisis of
conscience among many of the world's artists and intellectuals. Traditional
values and morals seemed incapable of coping with such dilemmas as the
American dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan, or the Holocaust perpe­
trated by the Nazis against European Jewry (not to speak of the Soviet
GULAG stretching from the Urals to the Pacific). Conventional values and
morals, as a result, no longer seemed to rest on any solid foundation.
As the full implications of a godless universe at last became evident, the
search for absolute values or essential truths gave way to fundamental ques­
tions about human beings' existence and place in the universe. As Martin
Esslin put it, "The decline of religious faith was masked until the end of the
Second World War by the substitute religions of faith in progress, national­
ism, and various totalitarian fallacies. All this was shattered by the war. By
1942, Albert Camus was calmly putting the question why, since life had lost
all meaning, man should not seek escape in suicide" (5). Camus, of course,
was a leading exponent of existentialism, perhaps the most compelling force
in postwar thought. (Although it can be traced as far back as the ancient
Greeks, existentialism remained a relatively minor strain in philosophy until
the mid-nineteenth century, where we find it beginning with Kierkegaard.)
Whereas an essentialist philosopher might inquire into what it means to
be human—what the essential human traits are—the existentialist begins by
asking, "What does it mean 'to be' or 'to exist?" Existentialists like Albert
Camus argued that human beings are, individually, responsible for making
themselves what they are, and that without making a free and conscious
choice before taking action, one cannot truly be said "to exist" as a human
being. This philosophical movement thus sought to free the individual from
external authority as well as from the authority or weight of the past and to
force him or her to discover within the self the grounds for choosing and
doing. (Hence the difference between traditional, expository characters who
are victims of the past, and unconventional, existentialist characters who live
in—and act out of—the eternal present.) Understandably, existentialism
struck a responsive chord during and after World War II, for the world had
seemingly gone mad, as personal choice was abdicated in favor of blind
adherence to national leaders and policies, even when such obedience en­
tailed condoning almost unbelievable cruelties or crimes against humanity.
Existentialism also struck a responsive chord in the theater. Albert Camus
and Jean-Paul Sartre wrote such plays as Caligula (1945) and The Flies
(1943) to dramatize the tenets of their philosophy. These plays, along with
those by Giraudoux, Anouilh, and Salacrou, create what could be called a
form of aesthetic dissonance, however, for they posit, in Esslin's words, the ul­
timate "senselessness of life [and] the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity,
and purpose" (6). Yet the plays themselves are logical constructs that depend
for their effect on ratiocinative devices, discursive thought, and consistent or
coherent character. In this sense, existentialist playwrights have something in
common with dramatists that went before them—Goethe, Schiller, and
especially Kleist, a harbinger of the avant-garde. These Germans had at­
tempted to harmonize Romanticism—and its focus on the turbulent, inter­
nal life—with Neoclassicism, which emphasized the controlled, external
world. Camus, Sartre, and company tried to express irrational content—that
is, the theme of the irrationality of the human condition—in rational form.
(Sartre and Camus were to be followed, in the late 1990s, by Tom Stoppard
and Michael Frayn, whose Arcadia and Copenhagen, paradoxically, explore
 in conventional dramatic form, respectively, the way in which Werner
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle exploded the traditional concept of cau­
sality, thus opening the door to "chaos theory.")
The dramatists of the Theater of the Absurd, by contrast, strive to express
their sense of metaphysical anguish at the senselessness of the human condi-
0 tion in a form which mirrors that meaninglessness or ultimate lack of pur-
< pose. Therefore, Absurdists like Samuel Beckett, Eugene lonesco, Jean
ii Genet, and Arthur Adamov abandon the cause-and-effect relationship that
* traditionally governs the incidents in a play—the progression of exposition,
^ complication, turning point, climax, and denouement—or reduce reliance
^ on that pattern to an absolute minimum. Rather than chronicling the con-
y nective quality of events in a linear narrative, the action in plays like Waiting
H for Godot (1952), The Bald Soprano (1950), The Maids (1947), and The
jij Invasion (1949) tends to be circular or ritualistic, as it concentrates on ex-
I- ploring the texture of a static situation or condition. In such drama, prob-
1 lems or dilemmas are seldom resolved, and characters tend toward the typi-
^ cal or archetypal rather than the specific or the individual. Often they even
♦ exchange roles or metamorphose into other characters, and some are given
00
only generic or numerical designations.
Moreover, time for these characters is flexible, as it is in dreams, just as
place is generalized: the dramatis personae of Absurdist plays most often find
themselves in a symbolic location, or in a void cut off from the concrete
world as we (think we) know it. And in this dramatic limbo, language itself is
downgraded. Although the characters frequently talk as volubly as do the
figures of conventional theater, they usually recognize that they are indulg­
ing in a word-game that ridicules the very use of language by distorting it or
making it as mechanical as possible. To compensate for this downgrading of
language as a means of communication, Absurdist plays emphasize the met­
aphorical aspect through their scenery. Their poetry tends to emerge, ac­
cording to Esslin, "from the concrete and objectified images of the stage
itself. . . . What happens on the stage transcends, and often contradicts, the
words spoken by the characters" (7).
What happens, moreover, never takes place in the context of traditional
dramatic genres: instead, the somber often becomes the grotesque (as in the
precursory esperpentos of Ramon Maria del Valle-Inclan from the twenties),
and the comic frequently takes on tragic overtones (as in the anarchic farces
of Joe Orton). The world is "neutralized," even turned on its head, by these
writers' deriding of everything that in the past was taken seriously, or by their
transforming of what most people have considered to be ludicrous into
something ominous, powerful, and affecting. Despite such rejection of for-
mal purity, structural logic, integrated character, and linguistic cohesive-
ness, Absurdist drama is ultimately conceptual, for in the end it too seeks to
project an intellectualized perception—however oblique or abstruse—about
the human condition.
The difference between such drama and earlier nonrealistic plays, from
Symbolism onward, is precisely that perception or vision, rather than its
techniques. Although the Absurdists were especially attuned to as well as
inclined to imitate the work of Jarry, Artaud, Pirandello, the Futurists, the
Dadaists, and perhaps above all the Surrealists, their subject becomes peo­
ple's entrapment in an irrational and hostile or impersonal and indifferent
universe, an existence in which the search for truth is an exercise in futility.
(This attitude, incidentally, does not seep into American drama, with Jack
Gelber's The Connection [1959] and Edward Albee's The American Dream
[ 1961 ], until postwar euphoria wears off, the Korean War erupts in the midst
of the Cold War, and the Vietnam debacle looms on the horizon. The
American avant-garde, however, is rooted more in performance than in text,
in a radical performative technique that dismantles and then either discards
or refashions the overwhelmingly "well-made" drama of the American stage,
as the work of the Wooster Group, the Living Theater, the Open Theatre,
the Bread and Puppet Theatre, Mabou Mines, and Ping Chong will attest.)
The Theater of the Absurd, that is, gives up the search for a dramatic
model through which to discover fundamental ethical or philosophical cer­
tainties about life and the world—something even the Surrealists attempted
in their probing of the unconscious. To paraphrase Malraux, if the mission of
the nineteenth century was to get rid of the gods, the mission of the twentieth
century was to replace them with something—until we get to the Absurdists,
who replace "something" with nothing or nothingness. The only certainty
about human reality, in Ionesco's words, is that, "devoid of purpose . . . cut
off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all
his actions become senseless, absurd, useless" (quoted in Esslin, 5). And this
"certainty," as I have already indicated, is reflected in the viciously cyclical
nature of Absurdist dramatic form.
Theater of the Avant-Garde does not go beyond 1950 and the inception of
the Absurd, but not because avant-garde drama has ceased to be written. One
need only witness from the 1970s, for example, the Austrian Peter Handke's
Ride Across Lake Constance (1971), which demolishes even the remnants of
mimesis through a relentless scrutiny of the semiotics of language and expe­
rience that allows for no progression of events, no resolution, no character­
ization, and hence no correspondence between behavior and language; the
Frenchman Michel Vinaver's Overboard (1973), whose many discontinuous
 and seemingly unrelated scenes ultimately suggest that everything from the
corporate world to the world of myth interconnects; the American Robert
Wilson's three-hour speechless epic Deafman Glance (1971), which created
a combination Theater of Silence-and-Images not unlike that of silent experi­
mental film; and the work of another American, Charles Ludlam, whose sav-
LU
5 agely nihilistic Ridiculous Theater parodied familiar genres and the absurdi-
< ties of life as well as art, in plays like Bluebeard (1970) and Camille (1971).
What has happened, however, is that since the late 1960s or so, we have
entered the era of postmodernism (a term first used in architecture), during
which two developments occurred to stop the "advance" of the avant-garde.
^ The first was the embrace by postmodern dramatists of a stylistic plural-
- ism, an eclectic and often self-reflexive mixing of different styles from dif-
H ferent time periods. Under modernism, the argument goes, a variety of styles
!" had flourished, but within any one (such as Expressionism or Surrealism)
*■ the artist sought unity by adhering consistently to the set of conventions
I associated with that mode. The problem with this definition of modernism,
4 at least as it is extended to the history of drama, is that the mixing of radically
4
different styles—and the playwrights' propensity to call attention to the pro-
00
cess of artistic creation—was already evident in the work of avant-gardists
from the 1920s, not to mention earlier, in the experimental plays of Strind-
berg. A more sophisticated version of the postmodern argument claims that
it is not the mere presence of eclecticism and self-referentiality that distin­
guishes postmodernism, but rather their different cultural positioning and
use within a postmodern context. Within an avant-garde ethos the self-
conscious mixing of styles constituted a typical attempt to occupy the posi­
tion of "most advanced and subversive trend," whereas self-reflexive plural­
ism in postmodern culture marks an exhaustion of the subversive energies
and ambitions once associated with the avant-garde.
Over the past century, artists, chastened by what they saw happening
in the world, have ceased believing in the efficacy of revolutionary art to
change the world; yet they still mouth slogans about transforming the order
of society and go through the motions of producing art designed to do just
that. The ideologies and techniques of earlier avant-gardes are still conve­
niently lying around, ready to be picked through and recycled, though the
heirs no longer see themselves as belonging to a single movement at all. (The
quintessential example, in form as well as content, of the resulting drama is
Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches [1992].)
What had begun before World War I, then, as a burgeoning involvement
by artists in the future of their societies—if only as outcasts who believed (like
Artaud) that some day they would be regarded as prophets—had subsided by
the decade of the 1970s into an acknowledgment that progressive artistic pro­
grams would never be adopted and experienced by the vast majority of any
country's citizens. To paraphrase Fredric Jameson, all that is left is to imitate
dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the
imaginary museum of the past. Or, as Ihab Hassan has put it, only indeter-
minacies—"discontinuity, heterodoxy, pluralism, randomness, perversion"—
and deformations—"disintegration, deconstruction, displacement, disconti­
nuity, disjunction, decomposition, demystification, delegitimization"—can
be identified as central to postmodernism (269).
The avant-garde remains with us today as a sanctioned aesthetic predilec­
tion. Struggling within the confines of a self-reflexive formal orientation and
against an ill-defined social context of liberal and diffuse pluralism, that
avant-garde bears curious witness to an ambiguous state of mind. It attempts
to display a creative and critical vitality yet raises only minimal expectations.
It countenances an active and often aggressive assertion of individual will yet
betrays an uneasy acquiescence and resignation. Its most significant efforts
do continue to involve the self-conscious exploration of the nature, limits,
and possibilities of drama and theater (the most naturally reflexive of art
forms) in contemporary society; but the vision of the future—of the avant-
garde's future as well as that of society and culture in general—provided by
such work is tentative and unclear, as if the avant-garde could not move
beyond doubt and distrust toward an inspired vision.
Reworking the military metaphor underpinning the notion of avant-
gardism, one could argue that we have entered a period in which the culture
of negation has been replaced by a demilitarized zone, flanked by avant-
garde ghosts on the one side and a changing mass culture on the other. The
once subversive styles of the avant-garde have been assimilated by mass
culture, that is, so that the gap between nominally avant-garde products and
popular, mass-cultural ones, such as Julie Taymor's Lion King on Broadway
or television's MTV and "The Larry Sanders Show," is greatly reduced. If the
historical avant-garde once consisted of wave after wave of antibourgeois,
mostly left-leaning, angry yet visionary artists pouring onto a hostile shore (a
beachhead, to continue the military metaphor), then each successive wave
has been soaked up by the society it apparently hated and opposed—has
been co-opted and made fashionable, turned into a style in competition with
other styles, by the once and future enemy (the official culture's dogmathi-
cally imposed system of values and beliefs).
The avant-garde, as a result, can today do little more than impotently
 express disenchantment with its own ideals, while popular culture is en­
chanted to assume the once radical posture of inventiveness, daring, and
"difference." Indeed, in what could be the ultimate indignity, the very phrase
"avant-garde" has itself become a marketing device, and now even the name
of a new line of deodorant in Great Britain. Moreover, the objects of the
iu
5 avant-garde have become useful investment commodities for the "Establish-
< ment," in the form of paintings, sculptures, and even theatrical posters that
li adorn the walls of major corporations—purportedly in the name of culture,
z education, and refinement.
<
The second development to stop the "advance" of the avant-garde was,
^ and remains, the deification of postmodern performance, through the merg-
- ing of author and director into a single "superstar" like Peter Brook or Jerzy
l- Grotowski, Andrei Serban or Peter Sellars, Tadeusz Kantor or Robert Le-
j|! page, as well as through the breaking down of boundaries between dramatic
forms and performance styles, between styles and periods, and between the
iii
I arts
arts themselves.
themselves. Again,
Again, however,
however, we
we see
see the
the presence
presence particularly
particularly of
of the
the latter
latter
^ breakdown within modernism: in the synesthesia of the Symbolists, for in­ in-
♦ stance, or in the writing of plays by artists from different media or accord-
00
ing to the dictates of a different artistic medium. (Among these works can
be counted Henri Rousseau's Visit to the Paris Exposition of 1889 [1889],
Arnold Schonberg's Lucky Hand [1913], Jean Cocteau's Parade [1917],
Guillaume Apollinaire's Color of Time [1918], Ernst Barlach's Poor Cousin
[1919], Oskar Schlemmer's Figural Cabinet I and II [1922-23], and Pablo
Picasso's Desire Caught by the Tail [ 1941 ].) When we see something like this
breakdown after World War II, in the "happenings" of the painter Allan
Kaprow from the late fifties (the original "performance art," in the sense that
visual art was "performed" by objectified human bodies), we also begin to
see the cultivation of performance as art unto itself, apart from or superior to
any a priori text.
First, attempts were made by artists other than Kaprow to move drama
outside the confines of traditional, or text-based, theaters and into more
accessible, less formal surroundings. Second, emphasis was shifted, in the
"happenings," from passive observation to active participation—from the ar­
tistic product to the viewing process. Each spectator, in becoming the partial
creator of a piece, derived any meaning that might be desired from the
experience, thus downplaying the artist's intention or even existence. (So
much for the work of such postmodern authors as Caryl Churchill and
Heiner Muller.) Third, simultaneity and multiple focus tended to replace
the orderly sequence of conventionally, or even unconventionally, scripted
drama; no pretense was maintained that everyone at such a multimedia
event could see and hear the same things at the same time or in the same
order. Many of these ideas were carried over into "environmental theater," a
term popularized by Richard Schechner for something in between happen­
ings and traditional productions.
In this kind of theater, among other things, all production elements
speak their own language rather than being mere supports for words, and a
text need be neither the starting point nor the goal of a production—indeed,
a text is not even necessary, and therefore there may be none. In other words, "S
fidelity to the text, that sacred tenet which had so long governed perfor- *?
mance, has become irrelevant: postmodernism, both as critical inquiry and %
as theater, continues to challenge whether any text is authoritative, whether 5
a dramatic text can be anything more than a performance script—whether, M
in fact, the play exists at all before it is staged. In Blooded Thought, Herbert |
Blau concedes that "so far as performance goes, the Text remains our best jf
evidence after the fact, like the quartos and folios of the Elizabethan stage." -c
But what, he asks, is "the nature of the Text before the fact?" The answer, he +
suggests, is that "the idea of performance has become the mediating, often ♦
subversive third term in the on-again off-again marriage of drama and the- °°
ater" (37). And performance groups such as Mabou Mines and Grand
Union, for their part, have become concerned less with what they are say­
ing—with content—than with form and formal experiment: with the means
of communicating, the places where theatrical events take place, the persons
employed as performers, and the relationship of performers, and perfor­
mance, to the audience.
Enter "performance art" of the kind so loosely defined in this country
that all the following qualify as, or have called themselves, "performance
artists": Madonna, Karen Finley, Anna Deavere Smith, Amy Taubin, Eric
Bogosian, Ann Magnuson, Martha Clarke, Stuart Sherman, Chris Burden,
Linda Montano, Laurie Anderson, Jack Smith, Holly Hughes, Vito Acconci,
Winston Tong, Meredith Monk, Spalding Gray, Rachel Rosenthal, Tim
Miller, John Fleck, John Leguizamo, John Kelly, Joan Jonas, Gilbert and
George, Deborah Hay, Bill Irwin, Bob Berky, David Shiner, the Kipper Kids,
Michael Moschen, Avner ("the Eccentric") Eisenberg, and the Flying Ka-
ramazov Brothers. Anything can be called "art," in other words, as long as it
is consecrated by performance—preferably of the narcissistic self.
Yet even "performance art," especially in its original incarnation as Ka-
prow's "happening," harks back to ideas first introduced by the Futurists,
Dadaists, and Surrealists. Impatient with established art forms, they turned
 first to the permissive, open-ended, hard-to-define medium of performance,
with its endless variables and unabashed borrowings from literature, poetry,
music, dance, drama, architecture, cinema, sculpture, and painting. Alfred
Jarry's investiture of a new personality, or performative self, for himself;
Oskar Kokoschka's manufacture of and formal marriage to a life-sized doll;
5w the proto-Expressionist Frank Wedekind's enthusiastic participation in cir-
< cus life, together with his practice of nudism, eurythmics, "free love," even
li onstage masturbation and urination; the Bateau-Lavoir's celebrated banquet
^ in honor of le douanier Rousseau; the Dadaists' first program, which ended
^ in riot at the Cabaret Voltaire in February 1916; Eisenstein's production of
^ Sergei Tretyakov's Gas Masks (1923-24) in the Moscow Gas Factory—all
- these by turns playful and impassioned, casual and programmed, serious and
H childlike events could be called, by today's definition, "performance art."
j" But avant-gardists tellingly termed them fumisteries (figuratively, practi-
*~ cal jokes or mystifications), and the aesthetic motif that they embodied
I fumisme. Which is to say that these events were simultaneously the smoke­
screens and cannon shots through which the avant-garde initiated its frontal
assault on the art of previous centuries. Fumisteries were never intended to
be, as "performance art" is, the thing in itself. They were the products of
artists who, when their creative rhythms were most accelerated, when their
most pugnacious breakthroughs in aesthetic method and concept were oc­
curring, equated their roles as much with those of the carnival barker, circus
clown, music-hall magician, or religious charlatan as with those of the sage
and prophet. To put it another way, they had some perspective on what they
were doing, or enough self-doubt not to take themselves too seriously, which
is one of the reasons we can take them so seriously today. In word as well as
deed, avant-gardists embodied the relativity, subjectivism, or tumult of their
age—not the fragmentation, flattening, and solipsism of the one to follow.

WORKS C I T E D

Apollinaire, Guillaume. Preface to The Breasts ofTiresias: A Surrealist Drama. Trans.

Louis Simpson. In Modem French Theatre: The Avant-Garde, Dada, and Surrealism;
An Anthology of Plays, ed. Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth, 56-62. New
York: Dutton, 1964.
Blau, Herbert. Blooded Thought: Occasions of Theatre. New York: PAJ Publications, 1982.
Breton, Andre. Manifestoes of Surrealism. Trans. Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972.
Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. 1961. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor/
Doubleday, 1969.
Hassan, Ihab. "Postface 1982: Toward a Concept of Postmodernism." In Hassan, The
Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature, 259-71. 1971. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham,
N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991.
Jung, C. G. "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry" (1922). In The Portable
Jung, ed. Joseph Campbell; trans. R. F. C. Hull, 301-22. New York: Viking, 1971.
Kornfeld, Paul. "Epilogue to the Actor." Trans. Joseph Bernstein. In Anthology of Ger-
man Expressionist Drama: A Prelude to the Absurd, ed. Walter H. Sokel, 6-8. Garden
City, N.Y.: Anchor/Doubleday, 1963.
Malraux, Andre. The Metamorphosis of the Gods. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Dou-
bleday, 1960.
. The Temptation of the West. Trans. Robert Hollander. 1961. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1991.
Masson, Andre. La memoire du monde. Geneva: Albert Skira, 1974.
Poggioli, Renato. The Theory oftheAvant-Garde. Trans. Gerald Fitzgerald. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de. Oeuvres (facsimile reprint of the 1868-78 Paris edition).
Vol. 5. Geneva: Slatkine, 1977.
Schechner, Richard. Environmental Theater. New York: Hawthorn, 1973.
01
q
o
m
Franco-Russian Symbolism

™ ^ ^ / ^ aurice Maeterlinck, playwright, essayist, theorist, and

W W I poet, was born on August 29, 1862, in Ghent, Belgium,
^ b i b ^ k where he was educated in the law, a profession he prac-
ticed during the early stages of his writing career. He joined the Parisian
Symbolists in 1886 but did not relocate to France until 1897, following
the success of his early plays—Princess Maleine (1889), The Intruder
(1890), The Blind (1890), and Interior (1894)—which represent his pri-
mary contribution to avant-garde drama. In these plays, Maeterlinck
sought to achieve a form of "total theater" that would harness all the
elements of production in the creation of an overwhelming mood dom-
inated by pessimism, loneliness, and fear of death. The characters in his early
plays speak a language that seems to emanate from their souls, as if these figures
exist in another dimension. His dialogue, emphasizing the repetition of words
and sounds, helps create the ritualistic musicality of his plays. By allowing tone
and atmosphere to dominate the structure of his early plays, he created what he
termed a static drama, in which mood-images replace linear action, and silence
and pauses reveal as much as, if not more than, dialogue does about the inner
state of the characters as well as the outer state of the universe.
In his major theoretical work, The Treasure of the Humble (1896), Maeter-
linck argued that drama should seek to transcend reality; he even proposed
the use of marionettes as one way of preserving the mystical atmosphere he
sought in his early plays. In "The Modern Drama," from The Double Garden
(1904), Maeterlinck, when he stated that "the sovereign law of the stage, its
essential demand, will always be action" seemed to put forward a view of the-
ater incompatible with his earlier, "static" one. But he was really talking about
action or conflict of the internal kind, which enables us to penetrate deeper into
the human consciousness—the very kind of action one finds in the quasi-
Symbolist plays of Ibsen and Hauptmann around the turn of the century, and that
 represents a happy compromise between Maeterlinck's own drama of stasis and
traditional dramatic plotting.
Aurelien Lugne-Poe directed Maeterlinck's early work at the Theatre d'Art
and the Theatre de I'Oeuvre, capturing Maeterlinck's atmospherics through the
use of dim lights as well as the actors' monotone vocal delivery and slow or
measured movements. Claude Debussy composed the opera version of Pelleas
and Melisande (1892), and in 1909 Konstantin Stanislavsky produced the Moscow
z£ premiere of Maeterlinck's last significant work for the theater, The Blue Bird
0 (1908). Yet following Maeterlinck's acceptance of the Nobel Prize for literature
* in 1911, his influence waned. Perhaps under the adverse influence of his own
>- essay "The Modern Drama," his plays became more optimistic, or in any event
z more accessible, as they began to conform to dramatic convention. Never-
< theless, his early Symbolist dramas influenced a wide range of playwrights, in-
jj eluding Strindberg, Wilde, Yeats, and Synge, in addition to serving as distant
jj precursors of the Theater of the Absurd. He died on May 6, 1949, in Nice,
Q France.
u
z
<
u.
♦
♦
3
Evolution of European "Drama of the Interior"
Maeterlinck
n
r^—m M Int&rieur (1891) Maeterlinck created a powerful and haunting
la^^ J stage image to express his sense of the strangeness of ordinary
r|^^ ^ k human life and the mysteries which we usually prefer not to con-
template. He makes us look with new eyes at a quite ordinary family of
I M F ' father, mother, and three children by the simple, brilliant device of
placing them behind glass in their commonplace house, so that we see but never
hear them. Our viewpoint is that of an Old Man and a Stranger who stand in a
corner of a garden looking into the lighted, curtainless room where the family
are sitting, noting every small movement and waiting for the moment when the
Old Man will have courage to go into the room and break the tragic news that
one of their daughters has been found drowned. We are involved, so to speak, in
a godlike position, seeing the pathos of the family's ignorant happiness, their
unawareness of the pitying and curious eyes upon them and of the future that is
already formed for them. Maeterlinck calls for a dreamlike effect in the move­
ments of the mute family; they should appear "grave, slow, apart, and as though
spiritualised by the distance, the light, and the transparent film of the window-
pane." He builds up subtle metaphysical implications through the situation of
watching and being watched. The eavesdroppers watch the parents, who are
watching their youngest child sleeping: they muse on the strangeness of this
recession and are prompted to reflect, "We too are watched." At such moments
the audience themselves, those other watchers, are drawn into the experience;
it may cross their minds to wonder whether in some other sense it might be said
of them also, "We are watched."
Although the people in the interior are so enclosed and separated, so un-
hearing and unseeing, they are allowed occasionally to have intuitions of what
lies in the dark outside. When the Old Man and the Stranger are speaking of the
drowned girl's hair pathetically floating on the water, her two sisters move
uneasily in the room, their hair seeming to "tremble," while at another moment
they are drawn to the window, where they stand looking into the garden as if
they had a sense of someone there. "No one comes to the middle window," says
one of the watchers, and surely then we feel a shudder of apprehension, as
though a shadowy figure might slowly form there, the wraith of the drowned girl.
Although the family do not learn the news until the Old Man goes into the house
at the end of the play, delicate movements such as I have described suggest that,
as Maeterlinck might say, the soul is responding to invisible pressures on it; that
the interior can never be totally sealed off.
The play ends, indeed, with the family plucked out of the safe, lighted interior.
We see—though we do not hear—the Old Man breaking the news and the family
leaving the room by a door at the back of the stage. They will find there the body

Excerpted from Katharine Worth, "Evolution of European 'Drama of the Interior': Maeterlinck,
Wilde, and Yeats," Maske und Kothurn: Internationale Beitragezur Theaterwissenschafi 15.1-2 (1979):
161-70.
 of the dead girl, but Maeterlinck supplies a stage direction which calls for an
unexpected view. W h e n the door is thrown open, what we see is a moonlit sky
with a lawn and fountain bathed in light; the moment of apprehending death is
associated not with darkness but with emergence into the light. The effective­
ness of this subtle ending depends entirely upon stagecraft, and especially light­
ing, for its realisation. Maeterlinck is in this sense a pioneer of "total theatre"
techniques. Interieur is a poetic demonstration of how the physical resources of
theatre can be used to transmute ordinary reality and draw a mysterious patina
over the surface of things, so making us realise that it is only a surface. Seen in the
lighted frame, silently moving about their everyday business, unaware that they
are being watched from their garden by a messenger bringing tidings of death,
the characters of Interieur do indeed seem to inhabit some other dimension—
which is the essence of the Symbolist aesthetic or enterprise in drama.
u
3 Select Bibliography on Maeterlinck
ec
JJJ Halls, W D. Maeterlinck: A Study of His Life and Thought Oxford: Oxford University Press,
w I960.
y Knapp, Bettina L Maurice Maeterlinck. Boston: Twayne, 1975.
^ Konrad, Linn Bratteteig. Modern Drama as Crisis: The Case of Maeterlinck. New York: Pe-
♦ ter Lang, 1986.
^ Mahony, Patrick. Maurice Maeterlinck, Mystic and Dramatist 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: In­
stitute for the Study of Man, 1984.
Worth, Katharine. "Maeterlinck in the Light of the Absurd." In Around the Absurd: Essays
on Modern and Postmodern Drama, ed. Enoch Brater and Ruby Cohn, 19-32. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990.
. Maeterlinck's Plays in Performance (book and slide set). Cambridge, England:
Chadwyck-Healey, 1985.

See also Daniels; Deak; Lambert; Lilar; Mallinson; McFarlane; and Rose, in the General
Bibliography.
 Interior

Maurice Maeterlinck

CHARACTERS

In the Garden—
THE OLD MAN
THE STRANGER
MARTHA Granddaughters
MARY oftheOldMan
A PEASANT
THE CROWD
In the House—
THE FATHER
THE MOTHER Silent
THE TWO DAUGHTERS personages
THE CHILD

The interval that elapses between the occurrence of a disaster and the
breaking of the news to the bereaved is one full of tragedy; and here the
pathetic ignorance of the drowned girls family and the painful knowledge of
the reluctant bearers of the evil tidings provide material for a touching little
play—slight material to all appearance, but in the hands of M. Maeterlinck
sufficient for the display of a wealth of kindly wisdom and sympathetic knowl-
edge of human nature.

An old garden planted with willows. At the back, a house, with three of the
ground-floor windows lighted up. Through them a family is pretty distinctly

Reprinted from The Nobel Prize Treasury, ed. Marshall McClintock; trans. William Archer
(New York: Doubleday, 1948), 203-9.
 visible, gathered for the evening round the lamp. The FATHER is seated at the
chimney comer. The MOTHER, resting one elbow on the table, is gazing into
vacancy. Two young girls, dressed in white, sit at their embroidery, dreaming
and smiling in the tranquillity of the room. A child is asleep, his head resting
on his mothers left arm. When one of them rises, walks, or makes a gesture, the
movements appear grave, slow, apart, and as though spiritualized by the
distance, the light, and the transparent film of the windowpanes.
THE OLD MAN and THE STRANGER enter the garden cautiously.

THE OLD MAN. Here we are in the part of the garden that lies behind the
house. They never come here. The doors are on the other side. They are
closed and the shutters shut. But there are no shutters on this side of the
* house, and I saw the light... Yes, they are still sitting up in the lamplight.
z It is well that they have not heard us; the mother or the girls would
J perhaps have come out, and then what should we have done?
£ THE STRANGER. What are we going to do?
|£ THE OLD MAN. I want first to see if they are all in the room. Yes, I see the father
£ seated at the chimney corner. He is doing nothing, his hands resting on
t his knees. The mother is leaning her elbow on the table .. .
co THE STRANGER. She is looking at us.
THE OLD MAN. NO, she is looking at nothing; her eyes are fixed. She can­
not see us; we are in the shadow of the great trees. But do not go any
nearer . . . There, too, are the dead girl's two sisters; they are embroider­
ing slowly. And the little child has fallen asleep. It is nine on the clock in
the corner . . . They divine no evil, and they do not speak.
THE STRANGER. If we were to attract the father's attention, and make some
sign to him? He has turned his head this way. Shall I knock at one of the
windows? One of them will have to hear of it before the others...
THE OLD MAN. I do not know which to choose . . . We must be very careful.
The father is old and ailing—the mother too—and the sisters are too
young . . . And they all loved her as they will never love again. I have
never seen a happier household . . . No, no! do not go up to the window;
that would be the worst thing we could do. It is better that we should tell
them of it as simply as we can, as though it were a commonplace occur­
rence; and we must not appear too sad, else they will feel that their sorrow
must exceed ours, and they will not know what to do . . . Let us go round
to the other side of the garden. We will knock at the door, and go in as if
nothing had happened. I will go in first: they will not be surprised to see
me; I sometimes look in of an evening, to bring them some flowers or
fruit, and to pass an hour or two with them.
THE STRANGER. Why do you want me to go with you? Go alone; I will wait
until you call me. They have never seen me—I am only a passerby, a
stranger. ..
THE OLD MAN. It is better that I should not be alone. A misfortune announced
by a single voice seems more definite and crushing. I thought of that as I
came along . . . If I go in alone, I shall have to speak at the very first
moment; they will know all in a few words; I shall have nothing more to
say; and I dread the silence which follows the last words that tell of a
misfortune. It is then that the heart is torn. If we enter together, I shall
go roundabout to work; I shall tell them, for example: "They found her
thus, or thus . . . She was floating on the stream, and her hands were
clasped. .."
THE STRANGER. Her hands were not clasped, her arms were floating at her
sides.
THE OLD MAN. You see, in spite of ourselves we begin to talk—and the
misfortune is shrouded in its details. Otherwise, if I go in alone, I know
them well enough to be sure that the very first words would produce a
terrible effect, and God knows what would happen. But if we speak to
them in turns, they will listen to us, and will forget to look the evil tidings
in the face. Do not forget that the mother will be there, and that her life
hangs by a thread . . . It is well that the first wave of sorrow should waste its
strength in unnecessary words. It is wisest to let people gather round the
unfortunate and talk as they will. Even the most indifferent carry off,
without knowing it, some portion of the sorrow. It is dispersed without
effort and without noise, like air or light.. .
THE STRANGER. Your clothes are soaked and are dripping on the flagstones.
THE OLD MAN. It is only the skirt of my mantle that has trailed a little in the
water. You seem to be cold. Your coat is all muddy . . . I did not notice it
on the way, it was so dark.
THE STRANGER. I went into the water up to my waist.
THE OLD MAN. Had you found her long before I came up?
THE STRANGER. Only a few moments. I was going toward the village; it was
already late, and the dusk was falling on the riverbank. I was walking
along with my eyes fixed on the river, because it was lighter than the
road, when I saw something strange close by a tuft of reeds . . . I drew
nearer, and I saw her hair, which had floated up almost into a circle
round her head, and was swaying hither and thither with the c u r r e n t . . .
(In the room the two young girls turn their heads towards the window.)
THE OLD MAN. Did you see her two sisters' hair trembling on their shoulders?
THE STRANGER. They turned their heads in our direction—they simply
turned their heads. Perhaps I was speaking too loudly. (The two girls
resume their former position.) They have turned away again already . . . I
went into the water up to my waist, and then I managed to grasp her hand
and easily drew her to the bank. She was as beautiful as her sisters...
THE OLD MAN. I think she was more beautiful . . . I do not know why I have
lost all my courage . ..
 THE STRANGER. What courage do you mean? We did all that man could do.
She had been dead for more than an hour.
THE OLD MAN. She was living this morning! I met her coming out of church.
She told me that she was going away; she was going to see her grand­
mother on the other side of the river in which you found her. She did not
know when I should see her again . . . She seemed to be on the point of
asking me something; then I suppose she did not dare, and she left me
abruptly. But now that I think of it—and I noticed nothing at the time!—
she smiled as people smile who want to be silent, or who fear that they
will not be understood . . . Even hope seemed like a pain to her; her eyes
were veiled, and she scarcely looked at me.
THE STRANGER. Some peasants told me that they saw her wandering all the
* afternoon on the bank. They thought she was looking for flowers . . . It is
2 possible that her death . . .
^ THE OLD MAN. No one can t e l l . . . What can anyone know? She was perhaps
[I! one of those who shrink from speech, and everyone bears in his breast
JJ more than one reason for ceasing to live. You cannot see into the soul as
£ you see into that room. T h e y are all like that—they say nothing but trivial
t things, and no one dreams that there is aught amiss. You live for months
oo by the side of one who is no longer of this world, and whose soul cannot
^ stoop to it; you answer her unthinkingly; and you see what happens.
They look like lifeless puppets, and all the time so many things are
passing in their souls. They do not themselves know what they are. She
might have lived as the others live. She might have said to the day of her
death: "Sir, or Madam, it will rain this morning," or, "We are going to
lunch; we shall be thirteen at table," or "The fruit is not yet ripe." They
speak smilingly of the flowers that have fallen, and they weep in the
darkness. An angel from heaven would not see what ought to be seen;
and men understand nothing until after all is over . . . Yesterday evening
she was there, sitting in the lamplight like her sisters; and you would not
see them now as they ought to be seen if this had not happened . . . I seem
to see her for the first time . . . Something new must come into our
ordinary life before we can understand it. They are at your side day and
night; and you do not really see them until the moment when they depart
forever. And yet, what a strange little soul she must have had—what a
poor little, artless, unfathomable soul she must have had—to have said
what she must have said, and done what she must have done!
THE STRANGER. See, they are smiling in the silence of the room . . .
THE OLD MAN. They are not at all anxious—they did not expect her this
evening.
THE STRANGER. They sit motionless and smiling. But see, the father puts his
fingers to his lips . . .
THE OLD MAN. He points to the child asleep on its mother's breast...
THE STRANGER. She dares not raise her head for fear of disturbing it. ..
THE OLD MAN. They are not sewing any more. There is a dead silence . ..
THE STRANGER. They have let fall their skein of white silk . . .
THE OLD MAN. They are looking at the child .. .
THE STRANGER. They do not know that others are looking at them . . .
THE OLD MAN. We, too, are watched . . .
THE STRANGER. They have raised their eyes . . .
THE OLD MAN. And yet they can see nothing . . .
THE STRANGER. They seem to be happy, and yet there is something—I cannot
tell what.. .
THE OLD MAN. They think themselves beyond the reach of danger. They have
closed the doors, and the windows are barred with iron. They have
strengthened the walls of the old house; they have shot the bolts of the
three oaken doors. They have foreseen everything that can be foreseen...
THE STRANGER. Sooner or later we must tell them. Someone might come in
and blurt it out abruptly. There was a crowd of peasants in the meadow 5
where we left the dead girl—if one of them were to come and knock at S
the d o o r . . . «£
THE OLD MAN. Martha and Mary are watching the little body. The peasants J
were going to make a litter of branches, and I told my eldest granddaugh- o
ter to hurry on and let us know the moment they made a start. Let us wait
till she comes; she will go with me. . . . I wish we had not been able to
watch them in this way. I thought there was nothing to do but to knock at
the door, to enter quite simply, and to tell all in a few phrases. . . . But I
have watched them too long, living in the lamplight.... (Enter MARY.)
MARY. They are coming, grandfather.
THE OLD MAN. IS that you? Where are they?
MARY. They are at the foot of the last slope.
THE OLD MAN. They are coming silently.
MARY. I told them to pray in a low voice. Martha is with them.
THE OLD MAN. Are there many of them?
MARY. The whole village is around the bier. They had brought lanterns; I
bade them put them out.
THE OLD MAN. What way are they coming?
MARY. They are coming by the little path. They are moving slowly.
THE OLD MAN. It is time .. .
MARY. Have you told them, grandfather?
THE OLD MAN. YOU can see that we have told them nothing. There they are,
still sitting in the lamplight. Look, my child, look: you will see what life
is...
MARY. Oh! how peaceful they seem! I feel as though I were seeing them in a
dream.
 THE STRANGER. Look there—I saw the two sisters give a start.
THE OLD MAN. They are rising . . .
THE STRANGER. I believe they are coming to the windows.
(At this moment one of the two sisters comes up to the first window, the other to
the third; and resting their hands against the panes they stand gazing into the
darkness.)
THE OLD MAN. No one comes to the middle window.
MARY. They are looking out; they are listening . ..
THE OLD MAN. The elder is smiling at what she does not see.
THE STRANGER. The eyes of the second are full of fear.
THE OLD MAN. Take care: who knows how far the soul may extend around the
± body. . . . (A long silence, MARY nestles close to THE OLD MAN'S breast and
2 kisses him.)
J MARY. Grandfather!
|U THE OLD MAN. Do not weep, my child; our turn will come. (A pause.)
UJ THE STRANGER. They are looking long. . . .
THE OLD MAN. Poor things, they would see nothing though they looked for a
i hundred thousand years—the night is too dark. They are looking this
o way; and it is from the other side that misfortune is coming.
THE STRANGER. It is well that they are looking this way. Something, I do not
know what, is approaching by way of the meadows.
MARY. I think it is the crowd; they are too far off for us to see clearly.
THE STRANGER. They are following the windings of the path—there they
come in sight again on that moonlit slope.
MARY. Oh! how many they seem to be. Even when I left, people were coming
up from the outskirts of the town. They are taking a very roundabout
way....
THE OLD MAN. They will arrive at last, nonetheless. I see them, too—they are
crossing the meadows—they look so small that one can scarcely dis­
tinguish them among the herbage. You might think them children play­
ing in the moonlight; if the girls saw them, they would not understand.
Turn their backs to it as they may, misfortune is approaching step by step,
and has been looming larger for more than two hours past. They cannot
bid it stay; and those who are bringing it are powerless to stop it. It has
mastered them, too, and they must needs serve it. It knows its goal, and it
takes its course. It is unwearying, and it has but one idea. They have to
lend it their strength. They are sad, but they draw nearer. Their hearts are
full of pity, but they must advance....
MARY. The elder has ceased to smile, grandfather.
THE STRANGER. They are leaving the windows....
MARY. They are kissing their mother. . . .
THE STRANGER. The elder is stroking the child's curls without wakening it.
MARY. Ah! the father wants them to kiss him, too.. ..
THE STRANGER. Now there is silence.. ..
MARY. They have returned to their mother's side.
THE STRANGER. And the father keeps his eyes fixed on the great pendulum of
the clock . . .
MARY. They seem to be praying without knowing what they d o . . . .
THE STRANGER. They seem to be listening to their own souls.... (A pause.)
MARY. Grandfather, do not tell them this evening!
THE OLD MAN. You see, you are losing courage, too. I knew you ought not to
look at them. I am nearly eighty-three years old, and this is the first time
that the reality of life has come home to me. I do not know why all they
do appears to me so strange and solemn. There they sit awaiting the
night, simply, under their lamp, as we should under our own; and yet I
seem to see them from the altitude of another world, because I know a
little fact which as yet they do not k n o w . . . Is it so, my children? Tell me,
why are you, too, pale? Perhaps there is something else that we cannot
put in words, and that makes us weep? I did not know that there was
anything so sad in life, or that it could strike such terror to those who look
on at it. And even if nothing had happened, it would frighten me to see
them sit there so peacefully. They have too much confidence in this
world. There they sit, separated from the enemy by only a few poor panes
of glass. They think that nothing will happen because they have closed
their doors, and they do not know that it is in the soul that things always
happen, and that the world does not end at their house-door. They are so
secure of their little life, and do not dream that so many others know
more of it than they, and that I, poor old man, at two steps from their
door, hold all their little happiness, like a wounded bird, in the hollow of
my old hands, and dare not open them . ..
MARY. Have pity on them, grandfather....
THE OLD MAN. We have pity on them, my child, but no one has pity on us.
MARY. Tell them tomorrow, grandfather; tell them when it is light, then they
will not be so sad.
THE OLD MAN. Perhaps you are right, my child.... It would be better to leave
all this in the night. And the daylight is sweet to sorrow. . . . But what
would they say to us tomorrow? Misfortune makes people jealous; those
upon whom it has fallen want to know of it before strangers—they do not
like to leave it in unknown hands. We should seem to have robbed them
of something.
THE STRANGER. Besides, it is too late now; already I can hear the murmur of
prayers.
MARY. They are here—they are passing behind the hedges. (Enter MARTHA.)
 MARTHA. Here I am. I have guided them hither—I told them to wait in the
road. (Cries of children are heard.) Ah! the children are still crying. I
forbade them to come, but they want to see, too, and the mothers would
not obey me. I will go and tell them—no, they have stopped crying. Is
everything ready? I have brought the little ring that was found upon her.
I have some fruit, too, for the child. I laid her to rest myself upon the
bier. She looks as though she were sleeping. I had a great deal of trouble
with her hair—I could not arrange it properly. I made them gather
marguerites—it is a pity there were no other flowers. What are you doing
here? Why are you not with them? (She looks in at the windows.) They
are not weeping! They—you have not told them!
THE OLD MAN. Martha, Martha, there is too much life in your soul; you
* cannot understand.. ..
Z MARTHA. Why should I not understand? (After a silence, and in a tone ofgrave
-* reproach.) You really ought not to have done that, grandfather....
jtl THE OLD MAN. Martha, you do not know.. ..
< MARTHA. I will go and tell them.
THE OLD MAN. Remain here, my child, and look for a moment.
♦ MARTHA. Oh, how I pity them! They must wait no longer....
$ THE OLD MAN. Why not?
MARTHA. I do not know, but it is not possible!
THE OLD MAN. Come here, my c h i l d . . . .
MARTHA. How patient they are!
THE OLD MAN. Come here, my c h i l d . . . .
MARTHA (turning). Where are you, grandfather? I am so unhappy, I cannot
see you any more. I do not myself know now what to do. . . .
THE OLD MAN. Do not look any more; until they know all.. ..
MARTHA. I want to go with you
THE OLD MAN. No, Martha, stay here. Sit beside your sister on this old stone
bench against the wall of the house, and do not look. You are too young,
you would never be able to forget it. You cannot know what a face looks
like at the moment when Death is passing into its eyes. Perhaps they will
cry out, too . . . Do not turn round. Perhaps there will be no sound at all.
Above all things, if there is no sound, be sure you do not turn and look.
One can never foresee the course that sorrow will take. A few little sobs
wrung from the depths, and generally that is all. I do not know myself
what I shall do when I hear them—they do not belong to this life. Kiss
me, my child, before I go. (The murmur of prayers has gradually drawn
nearer. A portion of the crowd forces its way into the garden. There is a
sound of deadened footfalls and of whispering.)
THE STRANGER (to the crowd). Stop here—do not go near the window. Where
is she?
A PEASANT. W h o ?
THE STRANGER. The others—the bearers.
A PEASANT.They are coming by the avenue that leads up to the door, (THE
OLD MAN goes out. MARTHA and MARY have seated themselves on the bench,
their backs to the windows. Low murmurings are heard among the crowd.)
THE STRANGER. Hush! Do not speak. (In the room the taller of the two sisters
rises, goes to the door, and shoots the bolts.)
MARTHA. She is opening the door!
THE STRANGER. On the contrary, she is fastening it. (A pause.)
MARTHA. Grandfather has not come in?
THE STRANGER. No. She takes her seat again at her mother's side. The others
do not move, and the child is still sleeping. (A pause.)
MARTHA. My little sister, give me your hands.
MARY. Martha! (They embrace and kiss each other.)
THE STRANGER. He must have knocked—they have all raised their heads at
the same time—they are looking at each other.
MARTHA. Oh! oh! my poor little sister! I can scarcely help crying out, too.
(She smothers her sobs on her sister's shoulder.)
THE STRANGER. He must have knocked again. The father is looking at the
clock. He rises....
MARTHA. Sister, sister, I must go in too—they cannot be left alone.
MARY. Martha, Martha! (She holds her back.)
THE STRANGER. The father is at the door—he is drawing the bolts—he is
opening it cautiously.
MARTHA. Oh!—you do not see the . . .
THE STRANGER. What?
MARTHA. The bearers...
THE STRANGER. He has only opened it a very little. I see nothing but a corner
of the lawn and the fountain. He keeps his hand on the door—he takes a
step back—he seems to be saying, "Ah, it is you!" He raises his arms.
He carefully closes the door again. Your grandfather has entered the
room . . . (The crowd has come up to the window, MARTHA and MARY half
rise from their seat, then rise altogether and follow the rest toward the
windows, pressing close to each other, THE OLD MAN is seen advancing into
the room. The two SISTERS rise; the MOTHER also rises, and carefully settles
the CHILD in the armchair which she has left, so that from outside the little
one can be seen sleeping, his head a little bent forward, in the middle of the
room. The MOTHER advances to meet THE OLD MAN, and holds out her
hand to him, but draws it back again before he has had time to take it. One
of the girls wants to take off the visitor's mantle, and the other pushes
forward an armchair for him. But THE OLD MAN makes a little gesture of
 refusal The FATHER smiles with an air of astonishment, THE OLD MAN
looks toward the windows.)
THE STRANGER. He dares not tell them. He is looking toward us. (Murmurs in
the crowd.)
THE STRANGER. Hush! (THE OLD MAN, seeing faces at the windows, quickly
averts his eyes. As one of the girls is still offering him the armchair, he at
last sits down and passes his right hand several times over his forehead.)
THE STRANGER. He is sitting down.... (The others who are in the room also sit
down, while the FATHER seems to be speaking volubly. At last THE OLD MAN
opens his mouth, and the sound of his voice seems to arouse their attention.
But the FATHER interrupts him. THE OLD MAN begins to speak again, and
little by little the others grow tense with apprehension. All of a sudden the
y MOTHER starts and rises.)
? MARTHA. Oh! the mother begins to understand! (She turns away and hides
tc her face in her hands. Renewed murmurs among the crowd. They elbow
H each other. Children cry to be lifted up, so that they may see too. Most of
< the mothers do as they wish.)
THE STRANGER. Hush! he has not told them yet.... (The MOTHER is seen to be
i questioning THE OLD MAN with anxiety. He says a few more words; then,
2J suddenly, all the others rise, too, and seem to question him. Then he slowly
makes an affirmative movement of his head.)
THE STRANGER. He has told them—he has told them all at once!
VOICES IN THE CROWD. He has told them! he has told them!
THE STRANGER. I can hear nothing.... (THE OLD MAN also rises, and, without
turning, makes a gesture indicating the door, which is behind him. The
MOTHER, the FATHER, and the two DAUGHTERS rush to this door, which the
FATHER has difficulty in opening, THE OLD MAN tries to prevent the
MOTHER from going out.)
VOICES IN THE CROWD. They are going out! they are going out! (Confusion
among the crowd in the garden. All hurry to the other side of the house and
disappear, except THE STRANGER, who remains at the windows. In the
room, the folding door is at last thrown wide open; all go out at the same
time. Beyond can be seen the starry sky, the lawn, and the fountain in the
moonlight; while, left alone in the middle of the room, the CHILD continues
to sleep peacefully in the armchair. A pause.)
THE STRANGER. The child has not wakened! (He also goes out.)

CURTAIN
 T h e Modern Drama

Maurice Maeterlinck

I
When I speak of the modern drama, I naturally refer only to those regions of
dramatic literature that, sparsely inhabited as they may be, are yet essentially
new. Down below, in the ordinary theatre, ordinary and traditional drama is
doubtless yielding slowly to the influence of the vanguard; but it were idle to
wait for the laggards when we have the pioneers at our call.
The first thing that strikes us in the drama of the day is the decay, one
might almost say the creeping paralysis, of external action. Next we note a
very pronounced desire to penetrate deeper and deeper into human con­
sciousness, and place moral problems upon a high pedestal; and finally the
search, still very timid and halting, for a kind of new beauty that shall be less
abstract than was the old.
It is certain that, on the actual stage, we have far fewer extraordinary and
violent adventures. Bloodshed has grown less frequent, passions less tur­
bulent; heroism has become less unbending, courage less material and less
ferocious. People still die on the stage, it is true, as in reality they still must
die, but death has ceased—or will cease, let us hope, very soon—to be re­
garded as the indispensable setting, the ultima ratio, the inevitable end, of
every dramatic poem. In the most formidable crises of our life—which, cruel
though it may be, is cruel in silent and hidden ways—we rarely look to death
for a solution; and for all that the theatre is slower than the other arts to follow
the evolution of human consciousness, it will still be at last compelled, in
some measure, to take this into account.

Reprinted from Maurice Maeterlinck, The Double Garden, trans. Alfred Sutro (New York:
Dodd,Mead, 1904), 115-35.
 When we consider the ancient and tragical anecdotes that constitute the
entire basis of the classical drama, the Italian, Scandinavian, Spanish, or
mythical stories that provided the plots, not only for all the plays of the
Shakespearian period, but also—not altogether to pass over an art that was
infinitely less spontaneous—for those of French and German Romanticism,
we discover at once that these anecdotes are no longer able to offer us the
direct interest they presented at a time when they appeared highly natural
and possible, at a time, when, at any rate, the circumstances, manners, and
sentiments they recalled were not yet extinct in the minds of those who
witnessed their reproduction.

II
^ To us, however, these adventures no longer correspond to a living and actual
3 reality. Should a youth of our own time love, and meet obstacles not unlike
{jj those which, in another order of ideas and events, beset Romeo's passion, we
t need no telling that his adventure will be embellished by none of the fea-
^ tures that gave poetry and grandeur to the episode of Verona. Gone beyond
# recall is the entrancing atmosphere of a lordly, passionate life; gone the
♦ brawls in picturesque streets, the interludes of bloodshed and splendour, the
8 mysterious poisons, the majestic, complaisant tombs! And where shall we
look for that exquisite summer's night, which owes its vastness, its savour, the
very appeal that it makes to us, to the shadow of an heroic, inevitable death
that already lay heavy upon it? Divest the story of Romeo and Juliet of these
beautiful trappings, and we have only the very simple and ordinary desire of
a noble-hearted, unfortunate youth for a maiden whose obdurate parents
deny him her hand. All the poetry, the splendour, the passionate life of this
desire, result from the glamour, the nobility, tragedy, that are proper to the
environment wherein it has come to flower; nor is there a kiss, a murmur of
love, a cry of anger, grief, or despair but borrows its majesty, grace, its hero-
icism, tenderness—in a word, every image that has helped it to visible form—
from the beings and objects around it; for it is not in the kiss itself that the
sweetness and beauty are found, but in the circumstance, hour, and place
wherein it was given. Again, the same objections would hold if we chose to
imagine a man of our time who should be jealous as Othello was jealous,
possessed of MacbeuYs ambition, unhappy as Lear; or, like Hamlet, restless
and wavering, bowed down beneath the weight of a frightful and unrealis-
able duty.

Ill
These conditions no longer exist. The adventure of the modern Romeo—to
consider only the external events which it might provoke—would not pro­
vide material for a couple of acts. Against this it may be urged that a modern
poet who desires to put on the stage an analogous poem of youthful love is
perfectly justified in borrowing from days gone by a more decorative setting,
one that shall be more fertile in heroic and tragical incident. Granted; but
what can the result be of such an expedient? Would not the feelings and
passions that demand for their fullest, most perfect expression and develop­
ment the atmosphere of today (for the passions and feelings of a modern poet
must, in despite of himself, be entirely and exclusively modern), would not
these suddenly find themselves transplanted to a soil where all things pre­
vented their living? They no longer believe, yet are charged with the fear and
hope of eternal judgement. In their hours of distress they have discovered
new forces to cling to, that seem trustworthy, human and just; and behold
them thrust back to a century wherein prayer and the sword decide all!
They have profited, unconsciously perhaps, by every moral advance we have
made—and they are suddenly flung into abysmal days when the least gesture
was governed by prejudices at which they can only shudder or smile. In such
an atmosphere, what can they do; how hope that they truly can live there?

IV
But we need dwell no further on the necessarily artificial poems that arise
from the impossible marriage of past and present. Let us rather consider the
drama that actually stands for the reality of our time, as Greek drama stood
for Greek reality, and the drama of the Renaissance for the reality of the
Renaissance. Its scene is a modern house, it passes between men and women
of today. The names of the invisible protagonists—the passions and i d e a s -
are the same, more or less, as of old. We see love, hatred, ambition, jealousy,
envy, greed; the sense of justice and idea of duty; pity, goodness, devotion,
piety, selfishness, vanity, pride, etc. But although the names have remained
more or less the same, how great is the difference we find in the aspect and
quality, the extent and influence, of these ideal actors! Of all their ancient
weapons not one is left them, not one of the marvellous moments of olden
days. It is seldom that cries are heard now; bloodshed is rare, and tears not
often seen. It is in a small room, round a table, close to the fire, that the joys
and sorrows of mankind are decided. We suffer, or make others suffer, we
love, we die, there in our corner; and it were the strangest chance should a
door or a window suddenly, for an instant, fly open, beneath the pressure of
extraordinary despair or rejoicing. Accidental, adventitious beauty exists no
longer; there remains only an external poetry that has not yet become poetic.
And what poetry, if we probe to the root of things—what poetry is there that
does not borrow nearly all of its charm, nearly all of its ecstasy, from elements
that are wholly external? Last of all, there is no longer a God to widen, or
master, the action; nor is there an inexorable fate to form a mysterious,
solemn, and tragical background for the slightest gesture of man; nor the
sombre and abundant atmosphere that was able to ennoble even his most
contemptible weaknesses, his least pardonable crimes.
There still abides with us, it is true, a terrible unknown; but it is so diverse
 and elusive, it becomes so arbitrary, so vague and contradictory, the moment
we try to locate it, that we cannot evoke it without great danger; cannot even,
without the mightiest difficulty, avail ourselves of it, though in all loyalty, to
raise to the point of mystery the gestures, actions, and words of the men we
pass every day. The endeavour has been made; the formidable, problematic
enigma of heredity, the grandiose but improbable enigma of inherent jus­
tice, and many others beside, have each in their turn been put forward as a
substitute for the vast enigma of the Providence or Fatality of old. And it is
curious to note how these youthful enigmas, born but of yesterday, already
seem older, more arbitrary, more unlikely, than those whose places they took
in an access of pride.

3 Where are we to look, then, for the grandeur and beauty that we find no
2 longer in visible action, or in words, stripped as these are of their attraction
5H and glamour? For words are only a kind of mirror which reflects the beauty
^ of all that surrounds it; and the beauty of the new world wherein we live does
4 not seem as yet able to project its rays on these somewhat reluctant mirrors.
♦ Where shall we look for the horizon, the poetry, now that we no longer can
28 seek it in a mystery which, for all that it still exists, does yet fade from us the
moment we endeavour to give it a name?
The modern drama would seem to be vaguely conscious of this. Incapa­
ble of outside movement, deprived of external ornament, daring no longer to
make serious appeal to a determined divinity or fatality, it has fallen back on
itself, and seeks to discover, in the regions of psychology and of moral prob­
lems, the equivalent of what once was offered by exterior life. It has pene­
trated deeper into human consciousness but has encountered difficulties
there no less strange than unexpected.
To penetrate deeply into human consciousness is the privilege, even the
duty, of the thinker, the moralist, the historian, the novelist, and to a degree,
of the lyrical poet; but not of the dramatist. Whatever the temptation, he
dare not sink into inactivity, become mere philosopher or observer. Do what
one will, discover what marvels one may, the sovereign law of the stage, its
essential demand, will always be action. With the rise of the curtain, the high
intellectual desire within us undergoes transformation; and in place of the
thinker, psychologist, mystic, or moralist there stands the mere instinctive
spectator, the man electrified negatively by the crowd, the man whose one
desire it is to see something happen. This transformation or substitution is
incontestable, strange as it may seem; and is due, perhaps, to the influence
of the human polypier, to some undeniable faculty of our soul, which is
endowed with a special, primitive, almost unimprovable organ, whereby
men can think, and feel, and be moved, en masse. And there are no words so
profound, so noble and admirable, but they will soon weary us if they leave
the situation unchanged, if they lead to no action, bring about no decisive
conflict, or hasten no definite solution.

VI
But whence is it that action arises in the consciousness of man? In its first
stage it springs from the struggle between diverse conflicting passions. But
no sooner has it raised itself somewhat—and this is true, if we examine it
closely, of the first stage also—than it would seem to be solely due to the
conflict between a passion and a moral law, between a duty and a desire.
Hence the eagerness with which modern dramatists have plunged into all
the problems of contemporary morality; and it may safely be said that at this
moment they confine themselves almost exclusively to the discussion of
these different problems.
This movement was initiated by the dramas of Alexandre Dumas fils, -g
dramas which brought the most elementary of moral conflicts onto the :=
stage; dramas, indeed, whose entire existence was based on problems such as $
the spectator, who must always be regarded as the ideal moralist, would £
never put to himself in the course of his whole spiritual existence, so evident ^
is their solution. Should the faithless husband or wife be forgiven? Is it well ♦
to avenge infidelity by infidelity? Has the illegitimate child any rights? Is §
the marriage of inclination—such is the name it bears in those regions-
preferable to the marriage for money? Have parents the right to oppose a
marriage for love? Is divorce to be deprecated when a child has been born of
the union? Is the sin of the adulterous wife greater than that of the adulterous
husband? etc., etc.
Indeed, it may be said here that the entire French theatre of today, and a
considerable proportion of the foreign theatre, which is only its echo, exist
solely on questions of this kind, and on the entirely superfluous answers to
which they give rise.
On the other hand, however, the highest point of human consciousness
is attained by the dramas of Bjornson, of Hauptmann, and, above all, of
Ibsen. Here we touch the limit of the resources of modern dramaturgy. For,
in truth, the further we penetrate into the consciousness of man, the less
struggle do we discover. It is impossible to penetrate far into any conscious­
ness unless that consciousness be very enlightened; for, whether we advance
ten steps, or a thousand, in the depths of a soul that is plunged into darkness,
we shall find nothing there that can be unexpected, or new; for darkness
everywhere will resemble only itself. But a consciousness that is truly en­
lightened will possess passions and desires infinitely less exacting, infinitely
more peaceful and patient, more salutary, abstract, and general, than are
those that reside in the ordinary consciousness. Thence, far less struggle—or
at least a struggle of far less violence—between these nobler and wiser pas­
sions; and this for the very reason that they have become vaster and loftier;
 for if there be nothing more restless, destructive, and savage than a dammed-
up stream, there is nothing more tranquil, beneficent, and silent than the
beautiful river whose banks ever widen.

VII
Again, this enlightened consciousness will yield to infinitely fewer laws,
admit infinitely fewer doubtful or harmful duties. There is, one may say,
scarcely a falsehood or error, a prejudice, half-truth or convention, that is not
capable of assuming, that does not actually assume, when the occasion
presents itself, the form of a duty in an uncertain consciousness. It is thus
that honour, in the chivalrous, conjugal sense of the word (I refer to the
^ honour of the husband, which is supposed to suffer by the infidelity of the
^ wife), that revenge, a kind of morbid prudishness, pride, vanity, piety to
j certain gods, and a thousand other illusions have been, and still remain, the
S5 unquenchable source of a multitude of duties that are still regarded as abso-
£ lutely sacred, absolutely incontrovertible, by a vast number of inferior con-
^ sciousnesses. And these so-called duties are the pivot of almost all the dramas
4 of the Romantic period, as of most of those of today. But not one of these
♦ sombre, pitiless duties that so fatally impel mankind to death and disaster
§ can readily take root in the consciousness that a healthy, living light has
adequately penetrated; in such there will be no room for honour or ven­
geance, for conventions that clamour for blood. It will hold no prejudices
that exact tears, no injustice eager for sorrow. It will have cast from their
throne the gods who insist on sacrifice, and the love that craves for death. For
when the sun has entered into the consciousness of him who is wise, as we
may hope that it will some day enter into that of all men, it will reveal one
duty, and one alone, which is that we should do the least possible harm and
love others as we love ourselves; and from this duty no drama can spring.

VIII
Let us consider what happens in Ibsen's plays. He often leads us far down
into human consciousness, but the drama remains possible only because
there goes with us a singular flame, a sort of red light, which, sombre, capri­
cious—unhallowed, one almost might say—falls only on singular phantoms.
And indeed nearly all the duties which form the active principle of Ibsen's
tragedies are duties situated no longer within, but without the healthy, il­
lumined consciousness; and the duties we believe we discover outside this
consciousness often come perilously near an unjust pride, or a kind of
soured and morbid madness.
Let it not be imagined, however—for indeed this would be wholly to
misunderstand me—that these remarks of mine in any way detract from my
admiration for the great Scandinavian poet. For, if it be true that Ibsen has
contributed few salutary elements to the morality of our time, he is perhaps
the only writer for the stage who has caught sight of, and set in motion, a
new, though still disagreeable poetry, which he has succeeded in investing
with a kind of age, gloomy beauty, and grandeur (surely too savage and
gloomy for it to become general or definitive); as he is the only one who owes
nothing to the poetry of the violently illumined dramas of antiquity or of the
Renaissance.
But, while we wait for the time when human consciousness shall recog­
nise more useful passions and less nefarious duties, for the time when the
world's stage shall consequently present more happiness and fewer tragedies,
there still remains, in the depths of every heart of loyal intention, a great duty
of charity and justice that eclipses all others. And it is perhaps from the
struggle of this duty against our egoism and ignorance that the veritable
drama of our century shall spring. When this goal has been attained—in real
life as on the stage—it will be permissible perhaps to speak of a new theatre, a
theatre of peace, and of beauty without tears.
.-^—^ ^ _ _ alery Briusov, playwright, poet, novelist, critic, and translator,
lb^* ^ 7 ^ was born on December 13, 1873, in Moscow. As the editor of
TW/F* w^ several anthologies of Russian Symbolist poetry in the mid-
18905, Briusov was responsible for bringing this artistic work to a
E H P * wider audience. By the early 1900s, he had become a central figure and
mentor to a new generation of Symbolists. Briusov began writing plays around
1893. The first, a comedy called Country Passions, was banned at the time and
remains unpublished. His drama The Earth (1905) captures a negative Utopian
vision of the future, in which society's technological overdevelopment results in
the complete isolation of human beings from nature. The Wayfarer (1910), a one-
act with two characters, only one of whom speaks, is an example of mono-
drama—a genre favored by the Russian Symbolists for its mystical or "inner"
possibilities and given a theoretical foundation by Nikolai Evreinov in his Introduc-
tion to Monodrama (1909). In his theoretical writings on drama, Briusov argued
against the Naturalism of the Moscow A r t Theater, which, he believed, failed to
challenge the ingrained and complacent viewing habits of Russian audiences. In
his opinion, which followed the French Symbolist models of Verlaine, Mallarme,
and Rimbaud, the author's task is to evoke moods and reveal essences through
intimation or suggestion, rather than to present a total representational picture
through the precise recording of surface appearances. Briusov also translated
several plays into Russian, including works by Moliere, Maeterlinck, and Wilde.
Following the October Revolution, he tried to write plays that embraced the
Revolution, but he failed to recapture the success and influence of his Symbolist
period. He died on October 9, 1924, in Moscow.
Yalery Briusov, Russian Symbolist
-.^^ ^ L he projection of a single consciousness and its inner workings,
lk^* I The Wayfarer is a play about the insurmountability of human
fMf"' % / loneliness. In her solitude and anguish, Julia is a dreamlike charac-
ter in contact with the netherworld. Invoking the presence of the mute
y^F Wayfarer, she creates imaginary lives for him and for herself in a desper­
ate attempt to know something other than the self and to break out of intoler­
able human isolation. For Julia, there is no fixed boundary between the real
world and the imaginary one, between dreaming and waking, life and fantasy. By
penetrating deeper and deeper into the kingdom of her visions, at the same time
as she speaks directly to the audience, Julia implicitly posits that what we com­
monly consider imaginary may be the highest reality, and that the reality ac­
knowledged by everyone may be the most frightful delirium. Briusov's mode in
this work, as well as its meaning, is thus thoroughly Symbolist: The Wayfarer's
drama is both internalized within the mind of the dreamer and externalized
within the mystery of the universe.

Select Bibliography on Briusov

See Borovsky; Gerould, Doubles, Demons, and Dreamers; Green; Kalbous; and Segal,
Twentieth-Century Russian Drama, in the General Bibliography.

Excerpted from Daniel Gerould, "Valerii Briusov, Russian Symbolist," Performing Arts Journal 3.3
(Winter 1979): 8 5 - 9 1 . Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted by arrangement with PAJ.
 T h e Wayfarer
A Psychodrama in One Act

Valery Briusov

CHARACTERS:

JULIA, the daughter of a forester

WAYFARER, a nonspeaking character

A room in the foresters house. A wet, stormy night. The windows are closed and
shuttered. The howling of the wind and the beating of the rain can be heard.
The room is dimly lighted by a kerosene lamp. The stove is burning. Knocking
at the gate. A dog barking.

JULIA:(At the window, trying to peer through a gap in the shutter.)

Who's there?
I cannot let you in: I am alone.
Go to the miller's, along the path, to the left,
Across the brook . . . But, look, youVe got to stop
That knocking now. You'll simply hurt your hands!
The door is strong, you'll never break it in.
There's not a chance I'll open up. And we've got
A vicious dog. Be on your way in peace.
The miller's place is less than two miles off.
They'll let you in . . .
(Aside.) But he can really bang!
(She moves away from the window. The knocking continues. The dog barks.)
Reprinted from Doubles, Demons, and Dreamers: An International Collection of Symbolist
Drama, ed. and trans. Daniel Gerould (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1985),
191-200. © 1985. Reprinted by permission of PAJ Publications.
JULIA: (She comes back to the window, but still does not open the shutters.)
Listen, whatever your name is! You hear me talking:
I am a young girl, and alone in the house,
I do not know you. Then judge for yourself
Whether I can let you in. What would
The neighbors have to say about me if
You spent the night with me! Out of the question!
And, when he left, my father ordered me
Not to let anyone in. And what's so bad
About your walking two miles under the pines?
Well, rain is rain! You really won't get soaked.
(Silence. Knocking at the gate. The dog barks.)
JULIA: (To herself.)
He just stands there and knocks . . . He looks so tired,
And perhaps he's even sick. Since wedging himself
Against the door-frame, he hasn't moved away,
And, like a robot, beats the board with his hand.
Just look, the poor boy's drenched right through. He's dressed
In city clothes—he's young and pale—or so
It seems to me, in the dark. He mustn't be
From here, he doesn't know his way through the woods...
Well, should I let him in?
(Aloud.) Listen! Tell me,
Where are you from? Where are you going? Just what
Do you want here? Do answer me! How can
I let a total stranger into the house!
What's wrong with you? Has the cat got your tongue?
If you're planning to keep silent, t h e n -
Adieu, you've seen the last of me! Stay there.
Keep on knocking till sunrise! Nothing on earth
Will make me open.
(She moves away from the window.)
Thinks he's someone grand!
Some prince or other! Doesn't want to talk,
Well, then, get drenched.
(Silence. Knocking at the gate.)
Good heavens! He won't give
Me any peace all night long. Or he'll die
On my doorstep—that would be the last straw!
A city boy in fancy clothes, got lost
While walking, spied the house—and now won't leave.
Afraid of wolves in the forest. The cursed nuisance!
What can you do with him?
(She goes to the window once again.)
 Look here—what's wrong with you?
Passer-by prince! Be so kind as to show
That you don't have a weapon with you. Open
Your overcoat! Now raise your hands, that's right. ..
Well, fine! I'm sorry for you. I'm opening up.
{She runs out Sound of a bolt being slid back. A dog barking. Enter Julia and
the Wayfarer, thoroughly drenched.)
JULIA:
The dog is on the chain, don't be afraid.
Well, didn't you get soaked! Right through! Take off
Your coat and boots. There's a lap robe on the b e n c h -
Take it, use it. Slippers are under the b e n c h -
Yes, put them on. That's good. Now just sit down,
And warm yourself, I'll throw some wood in the stove.
> WAYFARER: {He takes off his overcoat and boots, puts on the slippers, and wraps
</> himself up in the lap robe. Julia tosses logs into the stove.)
5 JULIA: Want a little vodka? Well, go ahead!
m
{She brings out the bottle and pours him a small glassful.)
♦ WAYFARER: {He nods his head as a sign of appreciation and drinks.)
CD JULIA: But there's nothing to eat, not even any bread.
WAYFARER: {He shakes his head negatively, indicating that he is not hungry.)
JULIA:
Well, listen to me. For the night I'll give
You this room here. The sofa's comfortable,
Lie down, and sleep until tomorrow morning.
And I will go to bed behind that partition.
I've got a gun there, and if you come near
The doorway, I shall instantly and with
Unerring aim put a bullet through your head.
And Polka will not let me be abused!
You understand? Well then, we're friends for now.
WAYFARER: {He nods his head.)
JULIA: But why don't you say anything? Answer me!
WAYFARER: {He makes a sign with his hand.)
JULIA: What does that mean?
WAYFARER: {He makes the same sign again.)
JULIA:
I do not understand.
Or are you mute?
WAYFARER: {He makes a sign that is neither affirmative nor negative.)
JULIA:
I don't believe it. That's
 Your way of trying to make fun of me!
Hey, watch out! I won't let you abuse me!
WAYFARER: {He grabs Julia's hand and kisses it respectfully.)
JULIA:
Well, that's enough, I didn't do a thing.
So then you're mute? Now it's all clear to me.
That's why you kept so silent all the while.
But you're not deaf?
WAYFARER: {He shakes his head negatively.)
JULIA: You u n d e r s t a n d m e , d o n ' t you?
WAYFARER: {He nods his head affirmatively.)
JULIA:
Oh, oh, poor boy, poor boy! Come now, forgive me.
You see: my father left for town this morning; g
Tomorrow he'll come back. The miller's two *fe
Miles off, t h e village beyond t h e river, a n d n o o n e ^
In t h e whole house. Just m e a n d Polka. It's obvious -c
W h y I was afraid to let a m a n in. 4
But you're completely different, dear. W h y , you're ♦
So pale a n d thin, a n d weak a n d sickly-looking. g
You must b e quite u n h a p p y .
WAYFARER: {He nods affirmatively.)
JULIA:
But then, tell me:
Are you really from town? Do you live there?
WAYFARER: {He shakes his head negatively.)
JULIA: N o t in t h e town? T h e n where? Far, far away?
WAYFARER: {He nods his head affirmatively.)
JULIA:
And what's your n a m e ? Sergei? Ivan? or Peter?
Nikita? Nikolai? or Alexander?
WAYFARER: {He shakes his head negatively.)
JULIA:
Well, what does it matter! I am Julia.
I'll call you Robert. That's a name that I
Have always liked a lot. So tell me, Robert,
Where were you going? To the mill? Or further,
To Otradnoye village? Or to the estate,
To the Voznitsins'? Or even further still?
WAYFARER: {He shakes his head negatively and covers his face with his hands.)
JULIA: D o n ' t want to tell m e ? W h a t is it—a secret?
WAYFARER: {He nods his head affirmatively.)
 JULIA:
A secret? Oh, that's what! Like in a novel?
I've read quite a few. Two years ago
There was a lady living in Otradnoye
Who used to give me books. I still have two
Of them now: The Scullery-Maid Who Became Countess
And The Black Prince. Have you read them?
WAYFARER: (He shakes his head negatively.)
JULIA:
Too bad.
Fve read them eight times each at least, and still
Whenever I come to the touching scenes,
Right off I start to cry—I can't help it!
A Gypsy stole the countess's baby daughter,
> She didn't know she was herself a countess,
2 Grew up like a poor beggar, had to work,
2 And suddenly . . .
10 But then, I won't describe it a l l . . . Sometimes
♦ The idea suddenly strikes me: what if
* Instead of being a forester's daughter,
^ I too am a countess! Just don't laugh. That's all
Pure nonsense. Well, if you want to, drink some vodka.
(She offers him a glass.)
WAYFARER: (He shakes his head negatively.)
(Silence.)
JULIA:
Robert, you know, I am very unhappy!
I've spent all of my life here in the forest.
My mother died long ago. My father's surly,
Always tramping through the woods, for days
On end, out hunting, or on business. Guests
Come here but rarely—and then who? The sexton,
The gardener from the Voznitsins', and the miller . . .
It's only in summer that ladies and gentlemen visit
Otradnoye—but how can I go up to them?
I'm so ashamed; I don't know how to speak
Their language; they laugh at me; I'm not at all
Well educated . .. But I simply cannot
Live this life any more! I'm bored, I'm bored!
I feel the need of something else. I like
Nice clothes and luxury. I want to go
To theaters and to balls. I want to chat
In drawing rooms. I'm sure I would know how
 To seem no sillier than any countess.
Really, I am quite beautiful! My eyes
Are large, my ears are small, and I have legs
That are elegant and a body smooth as marble!
Fd hold my own with any other countess
With all her airs and ingratiating ways!
Fd quickly learn to play the pianoforte
And dance all of the latest dances. Fve
An innate sense of elegance. But here
Who is there to see me? Pine trees, birds,
My father, and the peasants! And what do I hear?
Barking, swearing, shooting, and the howling of wolves
As they come running toward us through the snow . . .
Fd like to lean back in an easy chair
And, with a tea cup casually in hand, g
Listen to amorous whisperings in French . . . *£
p
But no—J have to sweep the floors, prepare s£
The dinner, do the wash, and bring the water ij
For our horse, and to think that for all eternity ^
There is nothing else Fll ever know! ♦
(The charcoal in the stove goes out) <o
Well, Fll get married soon. To whom? A forester
Of course! Or even worse, it may well be
A miller! And then I shall put on weight,
Count bags of meal, and all night long hear
The wheels creak as the water makes them turn .. .
My unloved husband will kiss me on the cheeks
And lips—with his gross, over-heavy lips;
Sometimes he'll pet me roughly, with a sneer,
Sometimes, when he's half-drunk, he'll pull my braids!
Once children come, Fll wash their hands and cut their hair,
Cook them porridge, whip them with willow switches...
And slowly Fll forget my girlish dreams
Like the ends of candles that have burned out!
Oh, no! Fve not the strength to think of it!
(Silence.)
Robert! You think that, living in the forest,
Like all the country wenches, I did not
Preserve my virtue? Now by all that's holy,
I swear to you: until this moment no one
Has ever kissed me, and there is no one
To whom Fve spoken words of love. I am
Pure, as the summer sky, as water from the spring,
I would not shame the royal bed of a king.
 The most malicious slanderer could not
Speak ill of m e ! . . . What am I waiting for?
I do not know. Perhaps I am waiting to
Find out that I'm the daughter of a count,
Waiting for some prince to come to my country
And tell me: I have been looking for you throughout
The world, and now I have found you, come with me
To my sumptuous palace and be the tsarina!
I am waiting, the years pass, I am alone,
There is no joy, nor will there be, that's clear!
And, if I tell the truth, yes, there are times
I am ashamed that I have been so chaste!
(Silence. It grows darker and darker in the room.)
But perhaps I am complaining without cause,
> And the day that I was waiting for has come,
O And Robert, you're the one who has been sent
3 To me to answer all my prayers! I did
* Expect the prince to come in a golden coach,
+ With throngs of servants, followed by his retinue,
♦ But he came on foot, alone. I did expect
*> He would be wearing velvet and brocade,
And he appeared in a jacket and overcoat!
I had imagined that on bended knee
He would express his love for me eloquently
In a long speech, full of passionate compliments,
But he is mute! .. . Well, still! Isn't it clear
That he's the one! How odd! Robert, answer! Did
You know that you were sent to me by Fate?
You are the one that I was waiting for!
You are the one the Lord ordained for me!
My betrothed! My beloved! My sweetheart!
Yes! I recognize your eyes, your sad
And wistful look, the slender, delicately
Bent fingers of your beautiful hands!
Robert! Robert! Tell me that I'm the one!
WAYFARER: (He makes no response at all.)
JULIA:
Well, no matter, listen! Whoever you are,
The one or not the one, what matter to us?
I won't find something better, and where will you
Ever meet another girl like me?
You think I'm beautiful? And young? Till now
I've never kissed a man! All of the strength
Of my virginal tenderness I'll give to you!
 To you I'll give my innocence, as if
You were my fiance, my husband, my master!
Fm going to believe that you're some prince,
Traveling in disguise, who has lost his throne,
And must in the meantime conceal his name!
I shall serve you like a faithful servant,
And, like a tsarina, caress and care
For you! Believe in me! Stay here with me!
You'll spend this night as in a fairy tale!
And even you'll believe we live in a castle,
That above our bed there hangs a canopy
Of gold brocade, and that hundreds of servants
Wait zealously outside the door, that all
We do is say the word—the hall will blaze
With fire, and a chorus of musicians burst out! £
Oh, how I am going to adore you, *£
And fondle and caress you! Your every wish ^
I shall fulfill! I will be passionate, -c
Submissive, tender, whatever you want me to be! 4
Upon awaking in the morning, you ♦
Will see the daughter of a forester, £
Bustling about the house. She'll offer you
Some milk. And you will think you dreamed a strange
Dream. You'll say thanks, put on your overcoat,
And go away, leaving these parts forever,
And, if you want to, you'll forget about me . . .
Robert! My prince! My lord and master! Take
Me, as though I were some precious pearl
Cast at your feet from the depths of the sea!
Take me, as the gift of a nameless fairy,
Who caught sight of you in the thick of the forest!
Take me! Possess me! I am yours, all yours!
{She throws herself at the Wayfarer.)
Let me squeeze against you! Give me your lips,
To press mine against yours! Give me your hands,
To put them around my waist! . . . Why don't you want to?
{She stares fixedly at him and suddenly recoils in horror.)
Robert! Robert! It cannot be! He's dead!
{Once again she bends over the Wayfarer sitting immobile in the armchair,
then in fright rushes to the window.)
He's dead! Who's there! You people! Help me! Help!

END
 A g a i n s t Naturalism in the
Theater

Valery Briusov

It is three years now that the Art Theater has been with us in Moscow.
Somehow it was an immediate success with everyone—the public, the press,
the partisans of the new art and the defenders of the old. Not long ago, it was
the custom to cite the Maly Theater as the model of the Russian stage; these
days people only laugh at its routine. And this same Maly Theater and
another Moscow theater—Korsh's—have begun to adopt the new methods.
For Muscovites the Art Theater has become a kind of idol; they are proud of
it, and it is the first thing they hasten to show off to the visitor. When the Art
Theater visited Petersburg, it performed here to packed houses, arousing
universal interest. The Art Theater ventured to stage plays that had failed in
other theaters—Chekhov's Seagull, for example—and was successful. Most
surprising of all, it was the Art Theater's experimental spirit, its innovations
in decor and acting, its daring choice of plays, that won the sympathy of the
crowd.
What is the Art Theater, then? Is it really the theater of the future, as
some have called it? Has it made a step toward the spiritualization of art,
toward the overcoming of the fatal contradictions between the essence and
the surface of art? Simple probability says no. If the Art Theater has set itself
such tasks, it would hardly have won universal acclaim so quickly. Success
attests that what the Art Theater offers its audience is not the genuinely new,
but the old refurbished, that it offers no threat to the deep-rooted habits of
the theatergoer. It has only achieved with greater perfection what other
theaters, including its rival the Maly, have aimed at. Together with the entire
European theater, with insignificant exceptions, it is on a false path.

Reprinted from "Unnecessary Truth," in The Russian Symbolist Theatre: An Anthology of Plays
and Critical Texts, ed. Michael Green (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1986), 25-30.
 Modern theaters aim at the utmost verisimilitude in their depiction of
life. They think that if everything on the stage is as it is in reality, then they
have worthily fulfilled their function. Actors endeavor to speak as they would
in a drawing room, scene painters copy views from nature, costume de­
signers work in accordance with archaeological data. In spite of all this,
however, there remains much that the theater has not succeeded in counter­
feiting. The Art Theater has set itself the aim of reducing this "much." The
actors there have begun to sit with their backs to the audience without
constraint; they have begun to talk to each other instead of "out" to the
audience. In place of the usual box set has appeared the room placed at an
oblique angle: other rooms are visible through the open doors, so that an
entire apartment is presented to the viewer's gaze. The furniture is arranged
as it usually is in people's homes. If a forest or a garden is to be represented,
several trees are placed on the forestage. If the play requires rain to fall, the
audience is made to listen to the sound of water. If the play is set in winter,
snow can be seen falling outside the windows. If it is windy, curtains flutter,
and so on. §
First of all, one has to say that these innovations are very timid. They are -=j
concerned with secondary matters and leave the essential traditions of the **
theater undisturbed. And until these traditions, which comprise the essence ♦
of any stage production, are changed, no alteration of detail will bring the £2
theater closer to reality. All theaters, including the Art Theater, try to make
everything on stage visible and audible. Stages are lit by footlights and strip
lights, but in real life light either falls from the sky or pours in through
windows or is cast by a lamp or a candle. If there is a night scene, the Art
Theater has ventured to leave the stage in greater darkness than is customary,
although it has not dared to extinguish all the lights in the theater; however,
if it were really night on stage, the audience would obviously be unable to
see anything. Similarly, the Art Theater is at pains to ensure that all stage
conversation is audible to the auditorium. Even if a large gathering is repre­
sented, only one actor speaks at a time. When a new group begins to speak,
the previous one "moves upstage" and begins gesticulating energetically—
and this a quarter of a century after Villiers de ITsle Adam in his drama Le
nouveau monde bracketed two pages of dialogue with the direction "Every­
body speaks at once!"
But even if the Art Theater were more daring, it would still fall short of its
purpose. To reproduce life faithfully on the stage is impossible. The stage is
conventional by its very nature. One set of conventions may be replaced by
another, that is all. In Shakespeare's day a board would be set up with the
inscription "forest." Not so long ago we used to be content with a backdrop of
a forest with side wings depicting trees with branches incomprehensibly
intertwined against the sky. In time to come, forests will be constructed from
artificial three-dimensional trees with foliage and rounded trunks, or even
from living trees with roots hidden in tubs under the stage... And all this, the
last word in stage technique, will, like the Shakespearean inscription, be for
 the audience no more than a reminder, no more than a symbol of a forest.
The modern theatergoer is not in the least taken in by a painted tree—he
knows that a particular piece of lathe and canvas is intended to stand for a
tree. In much the same way, a signboard meant "forest" to an Elizabethan
audience and a stage sapling will mean a tree growing naturally to the
audience of the future. The set is no more than a pointer to the imagination.
In the Greek theater, an actor playing someone who had just returned from
foreign parts would enter from the left. At the Art Theater, the actor is
admitted to a small vestibule where he divests himself of sheepskin and
galoshes as a sign that he has come from afar. But who among the audience
is likely to forget that he arrived from the wings? In what way is the conven­
tion by which an actor removes his sheepskin more subtle than the one by
which it is understood that if he enters from the left he is coming from
foreign parts?
Not only the art of the theater, but art of any kind cannot avoid formal
O convention, cannot be transformed into a re-creation of reality. Never, in
D looking at a picture by one of the great realist painters, will we be deceived
* like the birds of Zeuxis into thinking that before us are fruits or an open
^ window through which we may glimpse a distant horizon. By infinitesimal
♦ gradations of light and shade, by the most elusive signals, the eye is able to
c£ distinguish reality from representation. Never will we bow to the marble bust
of an acquaintance. It is unheard of that someone, on reading a story in
which the author recounts in the first person how he came to commit
suicide, should order a mass to be sung for the repose of his soul. And if there
do exist reproductions of people and things that deceive the eye, such, for
example, as bridges in a painted panorama or wax figures so convincing that
they frighten children, we have difficulty in recognizing these creations as
works of art. Not a single one of the spectators sitting in the orchestra and
paying three or four rubles for his seat is going to believe that he is really
looking at Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and that in the final scene the prince
lies dead.
Each new technical device in art, be it that of the theater or another,
arouses only curiosity and suspicion in the spectator. A certain contempo­
rary artist has, it is said, painted a new series of pictures in which the effect of
moonlight is strikingly conveyed. When we see them, our first thought will
be: How did he manage to do that? And then we will captiously seek out
every discrepancy with reality. Only when we have satisfied our curiosity will
we start looking at the picture as a work of art. When an avalanche of
wadding descends on the stage, the members of the audience ask each other:
How was that done? If Rubek and Irene simply walked off into the wings [in
Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken], the audience would believe more readily in
their destruction than it does now, when before their eyes two straw-stuffed
dummies and armfuls of wadding go rolling over the boards. "It faded on the
crowing of the cock," someone says of the Ghost in Hamlet, and this is
enough for the audience to imagine the crowing of the cock. But in Uncle
Vanya the Art Theater has a cricket chirping. No one in the audience will
imagine that the cricket is real, and the more lifelike the sound, the less
convincing the illusion. In time, audiences will become used to the devices
they now find so novel and will cease to notice them. But this will not come
about because the audience will take wadding for snow in real earnest, or the
rope that tugs at the curtains for wind, but because these devices will simply
be numbered among the usual theatrical conventions. Would it not then be
better to abandon the fruitless battle against the invincible conventions of
the theater, which only spring up with renewed strength, and rather than
seeking to eradicate them, attempt to subjugate, to tame, to harness, to
saddle them?
There are two kinds of convention. One kind arises from the inability to
create successfully. A bad poet says of a beautiful woman: "She is as fresh as a
rose." It may be that the poet really understood the vernal freshness of the
woman's soul, but he was unable to express his feelings, substituting cliche
for genuine expression. In the same way, people want to speak on the stage as >
they do in life but are unable to, stressing words unnaturally, pronouncing 8
endings too emphatically and so on. But there is another kind of conven- jg
tion—that which is deliberately applied. It is a convention that statues of ^
marble and bronze are left unpainted. They could be painted—at one time ♦
they even were—but it is unnecessary, since sculpture is concerned with ^
form, not color. An engraving in which leaves are black and the sky striped
observes certain conventions, but it nevertheless affords pure aesthetic en­
joyment. Wherever there is art, there is convention. To oppose this is as
absurd as to demand that science would dispense with logic and explain
phenomena other than by their causal relationship.
It is time that the theater stopped counterfeiting reality. A cloud depicted
in a painting is flat, it does not move or change its form or luminiscence—but
there is something about it that gives us the same feeling as a real cloud. The
stage must provide everything that can most effectively help the spectator to
re-create the setting demanded by the play in his imagination. If a battle is to
be represented, it is absurd to send on stage a couple of dozen—or even a
thousand—extras waving wooden swords: perhaps the audience will be bet­
ter served by a musical picture from the orchestra. If a wind is called for,
there is no need to blow a whistle and tug at the curtain with a rope: the
actors themselves must convey the storm by behaving as people do in a
strong wind. There is no need to do away with the setting, but it must be
deliberately conventionalized. The setting must be, as it were, stylized.
Types of setting must be devised that will be comprehensible to everyone, as
a received language is comprehensible, as white statues, flat paintings, and
black engravings are comprehensible. Simplicity of setting will not be equiv­
alent to banality and monotony. The principle will be changed, and there
will be ample scope in particulars for the imagination of Messrs. the set
designers and technicians.
Dramatists too must in some degree perfect their artistic method. They
 are sovereign artists only when their work is read; on the stage their plays are
only forms into which the actors pour their own content. Dramatists must
renounce all superfluous, unnecessary, and ultimately futile copying of life.
Everything external in their work must be reduced to a minimum because it
has little to do with the conduct of the drama. The drama can convey the
external only through an intermediary—through the souls of the dramatis
personae. The sculptor cannot take soul and emotion in his hands; he has to
give the spirit bodily incarnation. The dramatist, on the contrary, should
make it possible for the actor to express the physical in the spiritual. Some­
thing has already been achieved in the creation of a new drama. The most
interesting attempts of this kind are the plays of Maeterlinck and the latest
dramas of Ibsen. It is noteworthy that it is in the staging of these plays that the
modern theater has shown itself to be particularly ineffectual.
The ancient theater had a single permanent set—the palace. With slight
alterations it was made to represent the interior of a house, a square, the
O seashore. Actors wore masks and buskins, which forced them to put aside any
D thought of imitating everyday life. The chorus sang sacred hymns around
* the altar and also intervened in the action. Everything was at once thor-
4 oughly conventionalized and utterly alive; the audience devoted its attention
♦ to the action and not to the setting, "for tragedy," says Aristotle, "is the imita-
r8 tion not of men, but of action." In our day, such simplicity of setting has been
preserved in the folk theater. I chanced to see a performance of [Aleksei
Remizov's] Tsar Maximilian given by factory workers. The scenery and
props consisted of two chairs, the tsar's paper crown and the paper chains of
his rebellious son Adolph. Watching this performance, I understood what
powerful resources the theater has at its disposal and how misguided it is in
seeking the aid of painters and technicians.
The creative urge is the only reality that exists on earth. Everything
external is, in the poet's words, "only a dream, a fleeting dream." Grant that
in the theater we may be partakers of the highest truth, the profoundest
reality. Grant the actor his rightful place, set him upon the pedestal of the
stage that he may rule it as an artist. By his art he will give content to the
dramatic performance. Let your setting aim not at truth, but at the sugges­
tion of truth. I summon you away from the unnecessary truth of the modern
stage to the deliberate conventionalization of the ancient theater.
 m
Pataphysical Theater

" ^
a 1
Ifred Jarry, novelist and playwright, was born on September 8,
1873, in Laval, France. As a fifteen-year-old schoolboy, he be-
gan writing his most influential play, the five-act satirical farce
King Ubu. Jarry originally performed King Ubu with marionettes, and
I M F * over the next eight years he continued to revise the play. As the assis-
w-^^m tant to Aurelien Lugne-Poe, the director of the Theatre de POeuvre in
" ^ Paris, he succeeded in securing a production there of King Ubu in 1896.
n ^ * This premiere, with designs by Bonnard, Vuillard, and Toulouse-Lautrec,
_ caused a riot in the theater (comparable to the one caused by the
U w ^ staging of Victor Hugo's Hernani in 1830, during the heyday of Romanti-
cism) because of Jarry's use of profanity and mangled diction, as well as on
account of the enormity of the characters' greed and cruelty.
Jarry championed the use of puppets in place of actors long before Gordon
Craig proposed the Ubermarionette; the use of masks, which Jarry wanted for
King Ubu but did not get, would have been the first step toward his desired
depersonalization of the performer. He thus shared Maeterlinck's preference for
an abstract theater rather than a realistic one, and the violent, absurd vision of
the world captured in his plays and in his invention of "pataphysics"-—"the sci-
ence of imaginary solutions," which bears much the same relation to the scien-
tific or rational way of analyzing and describing the world as Jarry's anti-theater
does to conventional drama—influenced the Surrealists and Dadaists of the
1920s, Antonin Artaud, and the Theater of the Absurd. The sequels to King
Ubu—Ubu Cuckolded (1888) and Ubu Bound (1900)--were not published or pro-
duced until long after Jarry's death. In the last years of his life he gave in to his
addictions to absinthe and ether, and began to live life as the character of Ubu.
He died on November 1, 1907, in Paris.

A vicious satire of Jarry's despised physics teacher, King Ubu parodied in the
process not only Shakespearean tragedy, most evidently Macbeth, but also all the
 turn-of-the-century thematic and stylistic expectations of serious drama. This
was parody that went beyond the literary, however, for King Ubu is a disparaging
attack against the fundamental concepts of Western civilization, specifically as
they are embodied in bourgeois aims, attitudes, and practices. The grossly fat
and loathsome Ubu is the ugly personification of the baser instincts and antiso­
cial qualities—rapacity, cruelty, stupidity, gluttony, cowardice, conceit, vulgarity,
treachery, and ingratitude—all of which he inspires as well in the people who
surround him, particularly those who are esteemed as honorable, heroic, al­
truistic, patriotic, idealistic, or simply socially conventional.
iu Thus Ubu, who at his wife's urging murders the unsuspecting Wenceslas, king
< of an imaginary Poland, himself reduces kingship to gorging on sausages and
j wearing an immense hat; economic competition to a kicking, struggling race;
■" social reform to slaughter motivated solely by envious cupidity; the waging of
< war to boastful brawling; and religious faith to fearful superstition, manipulated
- by the unscrupulous for their own benefit. In other words, a figure symbolizing
>- all that bourgeois morality condemns is accepted as the representative and
o. mainstay of bourgeois society, which then stands condemned by its own princi-
f? pies. The creation of such a character as the apocalyptic twentieth century was
£ dawning—a character spawned, in essence, by the bourgeoisie—was gruesomely
♦ prophetic, particularly since the Ubus survive the Polish revolt (led by both the
♦ Russian tsar and the only surviving son of King Wenceslas) and sail off at the end
i> to comfortable exile in France. Ubu's tyrannical savagery, which was seen by
many as the creation of a deranged mind, seems tame indeed when compared
with the massacres, genocides, and holocausts of subsequent generations.
Jarry and the Modern Theatre
_ ^ ^ H H bu Ro' stands at a turning point in the evolution of the mod­
ish* | ^ ern theatre. In an age in which the traditional distinction
f}^m ^ ^ f c between poetry and prose was breaking down (with the in­
vention of the vers fibre) and painting was taking its first steps in the
I M F * direction of abstraction, it was only natural that the theatre should
attempt to follow a similar path of self-examination and redefinition. Jarry him­
self was in the forefront of such developments (all the more so as he was him­
self fully abreast of similar movements in the fields of poetry and painting and had
close personal links with many of those most responsible for them): his work in
the theatre sets out to revolutionize that genre in respect of its language, of
its forms of expression, and of the underlying purpose and function of the
theatre itself.
The starting point of Jarry and of a host of subsequent playwrights is an effort
to break once and for all with the principles and traditions of the Realist and
Naturalist theatre, with its attempt to create on the stage an illusion of the
"real" world (or what its practitioners took to be the "real" world) outside the
theatre. The first significant parallel lies therefore in the efforts to create, in
opposition to such conventions, a theatre based on the principles of deliberate
stylization and simplification, and on the adoption of purely "schematic" modes
of representation. Jarry's endeavours in this domain were echoed to some ex­
tent by those of the Symbolist theatre, and by the ideas of theatrical reformers
and visionaries of his own time and of the early years of this century such as
Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craig. Today, of course, an element of
simplification and stylization is an accepted part of production methods in the
modern theatre even in relation to plays written in a traditional Realist or
Naturalist mode. But the real revolution in our time has been widespread total
abandonment of this mode by a string of major playwrights, who see the true
force of the theatre as lying in the adoption of conventions diametrically op­
posed to those of Realism.
The second feature of the theatre of his time rejected by Jarry in which he
can again be seen as a precursor is its essentially narrative and psychological
function. The theatre, he argues, is not the proper place for "telling a story" or
for the portrayal and analysis of psychological conflicts, which belong more
properly to the novel. Nor is it the place for dealing with social issues or
problems. Whether or not there is a necessary relationship between a theatre
which, thematically, is oriented towards the expression of social issues and
problems and the Realist mode of expression, the fact remains that historically
the two have been closely linked. The inevitable corollary is the desire to create
a theatre which will be concerned with a portrayal of "situations" and "types," or
more exactly archetypes, and with the expression of the universal and eternal
rather than purely with historically limited social issues and themes. Jarry thus

Excerpted from Keith Beaumont, "Jarry and the Modern Theatre," "Ubu Roi": A Critical Guide
(London: Grant and Cutler, 1987), 86-95.
 implicitly looks forward to the call of Artaud for a "metaphysical" theatre which
will be concerned with the portrayal of aspects of an unchanging "human condi­
tion," a conception fully realized in the work of playwrights such as Beckett,
lonesco, or (in his early plays) Adamov. He also implicitly anticipates Artaud's call
for a theatre of "myth," in the sense of a creation of universal and archetypal
images. What after all is Ubu but a "myth" in this sense, an archetypal image of
mankind as seen by Jarry?
The creation of such a theatre has profound implications for the portrayal of
character on the stage, and here a further parallel can be found. To reject the
UJ portrayal of psychological conflicts is also to reject psychological complexity, and
< implicitly to advocate a deliberately simplified and schematic presentation of
j human character—a presentation which, at its most extreme point of develop-
*" ment, finds its outward expression in the use of masks or the portrayal of human
< beings in terms of mere puppets. And this too is not only a central feature of the
- work of Jarry but has been a significant (though certainly not universal) trend in
>- the theatre of the twentieth century, most strikingly in evidence in the work of
o. lonesco, particularly in his early one-act plays or in a highly stylized later work
fj* such as Macbett With this simplification of character goes also on occasion an
^ abandonment of psychological coherence and motivation, which in turn can have
♦ a profound effect upon the plot and action of the play. The unpredictability of
♦ Ubu's behaviour—his sudden and unexpected changes from resolution to cow-
oo ardice or his apparently gratuitous acts of cruelty—indicates in such instances an
absence of coherence and logical motivation which looks forward in embryonic
form to the topsy-turvy world of, for example, those same early plays of
lonesco. A similar absence of logic in the relationship between events can be
found in certain plays of Arrabal, whilst discontinuity is a fundamental feature of
the theatre of Beckett.
Such a portrayal of character points also to the sources of inspiration of the
above playwrights and others, which indicate a further parallel between Jarry and
his successors. In all intended revolutions, whether political or artistic, men tend
to turn back, in order to create something radically different from the present or
from that which immediately preceded it, to a more distant past for inspiration.
Jarry's attempt to revitalize the theatre of his time by a return to the "simpler"
and more "naive" art of the mime and the puppet theatre has been echoed by
many since. Directors and theoreticians of an earlier generation such as Craig
and Gaston Baty have exalted the expressive possibilities of marionettes, and
playwrights such as Ghelderode, lonesco, and Arrabal have spoken of their child­
hood delight in the guignol, which has been a source of inspiration in their own
work. In the work of Jarry as of these and other playwrights, moreover, the
figure of the puppet provides more than simply a source of inspiration but takes
on a functional significance also, providing an image of man himself and his situa­
tion in the world and forming an essential part of the playwright's own vision.
"Simplification," in both characterization and themes, does not, however, as
Jarry understood it, mean mere simplicity, but rather a condensation or synthe­
sis of complexity. Thus the figure of Ubu is simple only in the sense that he
synthesizes and implicitly embodies a multiplicity of different potential meanings.
Hence Jarry's invitation to the audience at the premiere of Ubu Roi to place its
own interpretation upon the play, a statement that looks forward to the concept
of the "openness" of the work of art. Such a concept is central to Jarry's whole
literary aesthetic and underlies his reflections on the possibility of an "abstract"
theatre, in which the play would constitute no more than a kind of abstract
framework into which the members of the audience would be invited to project
their own meaning—thereby participating actively, he maintains, through the
exercise of the imagination, in the process of creation itself. It is this urge
towards abstraction which explains the nature of the setting of Ubu Roi—its
Nowhere/Everywhere achieved by a canceling out of mutually contradictory
elements—and to which there corresponds a similar imprecision in the work of
such playwrights as lonesco (anonymous but archetypal provincial town), Vian
(block of flats in an unnamed town), Arrabal (mythical desert island), or Beckett
(deserted country road).
A sixth parallel, of a quite different nature, can be found in the deliberate
provocation of Jarry's flouting of the linguistic and theatrical conventions of his
time, in his calculated attack upon both the moral and aesthetic susceptibilities
of his audience. The original production of Ubu Roi provides in this respect an
outstanding example of theatrical aggression which has been followed by many
directors and playwrights since, from Artaud to Peter Brook and Charles Mar-
owitz, and from the Dadist and Surrealist theatre to certain of the works of
Weingarten (the first performance of whose Akara in 1948 was likened by critics
to the opening night of Ubu Ro/), Genet, lonesco (whose first play was provoca­
tively subtitled "Anti-piece"), Vauthier, and Arrabal.
Where, however, it was the linguistic and moral aspect of that aggressiveness
which had most impact on Jarry's contemporaries, from our point of view today
its most significant feature was its artistic subversiveness, Jarry's creation of
forms of deliberate incoherence and logical contradiction which can be seen
implicitly to call into question the very nature and existence of the work of art
itself. There is in fact present in Jarry a dual impulse, a desire to create radically
new artistic forms which exists alongside and simultaneously with a secret wish
to subvert all forms of art from within. The tension resulting from these two
conflicting impulses was in fact never resolved in his work, and can be seen in his
theatre, in much of his poetry, and in such novels as Messaline and Le surmale,
where the apparent reality of the narrative is secretly undermined from within.
This subversive intention is not, however, restricted to Jarry (though he was
among the first of modern writers to manifest it), but it is shared with a number
of modern playwrights and novelists and is in fact characteristic of the intensely
self-conscious and introspective age in which we live. It expresses itself at times,
as in Jarry, in the inclusion within a work of deliberately contradictory details,
and at times also, in the theatre, through the presence within the play itself of
elements of dialogue or action whose function is to remind us that what we are
watching is a "fiction," a "play" in the primary sense of the word. No modern
playwright so fully exemplifies this conception of what has been called "the self-
conscious stage" as Beckett, in whose plays the affirmation of the essentially "fic­
tional" and "theatrical" nature of what we are watching is a recurrent feature.
 Jarry can also be seen as a precursor in his creation and exploitation of a
form of humor to which contemporary audiences totally failed to respond (or
responded with bewilderment and hostility) but which has become widespread
in our own time, a humour based on the deliberate exploitation of incongruity
or of outright logical contradiction in both action and word—a form of humour
which can legitimately be described as "absurd" humour. The clash of conflicting
elements in the set for Ubu Roi in 1896, no less than the clock of lonesco's La
cantatrice chauve which strikes successively seven, three, naught, five, and two
times in the course of the first scene, or Ubu's statement that "I am going to light
ui a fire while I'm waiting for him to bring some firewood," lonesco's demonstra-
< tion in the same play that when a doorbell rings it means that "sometimes there
j is somebody, at other times there is nobody" and Clov's statement in Fin de
*" partie that "If I don't kill that rat, it is going to die," all provide examples of a form
< of humour which deliberately flies in the face of the laws of logic or causality. Not
- only, moreover, is this form of humour widely accepted and exploited in our own
>- age, but it seems to have a particular appeal to those of an intellectual bent,
o. through the provision of a much-needed liberation from the constraints of logic
f* and the processes of reasoning. It is also, finally, a decidedly subversive and
Jj destructive form of humour, sweeping all before it in a total derision of rational
♦ values, anticipating and responding to Artaud's call for a rediscovery of "the
4
anarchic power of dissociation in laughter," which, along with a true sense of the
oo tragic, Western civilization had lost.
Lastly, Jarry in Ubu Roi brought to the theatre—or more exactly restored to
it—the spirit of childhood which had been a part of the medieval theatre, but
which had been proscribed by the dominant rationalism of the intervening cen­
turies. The vision which presided at the creation of Ubu Roi, with its crude
exaggeration, its violence, its frequent absence of logical relationships and co­
herent motivation of action, is that of a child's conception of the world; and the
character of Ubu himself is nothing more than that of an overgrown child,
displaying a primeval innocence, but one which is no less terrifying and brutal for
all that. It was a vision which Jarry alone among his school fellows had the insight
and the artistic sense to preserve, but which looks forward to playwrights such
as lonesco, Vian, and Arrabal, whose work at times either focuses on similarly
childlike figures or portrays in other ways an equally terrifying or disturbing
innocence. Even more important than this vision itself, however, is the spirit
which informs Jarry's play, and which expresses itself in a spontaneous and
innocent love of nonsense, of wordplay and linguistic distortion, and of sheer
absurdity. To laugh at such "absurd" forms of humour requires a willingness to
suspend the normal habits of rational thinking characteristic of the adult mind,
and to enter once again, at least momentarily, into the spirit of childhood. And
insofar as we are able to do this today, we are all heirs of Jarry.
In all of these ways, then, Jarry can be seen as a precursor of the modern
theatre, or at least of one major current in it. That current is a sufficiently
important and widespread one to make of Jarry, as result of the extensive
parallels outlined above, a major figure in the emergence of modern culture, and
to make of Ubu Roi an archetype for our own time.
Select Bibliography on Jarry
Beaumont, Keith. Alfred Jarry: A Critical and Biographical Study, 86-119. Leicester, England:
Leicester University Press, 1984. New York: St. Martin's, 1984.
Church, Dan M. "Pere Ubu: The Creation of a Literary Type." Drama Survey 43 (1965):
233-43.
LaBelle, Maurice Marc. Alfred Jarry: Nihilism and the Theatre of the Absurd. New York: New
York University Press, 1980.
Lamont, Rosette C. "Ubu Roi: A Collage." Dada 4 (1974): 17-26.
Lobert, Patrick. "Ubu Roi, Jarry's Satire of Naturalism." French Literature Series 14(1987):
124-32.

See also Braun; Innes, Avant Garde Theatre; Schumacher, Alfred Jarry and Guillaume Apolli-
naire; and Shattuck, in the General Bibliography.
 KingUbu

Alfred Jarry
THIS PLAY IS DEDICATED TO
MARCEL SCHWOB

Then Father Ubu shakes

his peare, who was afterwards
yclept SHAKESPEARE by the
Englishe, and you have from
him in his own hand manie
lovely tragedies
under this name.

CHARACTERS AND COSTUMES

FATHER UBU: Casual gray suit, a cane always stuffed in his right-hand pocket,
bowler hat. A crown over his hat at the beginning of Act II, Scene 2.
Bareheaded at the beginning of Act II, Scene 6. Act HI, Scene 2, crown
and white hood, flaring to a royal cape. Act III, Scene 4, cloak, cap pulled
down over his ears; same outfit, but with bare head in Scene 7. Scene 8,
hood, helmet, a sword stuck in his belt, a hook, chisels, a knife, a cane
still in his right-hand pocket. A bottle bounces at his side. Act IV, Scene
5, cloak and cap but without above weapons or stick. In the sailing scene
a small suitcase is in Father Ubu's hand.
MOTHER UBU: Concierge's clothes or a toiletries saleswoman's ensemble.
Pink bonnet or a hat with flowers and feathers and a veil. An apron in the
feasting scene. Royal cloak at the opening of Act II, Scene 6.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Hungarian musician's costume, very close-fitting, red.
Big mantle, large sword, crenelated boots, feathery hat.

Reprinted from Modem French Theatre: The Avant-Garde, Daday and Surrealism; An Anthology
of Plays, ed. Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth; trans. Michael Benedikt and George E.
Wellwarth (New York: Dutton, 1964), 1-54.
KING WENCESLAS: Royal mantle and the crown Ubu wears after murdering
him.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: The mantle and crown Mother Ubu later wears.
BOLESLAS, LADISLAS (sons of King Wenceslas and Queen Rosemonde): Gray
Polish costumes, heavily frogged; short pants.
BOUGRELAS (the youngest son): Dressed as a child in a little skirt and bonnet.
GENERAL LASCY: Polish costume, with an admiral's hat with white plumes,
and a sword.
STANISLAS LECZINSKY: Polish costume. White beard.
JOHN SOBIESKI, NICHOLAS RENSKY: Polish costume.
THE TSAR, EMPEROR ALEXIS: Black clothing, enormous yellow sword, dagger,
numerous military decorations, big boots. Huge frill at the throat. Hat in
the form of a black cone.
THE PALOTINS (GIRON, PILE, COTICE): Long beards, fur-trimmed greatcoats,
shitr-colored; or red or green if necessary; tights beneath. a
CROWD: Polish costume. *£,
MICHAEL FEDEROVITCH: Same. Fur hat. 2
NOBLES: Polish costume, with cloaks edged with fur or embroidery. *
ADVISERS, FINANCIERS: Swathed in black, with astrologers' hats, eyeglasses, {g
pointed noses.
PHYNANCIAL FLUNKIES: The Palotins.
PEASANTS: Polish costume.
THE POLISH ARMY: In gray, with frogging and fur trimmings: three men with
rifles.
THE RUSSIAN ARMY: Two horsemen: uniform like that of the Poles, but green,
with fur headgear. They carry cardboard horses' heads.
A RUSSIAN FOOTSOLDIER: In green, with headgear.
MOTHER UBTJ'S GUARDS: Polish costume, with halberds.
A CAPTAIN: General Lascy.
THE BEAR: Bordure in bearskin.
THE PHYNANCIAL HORSE: Large wooden rocking horse on casters, or else
cardboard horse's head, as required.
THE CREW: Two men in sailor suits, in blue, collars turned down, and so on.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP: In a French naval officer's uniform.
JAILER *
MESSENGER *
* Jarry did not include suggestions for the costuming of these two characters in these notes,
which were published from manuscript by the College de Tataphysique in 1951.
 COMPOSITION OF THE ORCHESTRA

Oboes
Pipes
Blutwurst
Large Bass
Flageolets Transverse Flutes
Flute
Little Bassoon Big Bassoon
Triple Bassoon Little Black Cornets
Shrill White Cornets
Horns Sackbuts Trombones
Green Hunting Horns Reeds
Bagpipes
Bombardons Timbals
Drum Bass Drum
>■ Grand Organs
ec
<
ACT I
♦
♦
<£> SCENE 1
00
Father Ubu, Mother Ubu.
FATHER UBU: S h i t r !
MOTHER UBU: Well, that's a fine way to talk, Father Ubu. What a pigheaded
ass you are!
FATHER UBU: I don't know what keeps me from bouncing your head off the
wall, Mother Ubu!
MOTHER UBU: It's not my head you ought to be cracking, Father Ubu.
FATHER UBU: By my green candle, I don't know what you're talking about.
MOTHER UBU: What's this, Father Ubu, you mean to tell me you're satisfied
with the way things are?
FATHER UBU: By my green candle, shitr, madam, certainly I'm satisfied with
the way things are. After all, aren't I Captain of the Dragoons, con­
fidential adviser to King Wenceslas, decorated with the order of the Red
Eagle of Poland, and ex-King of Aragon—what more do you want?
MOTHER UBU: What's this! After having been King of Aragon you're satisfied
with leading fifty-odd flunkies armed with cabbage-cutters to parades?
When you could just as well have the crown of Poland replace the crown
of Aragon on your big fat nut?
FATHER UBU: Ah! Mother Ubu I don't know what you're talking about.
MOTHER UBU: You're so stupid!
FATHER UBU: By my green candle, King Wenceslas is still very much alive;
and even if he does die he's still got hordes of children, hasn't he?
MOTHER UBU: What's stopping you from chopping up his whole family and
putting yourself in their place?
FATHER UBU: Ah! Mother Ubu, you're doing me an injustice, and I'll stick
you in your stewpot in a minute.
MOTHER UBU: Ha! Poor wretch, if I were stuck in the pot who'd sew up the
seat of your pants?
FATHER UBU: Oh, really! And what of it? Don't I have an ass like everyone
else?
MOTHER UBU: If I were you, I'd want to install that ass on a throne. You could
get any amount of money, eat sausages all the time, and roll around the
streets in a carriage.
FATHER UBU: If I were king I'd have them build me a big helmet just like the
one I had in Aragon which those Spanish swine had the nerve to steal a
from me. ^
MOTHER UBU: You could also get yourself an umbrella and a big cape which g
would reach to your heels. +
FATHER UBU: Ah! that does it! I succumb to temptation. That crock of shitr, *
that shitr of crock, if I ever run into him in a dark alley, I'll give him a bad °°
fifteen minutes.
MOTHER UBU: Ah! Fine, Father Ubu, at last you're acting like a real man.
FATHER UBU: Oh, no! Me, the Captain of the Dragoons slaughter the King of
Poland! Better far to die!
MOTHER UBU (aside): Oh, shitr! (Aloud.) So, then, you want to stay as poor as
a churchmouse, Father Ubu?
FATHER UBU: Zounds, by my green candle, I'd rather be as poor as a starving,
good rat than as rich as a wicked, fat cat.
MOTHER UBU: And the helmet? And the umbrella? And the big cape?
FATHER UBU: And what about them, Mother Ubu?
He leaves, slamming the door.
MOTHER UBU (alone): Crap, shitr, it's hard to get him started, but, crap, shitr,
I think I've stirred him up. With the help of God and of myself, perhaps
in eight days I'll be Queen of Poland.

SCENE 2

A room in Father Uhus house, with a splendidly laid table.

Father Ubu, Mother Ubu.
MOTHER UBU: So! Our guests are very late.
 FATHER UBU: Yes, by my green candle, Fm dying of hunger. Mother Ubu,
you're really ugly today. Is it because company's coming?
MOTHER UBU (shrugging her shoulders): Shitr!
FATHER UBU (grabbing a roast chicken): Gad, Fm hungry; Fm going to have a
piece of this bird. It's a chicken, I think. Not bad at all.
MOTHER UBU: What are you doing, you swine? What will be left for our
guests?
FATHER UBU: There will be plenty left for them. I won't touch another thing.
Mother Ubu, go to the window and see if our guests are coming.
MOTHER UBU (going): I don't see anything.
Meanwhile, Father Ubu takes a piece of veal
Ah, here come Captain Bordure and his boys. What are you eating now,
Father Ubu?
FATHER UBU: Nothing, a little veal.
y MOTHER UBU: Oh! the veal! the veal! The ox! He's eaten the veal! Help, help!
ec FATHER UBU: By my green candle, Fll scratch your eyes out.
— The door opens.
♦
00
SCENE 3
Father Ubu, Mother Ubu, Captain Bordure and his followers.
MOTHER UBU: Good day, gentlemen; we've been anxiously awaiting you. Sit
down.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Good day, madam. Where's Father Ubu?
FATHER UBU: Here I am, here I am! Good lord, by my green candle, I'm fat
enough, aren't I?
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Good day, Father Ubu. Sit down, boys.
They all sit.
FATHER UBU: Oof, a little more, and Fd have busted my chair.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Well, Mother Ubu! What have you got that's good today?
MOTHER UBU: Here's the menu.
FATHER UBU: Oh! That interests me.
MOTHER UBU: Polish soup, roast ram, veal, chicken, chopped dog's liver,
turkey's ass, charlotte russe . . .
FATHER UBU: Hey, that's plenty, I should think. You mean there's more?
MOTHER UBU (continuing): Frozen pudding, salad, fruits, dessert, boiled
beef, Jerusalem artichokes, cauliflower a la shitr.
FATHER UBU: Hey! Do you think Fm the Emperor of China, to give all that
away?
MOTHER UBU: Don't listen to him, he's feeble-minded.
FATHER UBU: Ah! I'll sharpen my teeth on your shanks.
MOTHER UBU: Try this instead, Father Ubu. Here's the Polish soup.
FATHER UBU: Crap, is that lousy!
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Hmm—it isn't very good, at that.
MOTHER UBU: What do you want, you bunch of crooks!
FATHER UBU (striking his forehead): Wait, Fve got an idea. I'll be right back.
He leaves.
MOTHER UBU: Let's try the veal now, gentlemen.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: It's very good—I'm through.
MOTHER UBU: To the turkey's ass, next.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Delicious, delicious! Long live Mother Ubu!
ALL: Long live Mother Ubu!
FATHER UBU (returning): And you will soon be shouting long live Father Ubu.
(He has a toilet brush in his hand, and he throws it on the festive board.) a
MOTHER UBU: Miserable creature, what are you up to now? ^
FATHER UBU: Try a little. g
Several try it, and fall, poisoned. t
Mother Ubu, pass me the roast ram chops, so that I can serve them. <r>
00
MOTHER UBU: Here they are.
FATHER UBU: Everyone out! Captain Bordure, I want to talk to you.
THE OTHERS: But we haven't eaten yet.
FATHER UBU: What's that, you haven't eaten yet? Out, out, everyone out! Stay
here, Bordure.
Nobody moves.
You haven't gone yet? By my green candle, I'll give you your ram chops.
(He begins to throw them.)
ALL: Oh! Ouch! Help! Woe! Help! Misery! I'm dead!
FATHER UBU: Shitr, shitr, shitr! Outside! I want my way!
ALL: Everyone for himself! Miserable Father Ubu! Traitor! Meanie!
FATHER UBU: Ah! They've gone. I can breathe again—but I've had a rotten
dinner. Come on, Bordure.
They go out with Mother Ubu.

SCENE 4

Father Ubu, Mother Ubu, Captain Bordure.

FATHER UBU: Well, now, Captain, have you have a good dinner?
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Very good, sir, except for the shitr.
FATHER UBU: Oh, come now, the shitr wasn't bad at all.
 MOTHER UBU: Chacun a son gout.
FATHER UBU: Captain Bordure, Fve decided to make you Duke of Lithuania.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Why, I thought you were miserably poor, Father Ubu.
FATHER UBU: If you choose, Fll be King of Poland in a few days.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: You're going to kill Wenceslas?
FATHER UBU: He's not so stupid, the idiot; he's guessed it.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: If it's a question of killing, Wenceslas, Fm for it. Fm his
mortal enemy, and I can answer for my men.
FATHER UBU (throwing his arms around him): Oh! Oh! How I love you,
Bordure.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Ugh, you stink, Father Ubu. Don't you ever wash?
FATHER UBU: Rarely.
MOTHER UBU: Never!
FATHER UBU: I'll stamp on your toes.
£ MOTHER UBU: Big shitr!
< FATHER UBU: All
right, Bordure, that's all for now; but, by my green candle, I
4 swear on Mother Ubu to make you Duke of Lithuania.
* MOTHER UBU: B u t . . .
o
0
FATHER UBU: Be quiet, my sweet child
They go out.

SCENE 5

Father Ubu, Mother Ubu, a messenger.

FATHER UBU: Sir, what do you want? Beat it, you're boring me.
THE MESSENGER: Sir, the king summons you.
He leaves.
FATHER UBU: Oh, shitr! Great Jumping Jupiter, by my green candle, Fve
been discovered; they'll cut my head off, alas! alas!
MOTHER UBU: What a spineless clod! And just when time's getting short.
FATHER UBU: Oh, I've got an idea: I'll say that it was Mother Ubu and
Bordure.
MOTHER UBU: You fat Ubu, if you do that. ..
FATHER UBU: I'm off right now.
He leaves.
MOTHER UBU (running after him): Oh, Father Ubu, Father Ubu, Fll give you
some sausage!
She leaves.
FATHER UBU (from the wings): Oh, shitr! You're a prize sausage yourself.
 SCENE 6

The palace.
King Wenceslas, surrounded by his officers; Captain Bordure; the king's
sons, Boleslas, Ladislas, and Bougrelas; and Father Ubu.
FATHER UBU (entering): Oh! You know, it wasn't me, it was Mother Ubu and
Bordure.
KING WENCESLAS: What's the matter with you, Father Ubu?
CAPTAIN BORDURE: He's drunk.
KING WENCESLAS: So was I, this morning.
FATHER UBU: Yes, I'm potted, because I've drunk too much French wine.
KING WENCESLAS: Father Ubu, I desire to recompense your numerous ser­
vices as Captain of the Dragoons, and I'm going to make you Count of
Sandomir today.
FATHER UBU: Oh, Mr. Wenceslas, I don't know how to thank you.
KING WENCESLAS: Don't thank me, Father Ubu, and don't forget to appear D
tomorrow morning at the big parade. .?
FATHER UBU: I'll be there, but be good enough to accept this toy whistle. (He #
presents the king with a toy whistle.) ♦
KING WENCESLAS: What can I do with a toy whistle at my age? I'll give it to S
Bougrelas.
BOUGRELAS: What an idiot Father Ubu is!
FATHER UBU: And now I'll scram. (He falls as he turns around.) Oh! Ouch!
Help! By my green candle, I've split my gut and bruised my butt!
KING WENCESLAS (helping him up): Did you hurt yourself, Father Ubu?
FATHER UBU: Yes, I certainly did, and I'll probably die soon. What will
become of Mother Ubu?
KING WENCESLAS: We shall provide for her upkeep.
FATHER UBU: Your kindness is unparalleled. (He leaves.) But you'll be slaugh­
tered just the same, King Wenceslas.

SCENE 7

Father Vbus house.

Giron, Pile, Cotice, Father Ubu, Mother Ubu, Conspirators and Soldiers,
Captain Bordure.
FATHER UBU: Well, my good friends, it's about time we discussed the plan of
the conspiracy. Let each one give his advice. First of all, I'll give mine, if
you'll permit me.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Speak, Father Ubu.
FATHER UBU: Very well, my friends, I'm in favor of simply poisoning the king
 by slipping a little arsenic in his lunch. At the first nibble he'll drop dead,
and then Fll be king.
ALL: How base!
FATHER UBU: What's that? You don't like my suggestion? Let Bordure give
his.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Fm of the opinion that we should give him one good
stroke of the sword and slice him in two, lengthwise.
ALL: Hooray! How noble and valiant.
FATHER UBU: And what if he kicks you? I remember now that he always puts
on iron shoes, which hurt a great deal, for parades. If I had any sense Fd
go off and denounce you for dragging me into this dirty mess, and I think
he'd give me plenty of money.
MOTHER UBU: Oh! The traitor, the coward, the villain, and sneak.
ALL: Down with Father Ubu!
^ FATHER UBU: Gentlemen, keep calm, or Fll get mad. In any case, I agree to
J£ stick out my neck for you. Bordure, I put you in charge of slicing the king
< in half.
t CAPTAIN BORDURE: Wouldn't it be better to throw ourselves on the king all
^ together, screaming and yelling? That way we might win the troops to
05
our side.
FATHER UBU: All right, then. I'll attempt to tread on his toes; he'll protest, and
then I'll say, SHITR, and at this signal you'll all throw yourselves on him.
MOTHER UBU: Yes, and as soon as he's dead you'll take his scepter and crown.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: And I'll pursue the royal family with my men.
FATHER UBU: Yes, and be extra sure that you catch young Bougrelas.
They go out
(Running after them and bringing them back.) Gentlemen, we have for­
gotten an indispensable ceremony: we must swear to fight bravely.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: How are we going to do that? We don't have a priest.
FATHER UBU: Mother Ubu will take his place.
ALL: Very well, so be it.
FATHER UBU: Then you really swear to kill the king?
ALL: Yes, we swear it. Long live Father Ubu!

ACT II
SCENE 1

The palace.
King Wenceslas, Queen Rosemonde, Boleslas, Ladislas, and Bougrelas.
KING WENCESLAS: Mr. Bougrelas, you were very impertinent this morning
 with Mr. Ubu, knight of my orders and Count of Sandomir. That's why
I'm forbidding you to appear at my parade.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: But, Wenceslas, you need your whole family around
you to protect you.
KING WENCESLAS: Madam, I never retract my commands. You weary me
with your chatter.
BOUGRELAS: It shall be as you desire, my father.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Sire, have you definitely decided to attend this parade?
KING WENCESLAS: Why shouldn't I, madam?
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: For the last time, didn't I tell you that I dreamed that I
saw you being knocked down by a mob of his men and thrown into the
Vistula, and an eagle just like the one in the arms of Poland placing the
crown on his head?
KING WENCESLAS: On whose?
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: On Father Ubu's. 5
KING WENCESLAS: What nonsense! Count de Ubu is a very fine gentleman g>
who would let himself be torn apart by horses in my service. 2
QUEEN ROSEMONDE and BOUGRELAS: What a delusion! t
KING WENCESLAS: Be quiet, you little ape. And as for you, madam, just to eg
show you how little I fear Mr. Ubu, I'll go to the parade just as I am,
without sword or armor.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Fatal imprudence! I shall never see you alive again.
KING WENCESLAS: Come along, Ladislas, come along, Boleslas.
They go out. Queen Rosemonde and Bougrelas go to the window.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE and BOUGRELAS: May God and holy Saint Nicholas
protect you!
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Bougrelas, come to the chapel with me to pray for your
father and your brothers.

SCENE 2

The parade grounds.

The Polish Army, King Wenceslas, Boleslas, Ladislas, Father Ubu, Captain
Bordure and his men, Giron, Pile, Cotice.
KING WENCESLAS: Noble Father Ubu, accompany me with your companions
while I inspect the troops.
FATHER UBU (to his men): On your toes, boys. (To the king.) Coming, sir,
coming.
Ubu s men surround the king.
KING WENCESLAS: Ah! Here is the Dantzick Horseguard Regiment. Aren't
they magnificent!
 FATHER UBU: You really think so? They look rotten to me. Look at this one.
(To the soldier.) When did you last shave, varlet?
KING WENCESLAS: But this soldier is absolutely impeccable. What's the mat­
ter with you, Father Ubu?
FATHER UBU: Take that! (He stamps on his foot)
KING WENCESLAS: Wretch!
FATHER UBU: Shitr! Come on, men!
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Hooray! Charge!
They all hit the king; a Palotin explodes.
KING WENCESLAS: Oh! Help! Holy Mother, I'm dead.
BOLESLAS (to Ladislas): What's going on? Let's draw.
FATHER UBU: Ah, I've got the crown! To the others, now.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: After the traitors!
The princes flee, pursued by all.
>-
< SCENE 3

i Queen Rosemonde and Bougrelas.

2£ QUEEN ROSEMONDE: At last I can begin to relax.
BOUGRELAS: You've no reason to be afraid.
A frightful din is heard from outside.
Oh! What's this I see? My two brothers pursued by Father Ubu and his men.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Oh, my God! Holy Mother, they're losing, they're los­
ing ground!
BOUGRELAS: The whole army is following Father Ubu. I don't see the king.
Horror! Help!
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: There's Boleslas, dead! He's been shot.
BOUGRELAS: Hey! Defend yourself! Hooray, Ladislas!
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Oh! He's surrounded.
BOUGRELAS: He's finished. Bordure's just sliced him in half like a sausage.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Alas! Those madmen have broken into the palace;
they're coming up the stairs.
The din grows louder.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE and BOUGRELAS (on their knees): Oh, God, defend us!
BOUGRELAS: Oh! That Father Ubu! The swine, the wretch, if I could get my
hands on him . . .

SCENE 4

The same. The door is smashed down. Father Ubu and his rabble break
through.
FATHER UBU: So, Bougrelas, what's that you want to do to me?
BOUGRELAS: Great God! I'll defend my mother to the death! The first man to
make a move dies.
FATHER UBU: Oh! Bordure, I'm scared. Let me out of here.
A SOLDIER {advancing): Give yourself up, Bougrelas!
BOUGRELAS: Here, scum, take that! {He splits his skull)
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Hold your ground, Bougrelas; hold your ground!
SEVERAL {advancing): Bougrelas, we promise to let you go.
BOUGRELAS: Good-for-nothings, sots, turncoats! {He swings his sword and
kills them all)
FATHER UBU: I'll win out in the end!
BOUGRELAS: Mother, escape by the secret staircase.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: And what about you, my son? What about you?
BOUGRELAS: I'll follow you. 3

FATHER UBU: Try to catch the queen. Oh, there she goes. As for you, you ^
little . . . {He approaches Bougrelas.) J
BOUGRELAS: Great God! Here is my vengeance! {With a terrible blow of his +
sword he rips open Father Ubus paunch-protector.) Mother, I'm coming! ♦
He disappears down the secret staircase. °>

SCENE 5

A cave in the mountains.

Young Bougrelas enters, followed by Queen Rosemonde.
BOUGRELAS: We'll be safe here.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Yes, I think so. Bougrelas, help me! {She falls to the
snow.)
BOUGRELAS: What's the matter, Mother?
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Believe me, I'm very sick, Bougrelas. I don't have more
than two hours to live.
BOUGRELAS: What do you mean? Has the cold got you?
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: How can I bear up against so many blows? The king
massacred, our family destroyed, and you, the representative of the most
noble race that has ever worn a sword, forced to flee into the mountains
like a common brigand.
BOUGRELAS: And by whom, O Lord, by whom? A vulgar fellow like Father
Ubu, an adventurer coming from no one knows where, a vile blackguard,
a shameless vagabond! And when I think that my father decorated him
and made him a count and that the next day this low-bred dog had the
nerve to raise his hand against him.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: Oh, Bougrelas! When I remember how happy we were
before this Father Ubu came! But now, alas! All is changed!
BOUGRELAS: What can we do? Let us wait in hope and never renounce our
rights.
QUEEN ROSEMONDE: May your wish be granted, my dear child, but as for me,
I shall never see that happy day.
BOUGRELAS: WhaFs the matter with you? Ah, she pales, she falls. Help me!
But Fm in a desert! Oh, my God! Her heart is stilled forever. She is dead?
Can it be? Another victim for Father Ubu! (He hides his face in his hands,
and weeps.) Oh, my God! How sad it is to have such a terrible vengeance
to fulfill! And Fm only fourteen years old! (He falls down in the throes of a
most extravagant despair.)
Meanwhile, the souls ofWenceslas, Boleslas, Ladislas, and Queen Rose-
monde enter the cave. Their ancestors, accompanying them, fill up the
cave. The oldest goes to Bougrelas and gently awakes him.
Ah! WhaFs this I see? My whole family, all my ancestors . . . how can this be?
THE SHADE: Know, Bougrelas, that during my life I was the Lord Mathias of
Konigsberg, the first king and founder of our house. I entrust our ven­
geance to your hands. (He gives him a large sword.) And may this sword
which I have given you never rest until it has brought about the death of
the usurper.
All vanish, and Bougrelas remains alone, in an attitude of ecstasy.

SCENE 6

The palace.
Father Ubu, Mother Ubu, Captain Bordure.
FATHER UBU: No! Never! I don't want to! Do you want me to ruin myself for
these buffroons?
CAPTAIN BORDURE: But after all, Father Ubu, don't you see that the people
are waiting for the gifts to celebrate your joyous coronation?
MOTHER UBU: If you don't give out meat and gold, you'll be overthrown in
two hours.
FATHER UBU: Meat, yes! Gold, no! Slaughter the three oldest horses—that'll
be good enough for those apes.
MOTHER UBU: Ape, yourself! How did I ever get stuck with an animal like you?
FATHER UBU: Once and for all, Fm trying to get rich; Fm not going to let go of
a cent.
MOTHER UBU: But we've got the whole Polish treasury at our disposal.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Yes, I happen to know that there's an enormous treasure
in the royal chapel; we'll distribute it.
FATHER UBU: Just you dare, you wretch!
CAPTAIN BORDURE: But, Father Ubu, if you don't distribute money to the
people, they'll refuse to pay the taxes.
FATHER UBU: Is that a fact?
MOTHER UBU: Yes, of course!
FATHER UBU: Oh, well, in that case I agree to everything. Withdraw three
million, roast a hundred and fifty cattle and sheep—especially since I'll
have some myself!
They go out

SCENE 7

The palace courtyard full of people.

Father Ubu crowned, Mother Ubu, Captain Bordure, flunkies carrying
meat.
PEOPLE: There's the king! Long live the king! Hooray!
FATHER UBU: {throwing gold): Here, that's for you. It doesn't make me very
happy to give you any money; it's Mother Ubu who wanted me to. At 3
least promise me you'll really pay the taxes. 5
ALL: Yes! Yes! .|
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Look how they're fighting over that gold, Mother Ubu.
What a battle! ♦
i>
MOTHER UBU: It's really awful. Ugh! There's one just had his skull split open. o>
FATHER UBU: What a beautiful sight! Bring on more gold.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: How about making them race for it?
FATHER UBU: Good idea! {To the people.) My friends, take a look at this chest
of gold. It contains three hundred thousand Polish coins, of the purest
gold, guaranteed genuine. Let those who wish to complete for it assem­
ble at the end of the courtyard. The race will begin when I wave my
handkerchief, and the first one to get here wins the chest. As for those
who don't win, they will share this other chest as a consolation prize.
ALL: Yes! Long live Father Ubu! What a king! We never had anything like
this in the days of Wenceslas.
FATHER UBU {to Mother Ubu> with joy): Listen to them!
All the people line up at the end of the courtyard.
One, two, three! Ready?
ALL: Yes! Yes!
FATHER UBU: Set! Go!
They start, falling all over one another. Cries and tumult.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: They're coming! They're coming!
FATHER UBU: Look! The leader's losing ground.
MOTHER UBU: No, he's going ahead again.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: He's losing, he's losing! He's lost! The other one won.
ALL: Long live Michael Federovitch! Long live Michael Federovitch!
 MICHAEL FEDEROVITCH: Sire, I don't know how to thank your Majesty
FATHER UBU: Think nothing of it, my dear friend. Take your money home
with you, Michael; and you others, share the rest—each take a piece
until they're all gone.
ALL: Long live Michael Federovitch! Long live Father Ubu!
FATHER UBU: And you, my friends, come and eat! I open the gates of the
palace to you—may you do honor to my table!
PEOPLE: Let's go in, let's go in! Long live Father Ubu! He's the noblest
monarch of them all!
They go into the palace. The noise of the orgy is audible throughout the
night The curtain falls.

ACT HI
SCENE 1

Jj The palace.
< Father Ubu, Mother Ubu.
t FATHER UBU: By my green candle, here I am king of this country, I've already
QQ got a fine case of indigestion, and they're going to bring me my big
05
helmet.
MOTHER UBU: What's it made out of, Father Ubu? Even if we are sitting on
the throne, we have to watch the pennies.
FATHER UBU: Madame my wife, it's made out of sheepskin with a clasp and
with laces made out of dogskin.
MOTHER UBU: That's very extraordinary, but it's even more extraordinary that
we're here on the throne.
FATHER UBU: How right you are, Mother Ubu.
MOTHER UBU: We owe quite a debt to the Duke of Lithuania.
FATHER UBU: Who's that?
MOTHER UBU: Why, Captain Bordure.
FATHER UBU: If you please, Mother Ubu, don't speak to me about that buf-
froon. Now that I don't need him any more, he can go whistle for his
dukedom.
MOTHER UBU: You're making a big mistake, Father Ubu; he's going to turn
against you.
FATHER UBU: Well, now, the poor little fellow has my deepest sympathy, but
I'm not going to worry about him any more than about Bougrelas.
MOTHER UBU: Ha! You think you've seen the last of Bougrelas, do you?
FATHER UBU: By my financial sword, of course I have! What do you think that
fourteen-year-old midget is going to do to me?
MOTHER UBU: Father Ubu, pay attention to what I'm going to say to you.
Believe me, you ought to be nice to Bougrelas to get him on your side.
FATHER UBU: Do you think Fm made of money? Well, Fm not! You've
already made me waste twenty-two million.
MOTHER UBU: Have it your own way, Father Ubu; hell roast you alive.
FATHER UBU: Fine! You'll be in the pot with me.
MOTHER UBU: For the last time, listen to me: Fm sure that young Bougrelas
will triumph, because he has right on his side.
FATHER UBU: Oh, crap! Doesn't the wrong always get you more than the right?
Ah, you do me an injustice, Mother Ubu, Fll chop you into little pieces.
Mother Ubu runs away, pursued by Father Ubu.

SCENE 2

The Great Hall of the palace.

Father Ubu, Mother Ubu, Officers and Soldiers; Giron, Pile, Cotice, Nobles
in chains, Financiers, Magistrates, Clerks.
FATHER UBU: Bring forward the Nobles' money box and the Nobles' hook D
and the Nobles' knife and the Nobles' book! And then bring forward the .c?
Nobles. *
Nobles are brutally pushed forward. ♦
MOTHER UBU: For goodness' sakes, control yourself, Father Ubu. o
FATHER UBU: I have the honor to announce to you that in order to enrich the
kingdom I shall annihilate all the Nobles and grab their property.
NOBLES: How awful! To the rescue, people and soldiers!
FATHER UBU: Bring forward the first Noble and hand me the Nobles' hook.
Those who are condemned to death, I will drop down the trap door.
They will fall into the Pig-Pinching Cellars and the Money Vault, where
they will be disembrained. (To the Noble.) Who are you, buffroon?
THE NOBLE: Count of Vitebsk.
FATHER UBU: What's your income?
THE NOBLE: Three million rixthalers.
FATHER UBU: Condemned! (He seizes him with the hook and drops him down
the trap door.)
MOTHER UBU: What vile savagery!
FATHER UBU: Second Noble, who are you?
The Noble doesnt reply.
Answer, buffroon!
THE NOBLE: Grand Duke of Posen.
FATHER UBU: Excellent! Excellent! Fll not trouble you any longer. Down the
trap. Third Noble, who are you? You're an ugly one.
THE NOBLE: Duke of Courland, and of the cities of Riga, Reval, and the
Mitau.
FATHER UBU: Very good! Very good! Anything else?
 THE NOBLE: That's all.
FATHER UBU: Well, down the trapdoor, then. Fourth Noble, who are you?
THE NOBLE: The Prince of Podolia.
FATHER UBU: What's your income?
THE NOBLE: Fm bankrupt.
FATHER UBU: For that nasty word, into the trapdoor with you. Fifth Noble,
who are you?
THE NOBLE: Margrave of Thorn, Palatin of Polack.
FATHER UBU: That doesn't sound like very much. Nothing else?
THE NOBLE: It was enough for me.
FATHER UBU: Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. Down the trapdoor.
What's the matter with you, Mother Ubu?
MOTHER UBU: You're too ferocious, Father Ubu.
FATHER UBU: Please! Fm working! And now Fm going to have MY list of MY
* property read to me. Clerk, read MY list of MY property.
< THE CLERK: County of Sandomir.
t FATHER UBU: Start with the big ones.
o THE NOBLE: Princedom of Podolia, Grand Duchy of Posen, Duchy of Cour-
1-1
land, County of Sandomir, County of Vitebsk, Palatinate of Polack, Mar-
graviate of Thorn.
FATHER UBU: Well, go on.
THE NOBLE: That's all.
FATHER UBU: What do you mean, that's all! Oh, very well, then, bring the
Nobles forward. Since Fm not finished enriching myself yet, I'm going to
execute all the Nobles and seize all their estates at once. Let's go; stick
the Nobles in the trapdoor.
The Nobles are pushed into the trapdoor.
Hurry it up, let's go, I want to make some laws now.
SEVERAL: This ought to be a good one.
FATHER UBU: First Fm going to reform the laws, and then we'll proceed to
matters of finance.
MAGISTRATES: We're opposed to any change.
FATHER UBU: Shitr! To begin with, Magistrates will not be paid any more.
MAGISTRATES: What are we supposed to live on? We're poor.
FATHER UBU: You shall have the fines which you will impose and the prop­
erty of those you condemn to death.
A MAGISTRATE: Horrors!
A SECOND: Infamy!
A THIRD: Scandal!
A FOURTH: Indignity!
ALL: We refuse to act as judges under such conditions.
FATHER UBU: Down the trapdoor with the Magistrates!
They struggle in vain.
MOTHER UBU: What are you doing, Father Ubu? Who will dispense justice
now?
FATHER UBU: Why, me! You'll see how smoothly it'll go.
MOTHER UBU: I can just imagine.
FATHER UBU: That's enough out of you, buffroonness. And now, gentlemen,
we will proceed to matters of finance.
FINANCIERS: No changes are needed.
FATHER UBU: I intend to change everything. First of all, I'll keep half the taxes
for myself.
FINANCIERS: That's too much.
FATHER UBU: Gentlemen, we will establish a tax of 10 percent on property,
another on commerce and industry, a third on marriages and a fourth on
deaths—fifteen francs each.
FIRST FINANCIER: But that's idiotic, Father Ubu.
SECOND FINANCIER: It's absurd.
THIRD FINANCIER: It's impossible.
FATHER UBU: You're trying to confuse me! Down the trapdoor with the Fi­
nanciers!
The Financiers are pushed in.
MOTHER UBU: But, Father Ubu, what kind of king are you? You're murdering
everybody!
FATHER UBU: Oh, shitr!
MOTHER UBU: No more justice, no more finances!
FATHER UBU: Have no fear, my sweet child; I myself will go from village to
village, collecting the taxes.

SCENE 3

A peasant house in the outskirts of Warsaw. Several peasants are assembled.

A PEASANT (entering): Have you heard the news? The king and the dukes are
all dead, and young Bougrelas has fled to the mountains with his mother.
What's more, Father Ubu has seized the throne.
ANOTHER: That's nothing. I've just come from Cracow where I saw the
bodies of more than three hundred nobles and five hundred magistrates,
and I hear that the taxes are going to be doubled and that Father Ubu is
coming to collect them himself.
ALL: Great heavens! What will become of us? Father Ubu is a horrible beast,
and they say his family is abominable.
 A PEASANT: Listen! Isn't somebody knocking at the door?
A VOICE (outside): Hornsbuggers! Open up, by my shitr, by Saint John, Saint
Peter, and Saint Nicholas! Open up, by my financial sword, by my finan­
cial horns, I'm coming to collect the taxes!
The door is smashed in, and Father Ubu enters, followed by hordes of tax
collectors.

SCENE 4

FATHER UBU: Which one of you is the oldest?

A peasant steps forward.
What's your name?
THE PEASANT: Stanislas Leczinski.
FATHER UBU: Fine, hornsbuggers! Listen to me, since if you don't, these
>- gentlemen here will cut your ears off. Well, are you listening?
* STANISLAS: But your Excellency hasn't said anything yet.
"* FATHER UBU: What do you mean? I've been speaking for an hour. Do you
i think I've come here to preach in the desert?
o STANISLAS: Far be it from my thoughts.
FATHER UBU: I've come to tell you, to order you, and to intimate to you that
you are to produce forthwith and exhibit promptly your finances, unless
you wish to be slaughtered. Let's go, gentlemen, my financial swine,
vehiculize hither the phynancial vehicle.
The vehicle is brought in.
STANISLAS: Sire, we are down on the register for a hundred and fifty-two
rixthalers which we paid six weeks ago come Saint Matthew's Day.
FATHER UBU: That's very possible, but I've changed the government and run
an advertisement in the paper that says you have to pay all present taxes
twice and all those which I will levy later on three times. With this
system, I'll make my fortune quickly; then I'll kill everyone and run away.
PEASANTS: Mr. Ubu, please have pity on us; we are poor, simple citizens.
FATHER UBU: Nuts! Pay up.
PEASANTS: We can't, we've already paid.
FATHER UBU: Pay up! Or I'll stick you in my pocket with torturing and
beheading of the neck and head! Hornsbuggers, I'm the king, aren't I?
ALL: Ah! So that's the way it is! To arms! Long live Bougrelas, by the grace of
God King of Poland and Lithuania!
FATHER UBU: Forward, gentlemen of Finance, do your duty.
A struggle ensues; the house is destroyed, and old Stanislas flees across the
plain, alone. Father Ubu stays to collect the money.
 SCENE 5
A dungeon in the Fortress of Thorn.
Captain Bordure in chains, Father Ubu.
FATHER UBU: So, Citizen, that's the way it is: you wanted me to pay you what I
owed you; then you rebelled because I refused; you conspired and here
you are retired. Horns of finance, Fve done so well you must admire it
yourself.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Take care, Father Ubu. During the five days that you've
been king, you've committed enough murders to damn all the saints in
Paradise. The blood of the king and of the nobles cries for vengeance,
and their cries will be heard.
FATHER UBU: Ah, my fine friend, that's quite a tongue you've got there. I have
no doubt that if you escaped, it would cause all sorts of complications,
but I don't think that the dungeons of Thorn have ever let even one of the
honest fellows go who have been entrusted to them. Therefore I bid you ^
a very good night and I invite you to sleep soundly, although I must say two
the rats dance a very pretty saraband down here. 2
He leaves. The jailers come and bolt all the doors. t
8
SCENE 6

The Palace at Moscow.

The Emperor Alexis and his court, Captain Bordure.
ALEXIS: Infamous adventurer, aren't you the one who helped kill our cousin
Wenceslas?
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Sire, forgive me, I was carried away despite myself by
Father Ubu.
ALEXIS: Oh, what a big liar! Well, what can I do for you?
CAPTAIN BORDURE: Father Ubu imprisoned me on charges of conspiracy; I
succeeded in escaping and I have ridden five days and five nights across
the steppes to come and beg your gracious forgiveness.
ALEXIS: What have you got for me as proof of your loyalty?
CAPTAIN BORDURE: My honor as a knight, and a detailed map of the town of
Thorn. (Kneels and presents his sword to Alexis.)
ALEXIS: I accept your sword, but by Saint George, burn the map. I don't want
to owe my victory to an act of treachery.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: One of the sons of Wenceslas, young Bougrelas, is still
alive. I would do anything to restore him.
ALEXIS: What was your rank in the Polish Army?
CAPTAIN BORDURE: I commanded the fifth regiment of the dragoons of Vilna
and a company of mercenaries in the service of Father Ubu.
ALEXIS: Fine, I appoint you second in command of the tenth regiment of
Cossacks, and woe to you if you betray me. If you fight well, you'll be
rewarded.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: I don't lack courage, Sire.
ALEXIS: Fine, remove yourself from my sight.
He leaves.

SCENE 7

Ubus Council Chamber.

Father Ubu, Mother Ubu, Phynancial Advisers.
FATHER UBU: Gentlemen, the meeting has begun, and see that you keep your
ears open and your mouths shut. First of all, we'll turn to the subject of
finance; then well speak about a little scheme I've thought up to bring
good weather and prevent rain.
AN ADVISER: Very good, Mr. Ubu.
MOTHER UBU: What a stupid fool!
FATHER UBU: Take care, madam of my shitr, I'm not going to stand for your
idiocies much longer. I'd like you to know, gentlemen, that the finances
are proceeding satisfactorily. The streets are mobbed every morning by a
crowd of the local low-life, and my men do wonders with them. In every
direction you can see only burning houses, and people bent under the
weight of our finances.
THE ADVISER: And are the new taxes going well, Mr. Ubu?
MOTHER UBU: Not at all. The tax on marriages has brought in only eleven
cents so far, although Father Ubu chases people everywhere to convince
them to marry.
FATHER UBU: By my financial sword, hornsbuggers, Madame financieress,
I've got ears to speak with and you've a mouth to listen to me with.
Shouts of laughter.
You're mixing me up and it's your fault that I'm making a fool of myself!
But, horn of U b u ! . . .
A messenger enters.
Well, what do you have to say for yourself? Get out of here, you little
monkey, before I pocket you with beheading and twisting of the legs.
MOTHER UBU: There he goes, but he's left a letter.
FATHER UBU: Read it. I don't feel like it, or come to think of it perhaps I can't
read. Hurry up, buffrooness, it must be from Bordure.
MOTHER UBU: Right. He says that the tsar has received him very well, that he's
going to invade your lands to restore Bougrelas, and that you're going to
be killed.
FATHER UBU: Oh! Oh! Fm scared. Fm scared. I bet Fm going to die. Oh, poor
little man that I am! What will become of me, great God? This wicked
man is going to kill me. Saint Anthony and all the saints, protect me, and
Fll give you some phynance and burn some candles for you. Lord, what
will become of me? (He cries and sobs.)
MOTHER UBU: There's only one safe course to follow, Father Ubu.
FATHER UBU: What's that, my love?
MOTHER UBU: War!!!
ALL: Great heavens! What a noble idea!
FATHER UBU: Yes, and I'll be the one to get hurt, as usual.
FIRST ADVISER: Hurry, hurry, let's organize the army.
SECOND: And requisition the provisions.
THIRD: And set up the artillery and the fortresses.
FOURTH: And get up the money for the troops. 3
FATHER UBU: That's enough of that, now, you, or I'll kill you on the spot. I'm ^
not going to spend any money. That's a good one, isn't it! I used to be J
paid to wage war, and now it's being waged at my expense. Wait—by my 4
green candle, let's wage war, since you're so excited about it, but let's not ♦
spend a penny. o
ALL: Hooray for war!

SCENE 8

The camp outside Warsaw.

SOLDIERS and PALOTINS: Long live Poland! Long live Father Ubu!
FATHER UBU: Ah, Mother Ubu, give me my breastplate and my little stick.
Fll soon be so heavy that I won't be able to move even if I'm being
chased.
MOTHER UBU: Pooh, what a coward!
FATHER UBU: Ah! Here's the sword of shitr running away first thing and
there's the financial hook which won't stay put!!! (Drops both.) I'll never
be ready, and the Russians are coming to kill me.
A SOLDIER: Lord Ubu, here's your ear-pick, which you've dropped.
FATHER UBU: I'll kill you with my shitr hook and my gizzard-saw.
MOTHER UBU: How handsome he is with his helmet and his breastplate! He
looks just like an armed pumpkin.
FATHER UBU: Now Fll get my horse. Gentlemen, bring forth the phynancial
horse.
MOTHER UBU: Father Ubu, your horse can't carry you—it's had nothing to eat
for five days and it's about to die.
FATHER UBU: That's a good one! I have to pay twelve cents a day for this sway-
 backed nag and it can't even carry me. You're making fun of me, horn of
Ubu, or else perhaps you're stealing from me?
Mother Ubu blushes and lowers her eyes.
Now bring me another beast, because I'm not going to go on foot,
hornsbuggers!
An enormous horse is brought out.
I'm going to get on. Oops, better sit down before I fall off.
The horse starts to leave.
Stop this beast. Great God, I'm going to fall off and be killed!!!
MOTHER UBU: He's an absolute idiot. There he is up again; no, he's down
again.
FATHER UBU: Horn of Physics, I'm half dead. But never mind, I'm going to
the war and I'll kill everyone. Woe to him who doesn't keep up with me!
I'll put him in my pocket with twisting of the nose and teeth and extrac-
y tion of the tongue.
^ MOTHER UBU: Good luck, Mr. Ubu!
^ FATHER UBU: I forgot to tell you that I'm making you the regent. But I'm
♦ keeping the financial book, so you'd better not try and rob me. I'll leave
o you the Palotin Giron to help you. Farewell, Mother Ubu.
MOTHER UBU: Farewell, Father Ubu. Kill the tsar thoroughly.
FATHER UBU: Of course. Twisting of the nose and teeth, extraction of the
tongue and insertion of the ear-pick.
The army marches away to the sound of fanfares.
MOTHER UBU (alone): Now that that big fat booby has gone, let's look to our
own affairs, kill Bougrelas, and grab the treasure.

ACT IV
SCENE 1

The Royal Crypt in the Cathedral at Warsaw.

MOTHER UBU: Where on earth is that treasure? None of these slabs sounds
hollow. I've counted thirteen slabs beyond the tomb of Ladislas the Great
along the length of the wall, and I've found nothing. Someone seems to
have deceived me. What's this? The stone sounds hollow here. To work,
Mother Ubu. Courage, we'll have it pried up in a minute. It's stuck fast.
The end of this financial hook will do the trick. There! There's the gold
in the middle of the royal bones. Into the sack with it. Oh! What's that
noise? Can there still be someone alive in these ancient vaults? No, it's
nothing; let's hurry up. Let's take everything. This money will look better
in the light of day than in the middle of these graves. Back with the stone.
What's that! There's that noise again! There's something not quite right
 about this place. I'll get the rest of this gold some other time—I'll come
back tomorrow.
A VOICE (coming from the tomb of John Sigismund): Never, Mother Ubu!
Mother Ubu runs away terrified, through the secret door, carrying the
stolen gold.

SCENE 2

The Main Square in Warsaw.

Bougrelas and his men, People and Soldiers.
BOUGRELAS: Forward, my friends! Long live Wenceslas and Poland! That old
blackguard Father Ubu is gone; only that old witch Mother Ubu and her
Palotin are left. I'm going to march at your head and restore my father's
house to the throne.
ALL: Long live Bougrelas!
BOUGRELAS: And we'll abolish all taxes imposed by that horrible Father Ubu.
ALL: Hooray! Forward! To the palace, and death to the Ubus!
BOUGRELAS: Look! There's Mother Ubu coming out on the porch with her
guards!
MOTHER UBU: What can I do for you, gentlemen? Ah! It's Bougrelas.
The crowd throws stones.
FIRST GUARD: They've broken all the windows.
SECOND GUARD: Saint George, I'm done for.
THIRD GUARD: Hornsass, I'm dying.
BOUGRELAS: Throw some more stones, my friends.
PALOTIN GIRON: Ho! So that's the way it is! (He draws his sword and leaps into
the crowd, performing horrible slaughter.)
BOUGRELAS: Have at you! Defend yourself, you cowardly pisspot!
They fight.
GIRON: I die!
BOUGRELAS: Victory, my friends! Now for Mother Ubu!
Trumpets are heard.
Ah! The Nobles are arriving. Run and catch the old hag.
ALL: She'll do until we can strangle the old bandit himself!
Mother Ubu runs away pursued by all the Poles. Rifle shots and a hail of
stones.

SCENE 3

The Polish Army marching in the Ukraine.

FATHER UBU: Hornsass, godslegs, cowsheads! We're about to perish, because
 we're dying of thirst and we're tired. Sir Soldier, be so good as to carry our
financial helmet, and you, Sir Lancer, take charge of the shitr-pick and
the physic-stick to unencumber our person, because, let me repeat, we
are tired.
The soldiers obey.
PILE: Ho, my Lord! It's surprising that there are no Russians to be seen.
FATHER UBU: It's regrettable that the state of our finances does not permit us
to have a vehicle commensurate with our grandeur; for, for fear of de­
molishing our steed, we have gone all the way on foot, leading our horse
by the bridle. When we get back to Poland, we shall devise, by means of
our physical science and with the aid of the wisdom of our advisers, a way
of transporting our entire army by wind.
COTICE: Here comes Nicholas Rensky, in a great hurry.
FATHER UBU: What's the matter with him?
RENSKY: All is lost. Sir, the Poles have revolted, Giron has been killed, and
Mother Ubu has fled to the mountains.
FATHER UBU: Bird of night, beast of misery, owl's underwear! Where did you
hear this nonsense? What won't you be saying next! Who's responsible
for this? Bougrelas, I'll bet. Where'd you just come from?
RENSKY: From Warsaw, noble Lord.
FATHER UBU: Child of my shitr, if I believed you I would retreat with the
whole army. But, Sir Child, you've got feathers in your head instead of
brains and you've been dreaming nonsense. Run off to the outposts, my
child; the Russians can't be far, and we'll soon be flourishing our arms,
shitr, phynancial and physical.
GENERAL LASCY: Father Ubu, can't you see the Russians down there on the
plain?
FATHER UBU: It's true, the Russians! A fine mess this is. If only there were still
a way to run out, but there isn't; we're up here on a hill and we'll be
exposed to attack on all sides.
THE ARMY: The Russians! The enemy!
FATHER UBU: Let's go, gentlemen, into our battle positions. We will remain
on top of the hill and under no circumstances commit the idiocy of
descending. I'll keep myself in the middle like a living fortress, and all
you others will gravitate around me. I advise you to load your guns with
as many bullets as they will hold, because eight bullets can kill eight
Russians and that will be eight Russians the less. We will station the
infantry at the foot of the hill to receive the Russians and kill them a little,
the cavalry in back of them so that they can throw themselves into the
confusion, and the artillery around this windmill here so that they can
fire into the whole mess. As for us, we will take up our position inside the
windmill and fire through the window with the phynancial pistol, and
 bar the door with the physical stick, and if anyone still tries to get in, let
him beware of the shitr-hook!!!
OFFICERS: Your orders, Lord Ubu, shall be executed.
FATHER UBU: Fine, we'll win, then. What time is it?
GENERAL LASCY: It's eleven o'clock in the morning.
FATHER UBU: In that case, let's have lunch, because the Russians won't attack
before midday. Tell the soldiers, my lord General, to take a crap and
strike up the Financial Song.
Lascy withdraws.
SOLDIERS and PALOTINS: Long live Father Ubu, our great Financier! Ting,
ting, ting; ting, ting, ting; ting, ting, ta-ting!
FATHER UBU: Oh, how noble—I adore gallantry!
A Russian cannonball breaks one of the arms of the windmill
Aaaaah! I'm frightened. Lord God, I'm dead! No, no, I'm not. 3

I
SCENE 4 2
The same, a Captain and the Russian Army. i
A CAPTAIN (entering): Lord Ubu, the Russians are attacking. o
FATHER UBU: All right, all right, what do you want me to do about it? I didn't
tell them to attack. Nevertheless, gentlemen of Finance, let us prepare
ourselves for battle.
GENERAL LASCY: Another cannonball!
FATHER UBU: Ah! That's enough of that! It's raining lead and steel around
here, and it might put a dent in our precious person. Down we go.
They all run away. The battle has just begun. They disappear into the
clouds of smoke at the foot of the hill.
A RUSSIAN (thrusting): For God and the tsar!
RENSKY: Ah! I'm dead.
FATHER UBU: Forward! As for you, sir, I'll get you because you've hurt me, do
you hear? You drunken sot, with your popless little popgun.
THE RUSSIAN: Ah! I'll show you! (He fires.)
FATHER UBU: Ah! Oh! I'm wounded, I'm shot full of holes, I'm perforated,
I'm done for, I'm buried. And now I've got you! (He tears him to pieces).
Just try that again.
GENERAL LASCY: Forward, charge, across the trench! Victory is ours!
FATHER UBU: Do you really think so? So far my brow has felt more lumps
than laurels.
RUSSIAN KNIGHTS: Hooray! Make way for the tsar!
Enter the tsar, accompanied by Captain Bordure, in disguise.
A POLE: Great God! Every man for himself, there's the tsar!
ANOTHER: Oh, my God, he's crossed the trench.
ANOTHER: Bing! Bang! Four more chopped up by that big ox of a lieutenant.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: So! The rest of you won't surrender, eh? All right, your
time has come, John Sobiesky! (He chops him up.) Now for the others!
(He massacres Poles.)
FATHER UBU: Forward, my friends! Capture that rat! Make mincemeat of the
Muscovites! Victory is ours! Long live the Red Eagle!
ALL: Charge! Hooray! Godslegs! Capture the big ox.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: By Saint George, they've got me.
FATHER UBU: Ah! it's you, Bordure! How are you, my friend? I, and all the
company, are very happy to welcome you again. I'm going to broil you
over a slow fire. Gentlemen of the Finances, light the fire. Oh! Ah! Oh!
I'm dead. I must have been hit with a cannonball at least. Oh! My God,
forgive my sins. Yes, it's definitely a cannonball.
CAPTAIN BORDURE: It was a pistol with a blank cartridge.
FATHER UBU: Oh, you're making fun of me! All right, into the pocket you go!
(He flings himself upon him and tears him to pieces.)
GENERAL LASCY: Father Ubu, we're advancing on all fronts.
FATHER UBU: I can see that. But I can't go on any more, because everyone's
been stepping on my toes. I absolutely have to sit down. Oh, where's my
bottle?
GENERAL LASCY: Go get the tsar's bottle, Father Ubu!
FATHER UBU: Ah! Just what I had in mind. Let's go. Sword of Shitr, do your
duty, and you, financial hook, don't lag behind! As for you, physical stick,
see that you work just as hard and share with the little bit of wood the
honor of massacring, scooping out, and imposing upon the Muscovite
emperor. Forward, my Phynancial Horse! (He throws himself on the tsar.)
A RUSSIAN OFFICER: Look out, Your Majesty!
FATHER UBU: Take that! Oh! Ow! Ah! Goodness me. Ah! Oh, sir, excuse me,
leave me alone. I didn't do it on purpose! (He runs away, pursued by the
tsar.) Holy Mother, that madman is coming after me! Great God, what
shall I do? Ah, I've got that trench ahead of me again. I've got him behind
me and the trench in front of me! Courage! I'm going to close my eyes!
(He jumps the trench. The tsar falls in.)
THE TSAR: God, I've fallen in!
THE POLES: Hooray! The tsar has fallen in!
FATHER UBU: I'm afraid to turn around. Ah! He fell in. That's fine; they've
jumped on him. Let's go, you Poles; swing away; he's a tough one, that
swine! As for me, I can't look. But our prediction has been completely
fulfilled: the physical stick has performed wonders, and without doubt I
 would have been about to have killed him completely, had not an inex­
plicable fear come to combat and annul in us the fruits of our courage.
But we suddenly had to turn tail, and we owe our salvation only to our
skill in the saddle as well as to the sturdy hocks of our Phynancial Horse,
whose rapidity is equaled only by its solidity and whose levitation makes
its reputation, as well as the depth of the trench which located itself so
appropriately under the enemy of us, the presently-before-you Master of
Phynances. That was very nice, but nobody was listening. Oops, there
they go again!
The Russian dragoons charge and rescue the tsar.
GENERAL LASCY: It looks like it's turning into a rout.
FATHER UBU: Now's the time to make tracks. Now then, gentlemen of Po­
land, forward! Or rather, backward!
POLES: Every man for himself!
FATHER UBU: Come on! Let's go! What a big crowd, what a stampede, what a J
mob! How am I ever going to get out of this mess? (He is jostled.) You ^
there, watch your step, or you will sample the boiling rage of the Master g
of Phynances. Ha! There he goes. Now let's get out of here fast, while ♦
Lascy's looking the other way. ♦
He runs off; the tsar and the Russian Army go by, chasing Poles. 2

SCENE 5

A cave in Lithuania. It is snowing.

Father Ubu, Pile, Cotice.
FATHER UBU: Oh, what a bitch of a day! It's cold enough to make the rocks
crack open, and the person of the Master of Phynances finds itself se­
verely damaged.
PILE: Ho! Mr. Ubu, have you recovered from your fright and from your
flight?
FATHER UBU: Well, I'm not frightened any more, but, believe me, I'm still
running.
COTICE (aside): What a turd!
FATHER UBU: Well, Sire Cotice, how's your ear feeling?
COTICE: As well as can be expected, sir, considering how bad it is. I can't get
the bullet out, and consequently the lead is making me tilt.
FATHER UBU: Well, serves you right! You're always looking for a fight. As for
me, I've always demonstrated the greatest valor, and without in any way
exposing myself I massacred four enemies with my own hand, not count­
ing, of course, those who were already dead and whom we dispatched.
COTICE: Do you know what happened to little Rensky, Pile?
PILE: A bullet in his head.
FATHER UBU: As the poppy and the dandelion are scythed in the flower of
their age by the pitiless scythe of the pitiless scyther who scythes pitilessly
their pitiful parts—just so, little Rensky has played the poppy's part: he
fought well, but there were just too many Russians around.
PILE and COTICE: Hey! Sir Ubu!
AN ECHO: Grrrrr!
PILE: What's that? On guard!
FATHER UBU: Oh, no! Not the Russians again! Fve had enough of them. And,
anyway, it's very simple: if they catch me Fll just put them all in my pocket.

SCENE 6

The same. Enter a bear.

COTICE: Ho! Master of Phynances!
FATHER UBU: Oh! What a sweet little doggie! Isn't he cute?
PILE: Watch out! What a huge bear! Hand me my gun!
FATHER UBU: A bear! What a horrible beast! Oh, poor me, Fm going to be
eaten alive. May God protect me! He's coming this way. No, he's got
Cotice. I can breathe again!
The bear jumps on Cotice. Pile attacks him with his sword. Ubu takes
refuge on a high rock.
COTICE: Save me, Pile! Save me! Help, Sir Ubu!
FATHER UBU: Fat chance! Get out of it yourself, my friend; right now I'm
going to recite my Pater Noster. Everyone will be eaten in his turn.
PILE: Fve got him, I'm holding him.
COTICE: Hold him tight, my friend, he's starting to let me go.
FATHER UBU: Sanctificetur nomen tuum.
COTICE: Cowardly lout!
PILE: Oh! It's biting me! O Lord, save us, I'm dead.
FATHER UBU: Fiat voluntas tua!
COTICE: Fve wounded it!
PILE: Hooray! It's bleeding now.
While the Palotins shout, the bear bellows with pain and Ubu continues to
mumble.
COTICE: Hang on, while I find my exploding brass knuckles.
FATHER UBU: Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie.
PILE: Haven't you got it yet? I can't hold on any longer.
FATHER UBU: Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
COTICE: Ah! I've got it.
A resounding explosion; the bear falls dead.
PILE and COTICE: Victory!
FATHER UBU: Sed libera nos a malo. Amen. Is he really dead? Can I come
down now?
PILE (with disgust): Just as you like.
FATHER UBU (coming down): You may be assured that if you are still alive and
if you tread once more the Lithuanian snow, you owe it to the lofty virtue
of the Master of Phynances, who has struggled, broken his back, and
shouted himself hoarse reciting paternosters for your safety, and who has
wielded the spiritual sword of prayer with just as much courage as you
have wielded with dexterity the temporal one of the here-attendant Pal-
otin Cotice's exploding brass knuckles. We have even pushed our devo­
tion further, for we did not hesitate to climb to the top of a very high rock,
so that our prayers had less far to travel to reach heaven.
PILE: Disgusting pig!
FATHER UBU: Oh, you beast! Thanks to me, you've got something to eat. .§
What a belly he has, gentlemen! The Greeks would have been more ^
comfortable in there than in their wooden horse, and we very barely 2
escaped, my dear friends, being able to satisfy ourselves of his interior ♦
capacity with our own eyes. *
CO

PILE: I'm dying of hunger. What can we eat? ^

COTICE: The bear!
FATHER UBU: My poor friends, are you going to eat it completely raw? We
don't have anything to make a fire with.
PILE: What about our flintstones?
FATHER UBU: Ah, that's true. And it seems to me that not far from here there is
a little wood where dry branches may be found. Sire Cotice, go and fetch
some.
Cotice runs off across the snow.
PILE: And now, Sir Ubu, you can go and carve up the bear.
FATHER UBU: Oh, no. It may not be completely dead yet. Since it has already
half-eaten you, and chewed upon all your members, you're obviously the
man to take care of that. I'll go and light the fire while we're waiting for
him to bring the wood.
Pile starts to carve up the bear.
Oh! Watch out! It just moved.
PILE: But Sir Ubu, it's stone cold already.
FATHER UBU: That's a pity. It would have been much better to have had him
hot. We're running the risk of giving the Master of Phynances an attack of
indigestion.
PILE (aside): Disgusting fellow! (Aloud.) Give me a hand, Mr. Ubu; I can't do
everything myself.
FATHER UBU: No, I'm sorry I can't help you. I'm really excessively fatigued.
COTICE (re-entering): What a lot of snow, my friends; anyone would think this
was Castile or the North Pole. Night is beginning to fall. In an hour it'll
be dark. Let's make haste while we can still see.
FATHER UBU: Did you hear that, Pile? Get a move on. In fact, get a move on,
both of you! Skewer the beast, cook the beast—I'm hungry!
PILE: Well, that does it! You'll work or you'll get nothing, do you hear me,
you big hog?
FATHER UBU: Oh! It's all the same to me; I'd just as soon eat it raw; you're the
ones whose stomachs it won't agree with. Anyway, I'm sleepy.
COTICE: What can we expect from him, Pile? Let's cook dinner ourselves.
We just won't give him any, that's all. Or at most we'll throw him a few
bones.
PILE: Good enough. Ah, the fire's catching.
FATHER UBU: Oh, that's very nice. It's getting warm now. But I see Russians
everywhere. My God, what a retreat! Ah! (He falls asleep.)
COTICE: I wonder if Rensky was telling the truth about Mother Ubu being
dethroned. It wouldn't surprise me at all.
PILE: Let's finish cooking supper.
COTICE: No, we've got more important problems. I think it would be a good
idea to inquire into the truth of the news.
PILE: You're right. Should we desert Father Ubu or stay with him?
COTICE: Let's sleep on it; we'll decide tomorrow.
PILE: No—let's sneak off under cover of darkness.
COTICE: Let's go, then.
They go.
SCENE 7

FATHER UBU (talking in his sleep): Ah, Sir Russian Dragoon, watch out, don't
shoot in this direction; there's someone here. Oh, there's Bordure; he
looks mean, like a bear. And there's Bougrelas coming at me! The bear,
the bear! He's right below me; he looks fierce. My God! No, I'm sorry I
can't help you! Go away, Bougrelas! Don't you hear me, you clown?
There's Rensky now, and the tsar. Oh, they're going to beat me up. And
Mother Ubu. Where did you get all that gold? You've stolen my gold, you
miserable witch; you've been ransacking my tomb in Warsaw Cathedral,
under the moon. I've been dead a long time; Bougrelas has killed me and
I've been buried in Warsaw next to Ladislas the Great, and also at Cracow
next to John Sigismund, and also at Thorn in the dungeon with Bordure.
There it is again. Get out of here, you nasty bear! You look like Bordure.
Do you hear, you devilish beast? No, he can't hear me, the Salopins have
 cut his ears off. Disembrain them, devitalize them, cut off their ears,
confiscate their money and drink yourself to death, that's the life of a
Salopin, that's happiness for the Master of Phynances. (He falls silent and
sleeps.)

ACTV
SCENE 1

It is night. Father Ubu is asleep. Enter Mother Ubu, without seeing him. The
stage is in total darkness.
MOTHER UBU: Shelter at last. Fm alone here, which is fine, but what an awful
journey: crossing all Poland in four days! And even before that, every­
thing happened to me at once! As soon as that fat fool left, I went to the
crypt to grab what I could. And right after that, I was almost stoned to
death by that Bougrelas and his madmen. I lost the Palotin Giron, my
knight, who was so stricken by my beauty that he swooned whenever he
saw me, and even, Fve been told, when he didn't see me, which is the
height of passion. He would have let himself be cut in two for my sake,
the poor boy. The proof is that he was cut in four, by Bougrelas. Snip,
snap, snop! I thought Fd die. Right after that, I took to flight, pursued by
the maddened mob. I flee the palace, reach the Vistula, and find all the
bridges guarded. I swim across the river, hoping to escape my persecu­
tors. Nobles come from every direction and chase me. I die a thousand
deaths, surrounded by a ring of Poles, screaming for my blood. Finally I
wriggle out of their clutches, and after four days of running across the
snow of my former kingdom, I reach my refuge here. I haven't had a
thing to eat or drink for four days. Bougrelas was right behind me. . . .
And here I am, safe at last. Oh, Fm nearly dead of cold and exhaustion.
But Fd really like to know what's become of my big buffroon—I mean my
honored spouse. Have I fleeced him! Have I taken his rixthalers! Have I
pulled the wool over his eyes! And his starving phynancial horse: he's not
going to see any oats very soon, either, the poor devil. Oh, what a joke!
But alas! My treasure is lost! It's in Warsaw, and let anybody who wants it
go and get it.
FATHER UBU (starting to wake up): Capture Mother Ubu! Cut off her ears!
MOTHER UBU: Oh, my God! Where am I? Fm losing my mind. Good Lord,
no!
God be praised
I think I can see
Mr. Ubu
Sleeping near me.
Let's show a little sweetness. Well, my fat fellow, did you have a good
sleep?
FATHER UBU: A very bad one! That was a tough bear! A fight of hunger against
toughness, but hunger has completely eaten and devoured the tough­
ness, as you will see when it gets light in here. Do you hear, my noble
Palotins?
MOTHER UBU: What's he babbling about? He seems even stupider than when
he left. What's the matter with him?
FATHER UBU: Cotice, Pile, answer me, by my bag of shitr! Where are you?
Oh, I'm afraid. Somebody did speak. Who spoke? Not the bear, I sup­
pose. Shitr! Where are my matches? Ah! I lost them in the battle.
MOTHER UBU (aside): Let's take advantage of the situation and the darkness
and pretend to be a ghost. We'll make him promise to forgive us our little
pilfering.
FATHER UBU: By Saint Anthony, somebody is speaking! Godslegs! I'll be
damned!
MOTHER UBU (deepening her voice): Yes, Mr. Ubu, somebody is indeed speak­
ing, and the trumpet of the archangel which will call the dead from dust
and ashes on Judgment Day would not speak otherwise! Listen to my stern
voice. It is that of Saint Gabriel who cannot help but give good advice.
FATHER UBU: To be sure!
MOTHER UBU: Don't interrupt me or I'll fall silent, and that will settle your
hash!
FATHER UBU: Oh, buggers! I'll be quiet, I won't say another word. Please go
on, Madame Apparition!
MOTHER UBU: We were saying, Mr. Ubu, that you are a big fat fellow.
FATHER UBU: Very fat, that's true.
MOTHER UBU: Shut up, Goddammit!
FATHER UBU: Oh my! Angels aren't supposed to curse!
MOTHER UBU (aside): Shitr! (Continuing.) You are married, Mr. Ubu?
FATHER UBU: Absolutely. To the Queen of Witches.
MOTHER UBU: What you mean to say is that she is a charming woman.
FATHER UBU: A perfect horror. She has claws all over her; you don't know
where to grab her.
MOTHER UBU: You should grab her with sweetness, Sir Ubu, and if you grab
her thus you will see that Venus herself couldn't be as nice.
FATHER UBU: Who did you say has lice?
MOTHER UBU: You're not listening, Mr. Ubu. Try and keep your ears open
now. (Aside.) We'd better get a move on; it's getting light in here. Mr.
Ubu, your wife is adorable and delicious; she doesn't have a single fault.
FATHER UBU: Ah, you're wrong there: there isn't a single fault that she doesn't
have.
MOTHER UBU: That's enough now. Your wife is not unfaithful to you!
FATHER UBU: I'd like to see someone who could stand making her unfaithful.
She's an absolute harpy!
MOTHER UBU: She doesn't drink!
FATHER UBU: Only since Fve taken the key to the cellar away from her. Before
that, she was drunk by seven in the morning and perfumed herself with
brandy. Now that she perfumes herself with heliotrope, she doesn't smell
so bad any more. Not that I care about that. But now Fm the only one
that can get drunk!
MOTHER UBU: Stupid idiot! Your wife doesn't steal your gold.
FATHER UBU: No, that's peculiar.
MOTHER UBU: She doesn't pinch a cent!
FATHER UBU: As witness our noble and unfortunate Phynancial Horse, who,
not having been fed for three months, has had to undergo the entire
campaign being dragged by the bridle across the Ukraine. He died on the
job, poor beast!
MOTHER UBU: That's all a bunch of lies—you've got a model wife, and you're
a monster.
FATHER UBU: That's all a bunch of truth. My wife's a slut, and you're a
sausage.
MOTHER UBU: Take care, Father Ubu!
FATHER UBU: Oh, that's right, I forgot whom I was talking to. I take it all back.
MOTHER UBU: You killed Wenceslas.
FATHER UBU: That wasn't my fault, actually. Mother Ubu wanted it.
MOTHER UBU: You had Boleslas and Ladislas killed.
FATHER UBU: Too bad for them. They wanted to do me in.
MOTHER UBU: You didn't keep your promise to Bordure, and moreover, you
killed him.
FATHER UBU: I'd rather I ruled Lithuania than he. For the moment, neither of
us is doing it. Certainly you can see that I'm not.
MOTHER UBU: There's only one way you can make up for all your sins.
FATHER UBU: What's that? Fm all ready to become a holy man; I'd like to be a
bishop and have my name on the calendar.
MOTHER UBU: You must forgive Mother Ubu for having sidetracked some of
the funds.
FATHER UBU: What do you think of this: I'll pardon her when she's given
everything back, when she's been soundly thrashed, and when she's
revived my phynancial horse.
MOTHER UBU: He's got that horse on the brain. Ah, Fm lost, day is breaking!
FATHER UBU: Well, I'm happy to know at last for sure that my dear wife steals
from me. Now I have it on the highest authority. Omnis a Deo scientia,
which is to say: omnis, all; a Deo, knowledge; scientia, comes from God.
 That explains this marvel. But Madame Apparition is so silent now!
What can I offer her to revive her? What she said was very entertaining.
But, look, it's daybreak! Ah! Good Lord, by my Phynancial Horse, it's
Mother Ubu!
MOTHER UBU (brazenly): That's not true, and I'm going to excommunicate
you.
FATHER UBU: Ah, you old slut!
MOTHER UBU: Such impiety!
FATHER UBU: That's too much! I can see very well that it's you, you half-witted
hag! What the devil are you doing here?
MOTHER UBU: Giron is dead and the Poles chased me.
FATHER UBU: And the Russians chased me. So two great souls meet again.
MOTHER UBU: Say rather than a great soul has met an ass!
FATHER UBU: Fine, and now it's going to meet this little monster.
(He throws the bear at her.)
MOTHER UBU (falling down crushed beneath the weight of the bear): Oh, great
God! How horrible! I'm dying! I'm suffocating! It's chewing on me! It's
swallowing me! I'm being digested!
FATHER UBU: He's dead, you gargoyle! Oh, wait, perhaps he's not. Lord, he's
not dead, save us. (Climbing back onto his rock.) Pater noster qui e s . . .
MOTHER UBU (disentangling herself): Where did he go?
FATHER UBU: Oh, Lord, there she is again. Stupid creature, there's no way of
getting rid of her. Is that bear dead?
MOTHER UBU: Of course, you stupid ass, he's stone cold. How did he get here?
FATHER UBU (bewildered): I don't know. Oh, yes, I do know. He wanted to eat
Pile and Cotice, and I killed him with one swipe of a Pater Noster.
MOTHER UBU: Pile, Cotice, Pater Noster? What's that all about? He's out of
his mind, my finance!
FATHER UBU: It happened exactly the way I said. And you're an idiot, you
stinkpot!
MOTHER UBU: Describe your campaign to me, Father Ubu.
FATHER UBU: Holy Mother, no! It would take too long. All I know is that
despite my incontestable valor, everybody beat me up.
MOTHER UBU: What, even the Poles?
FATHER UBU: They were shouting: Long live Wenceslas and Bougrelas! I
thought they were going to chop me up. Oh, those madmen! And then
they killed Rensky!
MOTHER UBU: I don't care about that! Did you know that Bougrelas killed
Palotin Giron?
FATHER UBU: I don't care about that! And then they killed poor Lascy!
MOTHER UBU: I don't care about that!
FATHER UBU: Oh, well, in that case, come over here, you old slut! Get down
on your knees before your master. (He grabs her and throws her on her
knees.) You re about to suffer the extreme penalty.
MOTHER UBU: Ho, ho, Mr. Ubu!
FATHER UBU: Oh! Oh! Oh! Are you all through now? I'm just about to begin:
twisting of the nose, tearing out of the hair, penetration of the little bit of
wood into the ears; extraction of the brain by the heels, laceration of the
posterior, partial or perhaps even total suppression of the spinal marrow
(assuming that would make her character less spiny), not forgetting the
puncturing of the swimming bladder and finally the grand re-enacted
decollation of John the Baptist, the whole taken from the very Holy
Scriptures, from the Old as well as the New Testament, as edited, cor­
rected, and perfected by the here-attendant Master of Phynances! How
does that suit you, you sausage? (He begins to tear her to pieces.) a
MOTHER UBU: Mercy, Mr. Ubu! 2>
A loud noise at the entrance to the cave. 2
♦
♦
SCENE 2 05

The same, and Bougrelas, who rushes into the cave with his soldiers.
BOUGRELAS: Forward, my friends. Long live Poland!
FATHER UBU: Oh! Oh! Wait a moment, Mr. Pole. Wait until IVe finished
with madam my other half!
BOUGRELAS (hitting him): Take that, coward, tramp, braggart, laggard, Mus­
sulman!
FATHER UBU (countering): Take that! Polack, drunkard, bastard, hussar, tar­
tar, pisspot, inkblot, sneak, freak, anarchist!
MOTHER UBU (hitting out also): Take that, prig, pig, rake, fake, snake, mis­
take, mercenary!
The soldiers throw themselves on the Ubus, who defend themselves as best
they can.
FATHER UBU: Gods! What a battle!
MOTHER UBU: Watch out for our feet, Gentlemen of Poland.
FATHER UBU: By my green candle, when will this endlessness be ended?
Another one! Ah, if only I had my Phynancial Horse here!
BOUGRELAS: Hit them, keep hitting them!
VOICES FROM WITHOUT: Long live Father Ubu, our Great Financier!
FATHER UBU: Ah! There they are. Hooray! There are the Father Ubuists.
Forward, come on, you're desperately needed, Gentlemen of Finance.
Enter the Palotins, who throw themselves into the fight.
 COTICE: All out, you Poles!
PILE: Ho! We meet again, my Financial sir. Forward, push as hard as you
can, get to the exit; once outside, well run away.
FATHER UBU: Oh! He's my best man. Look the way he hits them!
BOUGRELAS: Good God! I'm wounded!
STANISLAS LECZINSKI: It's nothing, Sire.
BOUGRELAS: No, I'm just a little stunned.
JOHN SOBIESKI: Fight, keep fighting—they're getting to the door, the knaves.
COTICE: We're getting there; follow me, everybody. By couseyquence of the
whiche, the sky becomes visible.
PILE: Courage, Sire Ubu!
FATHER UBU: Oh! I just crapped in my pants. Forward, hornsbuggers! Killem,
bleedem, skinnem, massacrem, by Ubu's horn! Ah! It's quieting down.
COTICE: There are only two of them guarding the exit!
* FATHER UBU (knocking them down with the bear): And one, and two! Oof!
< Here I am outside! Let's run now! Follow, you others, and don't stop for
+ anything!
♦
o
^ SCENE 3

The scene represents the Province of Livonia covered with snow. The Ubus and
their followers are in flight
FATHER UBU: Ah! I think they've stopped trying to catch us.
MOTHER UBU: Yes, Bougrelas has gone to get himself crowned.
FATHER UBU: I don't envy him that crown, either.
MOTHER UBU: You're quite right, Father Ubu.
They disappear into the distance.

SCENE 4

The bridge of a close-hauled schooner on the Baltic. Father Ubu and his entire
gang are on the bridge.
THE CAPTAIN: What a lovely breeze!
FATHER UBU: We are indeed-sailing with a rapidity which borders on the
miraculous. We must be making at least a million knots an hour, and
these knots have been tied so well that once tied they cannot be untied.
It's true that we have the wind behind us.
PILE: What a pathetic imbecile!
A squall arises, the ship rolls, the sea foams.
FATHER UBU: Oh! Ah! My God, we're going to capsize. The ship is leaning
over too far, it'll fall!
THE CAPTAIN: Everyone to leeward, furl the foresail!
FATHER UBU: Oh, no, don't put everybody on the same side! That's impru­
dent. What if the wind changed direction—everybody would sink to the
bottom of the sea and the fish would eat us.
THE CAPTAIN: Don't rush, line up and close ranks!
FATHER UBU: Yes, yes, rush! I'm in a hurry! Rush, do you hear! It's your fault
that we aren't getting there, brute of a captain. We should have been
there already. I'm going to take charge of this myself. Get ready to tack
about. Drop anchor, tack with the wind, tack against the wind. Run up
the sails, sun down the sails, tiller up, tiller down, tiller to the side. You
see, everything's going fine. Come broadside to the waves now and every­
thing will be perfect.
All are convulsed with laugher; the wind rises.
THE CAPTAIN: Haul over the jibsail, reef over the topsail!
FATHER UBU: That's not bad, it's even good! Swab out the steward and jump
in the crow's-nest.
Several chose with laughter. A wave is shipped.
Oh, what a deluge! All this is the result of the maneuvers which we just
ordered.
MOTHER UBU and PILE: What a wonderful thing navigation is!
A second wave is shipped.
PILE (drenched): But watch out for Satan, his pomps and pumps.
FATHER UBU: Sir boy, get us something to drink.
They all sit down to drink.
MOTHER UBU: What a pleasure it will be to see our sweet France again, our
old friends and our castle of Mondragon!
FATHER UBU: We'll be there soon. At the moment we've passed below the
castle of Elsinore.
PILE: I feel cheerful at the thought of seeing my dear Spain again.
COTICE: Yes, and we'll amaze our countrymen with the stories of our won­
derful adventures.
FATHER UBU: Oh, certainly! And I'm going to get myself appointed Minister
of Finances in Paris.
MOTHER UBU: Oh, that's right! Oops, what a bump that was!
COTICE: That's nothing, we're just doubling the point of Elsinore.
PILE: And now our noble ship plows at full speed through the somber waves
of the North Sea.
FATHER UBU: A fierce and inhospitable sea, which bathes the shores of the
land called Germany, so named because the inhabitants of this land are
all cousins-german.
 MOTHER UBU: That's what I call true learning. They say that this country is
very beautiful.
FATHER UBU: Ah! Gentlemen! Beautiful as it may be, it cannot compare with
Poland. For if there were no Poland, there would be no Poles!

CURTAIN

>-
ec
<
♦
♦
Si
 Theater Questions

Alfred Jarry

What conditions are indispensable to the theater? I do not think we need

give any more thought to the question of whether the three unities are
necessary or whether the unity of action alone will suffice, and if everything
revolves around a single character, then the unity of action has had its due.
Nor do I think that we can argue either from Aristophanes or Shakespeare if
it is the public's susceptibilities that we are supposed to respect, since many
editions of Aristophanes have footnotes on every page stating: "The whole of
this passage is full of obscene allusions," and, as for Shakespeare, one only
has to reread certain of Ophelia's remarks, or the famous scene (nearly
always cut) in which a Queen is taking French lessons.
The alternative would appear to be to model ourselves on Messieurs
Augier, Dumas fils, Labiche, etc., whom we have had the misfortune to read,
and with profound tedium: it is more than likely that the members of the
younger generation, though they may have read these gentlemen, have not
the slightest recollection of having done so. I do not think there is the
slightest reason to give a work dramatic form unless one has invented a
character whom one finds it more convenient to let loose on a stage than to
analyze in a book.
And anyway, why should the public, which is illiterate by definition,
attempt quotations and comparisons? It criticized Ubu Roi for being a vulgar
imitation of Shakespeare and Rabelais, because "its sets are economically
replaced by a placard" and a certain word is repeated. People ought not to be
unaware of the fact that it is now more or less certain that never, at least never

Reprinted from Ubu Roi, Selected Works ofAlfred Jarry, ed. Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson
Taylor; trans. Barbara Wright (New York: Grove, 1965), 82-85, © 1961, by permission of New
Directions.
since Shakespeare's day, have his plays been acted in any other way than
with sets and on a relatively perfected stage. Furthermore, people saw Ubu as
a work written in "old French" because we amused ourselves by printing it in
old-style type, and they thought "phynance" was sixteenth-century spelling. I
find so much more accurate the remark of one of the Poles in the crowd
scenes, who said that in his opinion "it's just like Musset, because the set
changes so frequently."
It would have been easy to alter Ubu to suit the taste of the Paris public by
making the following minor changes: the opening word would have been
Blast (or Blasttr), the unspeakable brush would have turned into a pretty
girl going to bed, the army uniforms would have been First-Empire style,
Ubu would have knighted the Czar, and various spouses would have been
cuckolded—but in that case it would have been filthier.
I intended that when the curtain went up, the scene should confront the
public like the exaggerating mirror in the stories of Mme Leprince de Beau­
mont, in which the depraved saw themselves with dragons' bodies, or bulls'
horns, or whatever corresponded to their particular vice. It is not surprising
that the public should have been aghast at the sight of its ignoble other self,
which it had never before been shown completely. This other self, as M.
Catulle Mendes has excellently said, is composed "of eternal human im­
becility, eternal lust, eternal gluttony, the vileness of instinct magnified into
tyranny; of the sense of decency, the virtues, the patriotism and the ideals
peculiar to those who have just eaten their fill." Really, these are hardly the
constituents for an amusing play, and the masks demonstrate that the com­
edy must at the most be the macabre comedy of an English clown, or of a
Dance of Death. Before Gemier agreed to play the part, Lugne-Poe had
learned Ubu's lines and wanted to rehearse the play as a tragedy. And what
no one seems to have understood—it was made clear enough, though, and
constantly recalled by Ma Ubu's continually repeated: "What an idiotic
man! . . . What a sorry imbecile!"—is that Ubu's speeches were not meant to
be full of witticisms, as various little ubuists claimed, but of stupid remarks,
uttered with all the authority of the Ape. And in any case the public, which
protests with bogus scorn that it contains "not a scrap of wit from beginning
to end," is still less capable of understanding anything profound. We know,
from our four years' observation of the public at the Theatre de l'CEuvre, that
if you are absolutely determined to give the public an inkling of something,
you must explain i t . . . beforehand.
The public does not understand Peer Gynt> which is one of the most
lucid plays imaginable, any more than it understands Baudelaire's prose or
Mallarme's precise syntax. [People] know nothing of Rimbaud, they only
heard of Verlaine's existence after he was dead, and they are terrified when
they hear Les Flaireurs or Pelleas et Melisande. They pretend to think writers
and artists a lot of crackpots, and some of them would like to purge all works
of art of everything spontaneous and quintessential, of every sign of superi-
ority, and to bowdlerize them so that they could have been written by the
public in collaboration. That is their point of view, and that of certain plagia­
rists, conscious and unconscious. Have we no right to consider the public
from our point of view?—the public that claims that we are madmen suffer­
ing from a surfeit of what it regards as hallucinatory sensations produced in
us by our exacerbated senses. From our point of view it is they who are the
madmen, but of the opposite sort—what scientists would call idiots. They are
suffering from a dearth of sensations, for their senses have remained so
rudimentary that they can perceive nothing but immediate impressions.
Does progress for them consist in drawing nearer to the brute beast or in
gradually developing their embryonic cerebral convolutions?
Since Art and the public's Understanding are so incompatible, we may
well have been mistaken in making a direct attack on the public in Ubu Roi;
[audiences] resented it because they understood it only too well, whatever
they may say. Ibsen's onslaught on crooked society was almost unnoticed. It
is because the public is [such] a mass—inert, obtuse, and passive—that it
needs to be shaken up from time to time so that we can tell from [its mem­
bers'] bearlike grunts where they are—and also where they stand. They are
pretty harmless, in spite of their numbers, because they are fighting against
intelligence. Ubu did not debrain all the nobles. They are like Cyrano de
Bergerac's Icicle-Animal, which does battle with the Fire-Beast—in any case
they would melt before they won, but even if they did win they would be
only too honored to hang the corpse of the sun-beast up against their mantel­
pieces and to allow its rays to illuminate their adipose tissue. It is a being so
different from them that its relation to them is like an exterior soul to their
bodies.
Light is active and shade is passive, and light is not detached from shade
but, given sufficient time, penetrates it. Reviews which used to publish Lou's
novels are now printing a dozen pages of Verhaeren and several of Ibsen's
plays.
Time is necessary because people who are older than we—and whom we
respect for that reason—have lived among certain works which have the
charm of habitual objects for them, and they were born with the souls that
match these works, guaranteed to last until eighteen-ninety... odd. We shall
not try to push them out of our way—we are no longer in the seventeenth
century; we shall wait until their souls, which made sense in relation to
themselves and to the false values which surrounded them throughout their
lives, have come to a full stop (even though we have not waited). We too
shall become solemn, fat, and Ubu-like and shall publish extremely classical
books which will probably lead to our becoming mayors of small towns
where, when we become academicians, the blockheads constituting the
local intelligentsia will present us with Sevres vases, while they present their
mustaches on velvet cushions to our children. And another lot of young
people will appear and consider us completely out of date, and they will
write ballads to express their loathing of us, and that is just the way things
should always be.
<a
£

Intimate Theater/
Chamber Drama

a; ugust [Johan] Strindberg, playwright, novelist, painter, and

dramatic theorist, was born on January 22, 1849, in Stock­
holm, Sweden. Before turning to playwriting in the 1880s,
Strindberg worked as a teacher, librarian, journalist, and actor. Strind­
berg was not the misogynist he is often declared to be, but his relation­
ships with women were complicated by the idiosyncrasies of his per­
sonality. And since he was surely one of the most subjective of writers,
his three marriages provided background (and foreground!) materials
for much of his fiction as well as drama. A prolific author, Strindberg
wrote more than sixty plays in four decades, and his extensive theoret­
ical writings on drama show him to have been acutely aware of his role as
an innovator.
His plays are traditionally divided into two major stages—his Naturalist pe­
riod of the late 1880s and early 1890s, and his predominantly Expressionist
period (which also includes some Swedish history plays) from 1898 on—though
his focus on the psychology of his characters remains consistent. Of the Natural­
ist plays, The Father (1887) and Miss Julie (1888) are the most frequently pro­
duced. A reaction against the standard French intrigue drama with its elaborate
plot and typed characters, these works combine a scrupulous attention to the
Aristotelian unities with the exploration of heredity, milieu, and immediate cir­
cumstances as the bases for the drawing of complex, modern characters.
From 1894 to 1896, Strindberg underwent a series of psychotic episodes,
commonly called his "inferno crisis," which led him to delve into alchemy and the
occult. From this point on, his plays display a preoccupation with distorted inner
states of mind. The fragmentation of personality so characteristic of Strind-
berg's Expressionism first appears in To Damascus (Part 1, 1898), a play with
biblical overtones but at the same time a projection of the problems of the
dramatist's second marriage. The full-blown Expressionism that followed is
 chiefly represented by A Dream Play (1901)—which did so much to free the stage
from the time- and space-bound assumptions of Naturalism—and is also seen in
the earlier Dance of Death (1900). Paralleling and enlarging on many of the
discoveries made around the same time in the fields of psychology and psycho­
analysis, these latter plays depend not on the classical unities but instead on the
individual, subjective mind for their overall shape, with the erratic structure of
dreams playing a prominent part in their creation.
The Ghost Sonata, the third in a series of four "chamber plays" he wrote in
1907 (the other three being Storm Weather, The Burned House, and The Pelican, to
which The Black Glove was added in 1909), invokes a similar characterological
^ subjectivity for the purpose of gradually revealing the real human horror lurking
|JJ behind the facade of affluence and respectability. In the chamber plays, which
< emphasize mood over plot, Strindberg attempted to find the theatrical equiv-
I alent to chamber music at the same time as he worked variations on the theme
m of the disparity between appearance and reality. He wrote all of them for the
Jj 161 -seat Intimate Theater in Stockholm (even as chamber music is written to be
Z performed in a room rather than a concert hall), which he founded and ran with
£ August Falck from 1907 to 1910. Strindberg died of stomach cancer on May 14,
— 1912, in Stockholm. Although they enjoyed only limited success in Sweden
^ during his own lifetime, both Strindberg's Naturalistic and his Expressionistic
oo plays quickly gained appreciation abroad, especially in Germany. His work has
*H influenced an extraordinarily wide range of movements in modern as well as
avant-garde drama, including Naturalism, Expressionism, Surrealism, and the
Theater of the Absurd.
Strindberg as Dramatist
T^mm ^ L i he Ghost Sonata seethes with indignation as Strindberg's scorn
h^J ■ and contempt for the world find expression in some of the most
rj^^ %J grotesque and theatrically stunning scenes in modern drama. To
say what he felt, Strindberg had to invent a new dramatic language that
Ijttr has been called, by turns, Surrealistic, Expressionistic, or even Symbol­
ist, a language in which metaphors assume life. To say "time hangs heavy" is one
thing; to picture, as Dali has done, a watch hanging heavily is another. To say that
the sweet young thing you once knew now looks like an old mummy is one thing;
to have this woman imagine herself a mummy and comport herself like one, as
Strindberg has her do, is another.
The artistic originality of The Ghost Sonata and the visionary intensity of its
best scenes have made this by far the best known of the Chamber Plays. But
critics seem reluctant to declare that the play possesses any great coherence.
The stumbling block to most interpretations is the last scene, which can easily
appear redundant. The plot peters out after the "ghost supper" of the second
scene, and the third scene comes as an anticlimax. After the unmasker Hummel
has been unmasked, what more is there to hold our attention?
The answer lies in what Strindberg was trying to say. "No predetermined
form is binding on the author because the subject matter determines the form"
(SS, 50:12): that was the principle behind the Chamber Plays. He wanted the
theatergoer to respond to this new kind of theater music in the same way that a
listener responds to chamber music in the recital hall. The ordinary listener
cannot do what the music student does when he pores over the score and sees
how the parts are related to each other and how the themes are intertwined.
But the listener will be able to follow the music all the same, just as the sensitive
theatergoer will be able to catch the drift of Strindberg's play without under­
standing what is going on at every moment. In fact, absolute clarity would dispel
meaning because a major concern of the play is our inability to know exactly
what is going on in life. As in life, so in science. The modern physicist has found
that the more precisely he determines the position of a subatomic particle, the
less he knows about its momentum, and the more he knows about its momen­
tum, the less he knows about its position. This vexing situation, which led
Heisenberg in 1923 to formulate his indeterminacy principle, has its counterpart
in the macrocosm. The more narrowly we focus our attention on a particular
human crisis, the less we know about the general tendency of our lives; and the
more clearly we delineate the general tendency, the less able we are to isolate
the specific cause of an event. Nothing is easier to prove or disprove than why a
person acted as he did. Yet just as the physicist, though ignorant of the behavior
of a specific particle, can predict statistically what the aggregate of particles will
do, so Strindberg believed that human activity in its entirety was governed by
some law.

Excerpted from Evert Sprinchorn, Strindberg as Dramatist (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1982), 259-70.
 Long before Heisenberg discovered the indeterminacy principle, Strindberg
made use of something like it in this drama. Hummel's explanation to the Student
of the relationship of the people of the house to one another is hopelessly
complicated. In an ordinary play, this explanation, which explains nothing and
confuses everybody, would be exposition of the worst sort. Here it establishes
the confusing entanglements that constitute the subject. Strindberg's aim was to
create a network of allusions, of interrelated images, that would be the theatrical
counterpart of the infinitely complicated cosmic web woven by inner and outer
forces. In the naturalistic view of man, causes and effects can be isolated; in the
Buddhist view, the strands that go into the making of our lives are so numerous
tf and so entangled with strands from other lives in the making that all one can
JU perceive, at best, is a general pattern. Just how the little curlicues that are
< continuously being woven into the fabric of our lives come to form this particu-
I lar pattern can be observed only occasionally. It is this sense of complexity, this
m growing awareness that things are somehow related without our knowing ex-
Jj actly how, that Strindberg wanted to convey.
r The problem was one of organizing the myriad allusions and references into
£ a scheme that would guide the half-conscious thoughts of the viewer. In dramatic
- terms, it was a question of finding a through-line. Eliot and Joyce faced the same
t problem, in The Waste Land and Ulysses, respectively, where they had to sacrifice
o narrative development for inner revelation in order to express a view of life that
TH had less to do with time and space and progress than with stillness and spirit and
regeneration. While picturing the fragmentation of life in modern times, Eliot
brought order into his poem by making the various sections of it represent the
search for the Holy Grail. He found his through-line in Jessie L Weston's Frazer-
inspired examination of medieval legend. Strindberg found his in the mystic-
religious philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg.

The view in this play is not from a point near the end of life, as in The Burned
House, but from a point on the other side of the grave. In this, his most extrava­
gant work, Strindberg takes us on a journey into death, lets us leave the body and
enter the world of spirits. The steamship bells at the beginning signal the start of
the journey, which will end at the Isle of the Dead. Like the people in the play, we
hardly know that we have left the natural world because the life of the body is
continued into the other world. "The first state of man after death," says Swe­
denborg, resembles his state in the world, for he is then likewise in externals,
having a like face, like speech, and a like disposition, thus a like moral and civil life;
and in consequence he is made aware that he is not still in the world only by
giving attention to what he encounters (Heaven and Hell, n. 493). What we
encounter is a spectral milkmaid, a dead consul who appears in his winding sheet
to count his mourners, and a young student who tells a strange story about
saving a child from a collapsing building only to have the child disappear from his
arms. By this time, it should dawn on us that the child disappeared because she
was saved and remained in the natural world.
Before us is the facade of an elegant apartment house. This set represents
exteriors, the first state of man after death, the state that corresponds to the
world of social accommodation and legal inhibition. The second scene takes us
into the house, into the Round Room, where the Mummy appears. This repre­
sents the state of interiors, where the spirits become, to quote Swedenborg,
"visibly just what they had been in themselves while in the world, what they then
did and said secretly being now made manifest" (Heaven and Hell, n. 507). Here
Swedenborg provided the inspiration for the graphic and theatrical disrobing
scene in which Hummel strips the Colonel of his decorations and exposes him as
a social sham, only to be unmasked himself by the Mummy as a criminal and a
stealer of souls. The Round Room is what Strindberg elsewhere calls "the
undressing room into which the deceased are led immediately after death. There
they remove the vesture they were compelled to put on in society and with
friends and family; and the angels soon see them for what they are" (SS, 46:49-
50).
The hymn to the sun, intoned by the Student, provides a fitting conclusion to
the scene both because of what it says about kindness and guilelessness and
because of its source. Strindberg freely adapted it from some stanzas of the
Icelandic Solarljod, a visionary poem, Catholic in inspiration, containing a descrip­
tion of the moment of death—"I saw the sun"—and of hell and heaven by a man
who from the other side of the grave is able to communicate with his living son.
The third and last scene, the Hyacinth Room, represents in the Sweden-
borgian plan the third state of man after death, a place of instruction and prepa­
ration for those who may merit a place in heaven. The essentially good spirit, like
the Hyacinth Girl, must be vastated and purged of evils and falsities acquired on
earth. The Student functions here as a vastating spirit, confronting her with the
ugly truths of life and removing evils and falsities from her in order that she may
receive the influx of goods and truths from heaven. As he speaks to her, she
pines and withers away.
The three sets of the play also correspond approximately to what the the-
osophists, following the cabalists, call the three dwellings of the soul: Earth for
the physical man, or the animal Soul; Kama-Loka (Hades, the Limbo) for the
disembodied man, or his Shell; Devachan for the higher Triad. The shell is the
astral form of the soul; it is the body that is left behind when the highest aspect of
the soul, the mind, departs for Devachan or nirvana, that condition of the soul in
which passion, hatred, and delusion are no more.
The Buddhist and Christian hints dropped at the beginning of the play con­
tinue to ripple through it and to intermingle, especially in the latter half. The
room in which the unmasking of the Colonel and the old man takes place is both
Kama-Loka and hell. In the last scene, the Student speaks of Christ's sufferings
on earth, while a small statue of Buddha expresses purity of will and the patience
to endure. The shallot in its lap symbolizes the relation of matter to spirit
(Swedenborg's correspondences) and man's striving to raise earth to heaven. In
the final moments, what is seen and what is heard fuse together into a sublime
poetic image of radiant theatricality: the harp bursting into sound, the Student's
solemn hymn to the sun, the white refulgent light burning away the reality that is
only an illusion, and the emergence in the distance of the Isle of the Dead (via a
back projection of Bocklin's painting). The light that floods the room and causes
 it to disappear is the light of death, of nirvana, and of divine wisdom and love. In
the Solarljod, the dying man sees the sun and knows the truth about life as he
passes over the threshold. In Swedenborg, the sun is the symbol of God's love,
and when the angels draw the film from the eyes of a dying person, he sees a
bright white light that represents eternal life. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha
is the pure light that banishes the darkness of ghosts, of the animal world, of hell;
it is the light of the great mind and power that lights the way to the land of
happiness; it is the light of truth, purity, and mercy.

On the cover of the manuscript of the play, Strindberg drew a picture of

tf Buddha's shallot. He gave the play the subtitle "Kama-Loka"; he thought of calling
£ it 'The Ghost Supper"; but he finally settled on The Ghost Sonata, which suggests
jj both the extraterrestrial setting of the play and its musical structure. The Sonata
I title is certainly the most fitting, for unless one treats the play as a kind of musical
UJ composition, it is impossible to appreciate its artistic wholeness and the way in
Jj which all the pieces fit together. Although it is often faulted for lacking coher-
Z ence, especially in the last scene, the play is, in fact, a miracle of artistic organiza-
£ tion, a work of Wagnerian intricacy and contrivance composed with Mozartean
- ease in which everything seems casual and improvised and yet nothing in it is
^ adventitious. In an ideal production, the perfect Strindbergite would quickly
CQ forget about character analysis and conventional plot development and would
TH respond to symbols and elusive harmonies and thematic development. He would
quickly understand that the plot is not designed to reveal what Hummel once in
his dark past did to the Milkmaid. He would sense immediately that Hummel and
the Milkmaid are thematic opposites, the bloodsucker versus the nourisher-
nurturer, and nod at the recognition of Hummel and the Cook as thematic
companions. When Hummel is described as a man who tears down houses,
sneaks in through windows, and ravages human lives, the Strindbergite would
remember that the Student saves the life of a baby caught in a collapsing house
and that the Milkmaid offers aid to the Student. He would hear character an­
swering character, but he would sense theme answering theme. He would know
that it is both musically and morally right that after Hummel exposes the Colonel
as a valet who used to flirt with the maids in order to scrounge in the kitchen,
Hummel himself should be exposed as being exactly what he accused the Colo­
nel of being. And he would experience aesthetic delight in seeing the evil Cook in
the last scene suddenly emerge from the kitchen in which Hummel and the
Colonel had their beginnings. But instead of perfect Strindbergites, we have
critics who shake their heads grumpily at the Cook and reproach Strindberg for
putting his petty domestic problems into a play.
Being distinct from one another in setting, tempo, and mood, the three
scenes must be regarded as corresponding to the three movements of a sonata
(Strindberg himself alluded to Beethoven's piano Sonata in D minor, opus 31, no.
2), even though the themes set forth at the beginning are developed through the
whole work. The first and longest scene, unsurpassed in modern drama for
sheer dramaturgical virtuosity, is a brisk allegro, its mood sustained by the
youthful buoyancy of the Student and by the grasping eagerness of the Old Man
as they lay their plans for entering the house of elegance. In sharp contrast is the
second scene or movement, the largo. To its slow tempo and its long silences the
ghost supper is eaten, the masks removed, the interiors revealed.
The final scene is a quiet andante, which stresses the principal theme of the
whole sonata and brings it to a close with a brilliant coda that restates all the
themes: the world is a sham composed of lies, deceits, and illusions; to live is to
be guilty; and death represents a settling of accounts. W h e n the Student de­
scribes his father's disastrous dinner party at which all the guests were told off
and their true natures were revealed, we are reminded not only of the ghost
supper of the second scene but also of what is happening at this moment as the
Student speaks to the girl and destroys her. The Student's strength is now being
sucked from him and only the death of the Hyacinth Girl saves him. Freed at last
from the Three Poisons that Buddha speaks of—the poison of desiring individual
existence, the poison of ignorance, and the poison of sensual longing—the Stu­
dent faces nirvana, the state of perfect calm, the extinction of aversion, confu­
sion, and passion, as the Isle of the Dead looms in the distance.

Works Cited
Strindberg, August. Samlade skrifter. Ed. John Landquist. 55 vols. Stockholm, Sweden,
1912-1920. Cited as SS.
Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell. Trans. John C. Ager. New York:
Swedenborg Foundation, 1949. Cited as Heaven and Hell.

Select Bibliography on Strindberg

Cardullo, Bert. "Ingmar Bergman's Concept for His 1973 Production of The Ghost Sonata:
A Dramaturg's Response." Essays in Arts and Sciences 14(1985): 33-48.
Jarvi, Raymond. "Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata and Sonata Form." Mosaic 5.4 (1972): 6 9 -
84.
Johnson, Walter. August Strindberg. Boston: Twayne, 1976.
Meyer, Michael. August Strindberg: A Life. New York: Random House, 1985.
Reinert, Otto, ed. Strindberg: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Steene, Birgitta. The Greatest Fire: A Study ofAugust Strindberg. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1973; rev. as August Strindberg: An Introduction to His Major
Works. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982.
Stockenstrom, Goran, ed. Strindberg's Dramaturgy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1988.
. " The Journey from the Isle of Life to the Isle of Death': The Idea of Reconciliation
in The Ghost Sonata." Scandinavian Studies 50 (1978): 133-49.
Tornqvist, Egil. Strindbergian Drama: Themes and Structure. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.:
Humanities Press, 1982.

See also Bergman; Lambert; McFarlane; Nicoll; and Swerling, in the General Bibliography.
 T h e Ghost Sonata

August Strindberg

CHARACTERS

THE OLD MAN, Director Hummel

THE STUDENT, Arkenholz
THE MILKMAID, an apparition
THE SUPERINTENDENT'S WIFE
THE SUPERINTENDENT
THE DEAD MAN, a Consul
THE LADY IN BLACK, daughter ofthe Dead Man and the Superintendent's wife
THE COLONEL
THE MUMMY, the Colonel's wife
THE YOUNG LADY, the Colonel's daughter, but actually the Old Mans
daughter
BARON SKANSKORG, engaged to the Lady in Black
JOHANSSON, Hummel's servant
BENGTSSON, The Colonel's footman
THE FIANCEE, a white-haired old woman, formerly engaged to Hummel
THE COOK
BEGGARS
A MAID

Reprinted from Strindberg: Five Plays, trans. Harry G. Carlson (Berkeley: University of Califor­
nia Press, 1983), 535-54.
 SCENE 1

(Outside a fashionable apartment building. Only a corner and the first two
floors are visible. The ground floor ends in the Round Room; the floor above
ends in a balcony with a flagpole.
When the curtains are drawn up in the Round Room, a white marble
statue of a young woman can be seen, surrounded by palms and lit brightly by
the sun. In the window to the left are potted hyacinths in blue, white, and pink.
Hanging on the railing of the balcony are a blue silk quilt and two white
pillows. The windows to the left are draped with white sheets [in Sweden the
indication that someone has died]. It is a clear Sunday morning.
Standing in front of the house downstage is a green bench.
Downstage right is a public fountain, downstage left a freestanding col-
umn covered with posters and announcements.
In the house faqade upstage left is the entrance. The steps leading up to the
door are of white marble, the railings of mahogany with brass fittings. Flank-
ing the steps on the sidewalk are laurels in tubs.
The corner of the house with the Round Room faces a side street which runs
upstage.
To the left of the entrance door a mirror is mounted outside a window
[enabling the occupant of that apartment to observe, without being seen, what
is happening in the street].
As the curtain rises, church bells can be heard in the distance.
All the doors visible in the house are open. A woman dressed in black
stands motionless on the steps.
The SUPERINTENDENT'S WIFE in turn sweeps the vestibule, polishes the
brass on the front door, and waters the laurels.
The OLD MAN sits reading a newspaper in a wheelchair near the poster
column. He has white hair and a beard and wears glasses.
The MILKMAID enters from around the corner carrying bottles in a wire
basket. She is wearing a summer dress, with brown shoes, black stockings, and
a white cap. She takes off her cap and hangs it on the fountain, wipes the
sweat from her brow, takes a drink from a dipper in the fountain, washes her
hands, and arranges her hair, using the water as a mirror.
A steamboat's bell can be heard, and from time to time the bass notes of an
organ in a nearby church penetrate the silence.
The silence continues for a few moments after the MILKMAID has finished
her toilet. Then the STUDENT enters left, sleepless and unshaven, and crosses
directly to the fountain. Pause)
STUDENT: Can I borrow the dipper? (The MILKMAID hugs the dipper to her.)
Aren't you through using it? (She stares at him in terror.)
OLD MAN (to himself): Who is he talking to?—I don't see anyone!—Is he
crazy? (continues to stare at them in amazement)
STUDENT (to the MILKMAID): Why are you staring? Do I look so frightening?—
 Well, I didn't sleep last night and I guess you think IVe been out ca­
rousing . . . (the MILKMAID as before) Think IVe been drinking, huh?—Do
I smell of whiskey? (the MILKMAID as before) I didn't shave, I know t h a t . . .
Give me a drink of water, girl, IVe earned it! (pause) All right, I suppose I
have to tell you. All night IVe been bandaging wounds and tending
injured people. I was there, you see, when the house collapsed last
night... Now you know. (The MILKMAID rinses the dipper and gives him a
drink.) Thanks! (The MILKMAID stands motionless. The STUDENT con-
tinues slowly.) Would you do me a big favor? (pause) The thing is, my
eyes are inflamed, as you can see. Since my hands have been touching
the injured and the dead, I don't dare bring them near my eyes... Would
you take my clean handkerchief, moisten it in fresh water, and bathe my
poor eyes?—Would you?—Would you be a good Samaritan? (The MILK-
o: MAID hesitates but does as he asks.) Thank you, friend! (He takes out his
co wallet. She makes a gesture of refusal.) Forgive me, that was thoughtless,
2 but I'm not really awake . . .
* OLD MAN (to the STUDENT): Excuse me, but I heard you say that you were at
<0 the accident last n i g h t . . . I was just reading about it in the paper . . .
^ STUDENT: Is it already in the paper?
§g OLD MAN: Yes, the whole story. And your picture too. But they regret they
^ couldn't learn the name of the very able student...
STUDENT (looking at the paper): Really? Yes, that's me! Well!
OLD MAN: Whom were you talking to just now?
STUDENT: Didn't you see? (pause)
OLD MAN: Would you think me rude if I . .. asked your name?
STUDENT: What for? I don't want any publicity.—First comes praise, then
criticism.—Slandering people has become a fine art nowadays.—Be­
sides, I didn't ask for any reward .. .
OLD MAN: You're wealthy, eh?
STUDENT: Not at all. .. on the contrary. I'm penniless.
OLD MAN: You know... there's something familiar about your voice. I've only
met one other person who pronounces things the way you do. Are you
possibly related to a wholesale merchant by the name of Arkenholz?
STUDENT: He was my father.
OLD MAN: Strange are the ways of fate . . . I saw you when you were little,
under very painful circumstances. ..
STUDENT: Yes, they say I came into the world in the middle of bankruptcy
proceedings . . .
OLD MAN: That's right.
STUDENT: Can I ask what your name is?
OLD MAN: My name is Hummel.
STUDENT: Are you . . . ? Yes, I r e m e m b e r . . .
OLD MAN: You've heard my n a m e mentioned often in your family?
STUDENT: Yes!
OLD MAN: And probably mentioned with a certain ill will? (The STUDENT
remains silent.) Yes, I can imagine!—I suppose you heard that I was the
one who ruined your father?—People w h o ruin themselves through stu­
pid speculation always blame the o n e person they couldn't fool for their
ruin, (pause) T h e truth is that your father swindled m e out of seventeen
thousand crowns—my whole life savings at t h e time.
STUDENT: It's amazing how a story can be told in two such different ways.
OLD MAN: You don't think I'm lying, do you?
STUDENT: W h a t else can I think? M y father never lied! 8
OLD MAN: That's very true. A father never lies . . . b u t I too a m a father, and §
consequently... <$/>
STUDENT: W h a t are you trying to say? o
g
OLD MAN: I saved your father from disaster, a n d h e repaid m e with all the j{
terrible hatred of a m a n who feels obliged to be grateful. H e taught his
family to speak ill of m e . +
STUDENT: Maybe you m a d e h i m ungrateful by poisoning your charity with co
unnecessary humiliations.
OLD MAN: All charity is humiliating, young m a n .
STUDENT: W h a t do you want of me?
OLD MAN: I'm not asking for money. If you would perform a few services for
me, I'd be well repaid. As you can see, I'm a cripple. Some people say it's
my own fault; others blame my parents. Personally, I believe life itself is
to blame, waiting in ambush for us, a n d if you avoid o n e trap, you walk
straight into another. However—I can't r u n u p a n d down stairs or ring
doorbells. And so, I'm asking you: help m e !
STUDENT: W h a t can I do?
OLD MAN: First of all, push my chair so that I can read those posters. I want to
see what's playing t o n i g h t . . .
STUDENT (pushing the wheelchair): D o n ' t you have a m a n to help you?
OLD MAN: Yes, but he's away on an errand . . . be back soon . . . Are you a
medical student?
STUDENT: N o , I'm studying languages. But I really don't know what I want to
be...
OLD MAN: Aha.—How are you at mathematics?
STUDENT: Fairly good.
OLD MAN: Fine.—Would you like a job?
STUDENT: Sure, why not?
 OLD MAN: Good! (reading the posters) They're giving a matinee of The
Valkyrie ... That means the Colonel and his daughter will be there. And
since he always sits on the aisle in the sixth row, I'll put you next to them.
Would you go into that telephone booth and reserve a ticket for seat
number eighty-two in the sixth row?
STUDENT: You want me to go to the opera in the middle of the day?
OLD MAN: Yes. You do as I tell you, and you'll be well rewarded. I want you to
be happy, rich, and respected. Your debut yesterday as a courageous
rescuer will make you famous overnight. Your name will be really worth
something.
STUDENT [crossing to the booth): What an amusing adventure . . .
OLD MAN: Are you a gambler?
2 STUDENT: Yes, unfortunately .. .
oi OLD MAN: We'll make that "fortunately"!—Make the call! (He reads his news-
z paper. The LADY IN BLACK has come out on the sidewalk to speak to the
£ SUPERINTENDENT'S WIFE; the OLD MAN listens to them, but the audience
a hears nothing. The STUDENT returns.) Is it all arranged?
t STUDENT: It's all arranged.
oo OLD MAN: Have you ever seen this house before?
^ STUDENT: I certainly have! . . . I walked by here yesterday when the sun was
blazing on its windows—and could picture all the beauty and luxury
there must be inside. I said to my friend: "Imagine owning an apartment
there, four flights up, a beautiful young wife, two lovely little children,
and an independent income of 20,000 crowns a year..."
OLD MAN: Did you say that? Did you say that? Well! I too love that house . . .
STUDENT: You speculate in houses?
OLD MAN: Mmm, yes. But not in the way you think . . .
STUDENT: Do you know the people who live here?
OLD MAN: All of them. At my age you know everyone, their fathers and
forefathers before them, and we're all kin, in some way or another.—I just
turned eighty—but no one knows me, not really.—I take an interest in
people's destinies... (The curtains in the Round Room are drawn up. The
COLONEL can be seen inside, dressed in civilian clothes. After looking at
the thermometer, he crosses away from the window to stand in front of the
statue.) Look, there's the Colonel you'll sit next to this afternoon . . .
STUDENT: Is that—the Colonel? I don't understand any of this. It's like a fairy
tale . . .
OLD MAN: My whole life is like a book of fairy tales, young man. But although
the tales are different, a single thread joins them together, and the same
theme, the leitmotif, returns again and again, like clockwork.
STUDENT: Is that statue of someone?
OLD MAN: It's his wife, of course . . .
STUDENT: Was she that wonderful?
OLD MAN: U h , yes. Yes!
STUDENT: Tell m e , really!
OLD MAN: It's not for us to judge other people, my boy!—If I were to tell you
that she left h i m , that h e beat her, that she returned a n d remarried h i m
and now sits in there like a m u m m y , worshipping her own statue, you'd
think I was crazy.
STUDENT: What? I don't understand!
OLD MAN: I can well believe it.—Then we have the hyacinth window. That's
his daughter's room . . . She's out riding, b u t she'll be h o m e soon . . .
STUDENT: Who's the dark lady talking to the caretaker? S
OLD MAN: Well, you see, that's a little complicated. It has to do with the dead §
m a n , u p there, where you see the white sheets hanging . . . t»
STUDENT: W h o was h e ? (§
OLD MAN: H e was a h u m a n being, like the rest of us. But the most conspic- -c
uous thing about h i m was his v a n i t y . . . If you were a Sunday child, you'd 4
soon see h i m c o m e out t h e front door to look at the consulate flag flying ♦
at half-mast in his honor.—He was a consul, you see, a n d adored coro- co
nets, lions, p l u m e d hats, and colored ribbons.
STUDENT: You mentioned a Sunday child—I'm told I was born on a S u n d a y . . .
OLD MAN: No! Were you . . . ? I might have known i t . . . I saw it in the color of
your e y e s . . . b u t then you can see what others can't see. Have you ever
noticed that?
STUDENT: I don't know what others see, b u t sometimes . . . Well, things like
that you don't talk about.
OLD MAN: I was almost certain of it! But you can talk about them with me . . .
because I—understand such t h i n g s . . .
STUDENT: Yesterday, for example . . . I was drawn to that secluded street
where the house later collapsed . . . I walked down it and stopped in front
of a building I'd never seen before . . . Then I noticed a crack in the wall,
and heard the floorboards breaking. I ran forward and snatched up a
child who was walking under the wall . . . The next moment the house
collapsed . . . I was rescued, but in my arms, where I thought I held the
child, there was nothing . . .
OLD MAN: Amazing . . . And I thought that. . . Tell me something: why were
you gesturing just now by the fountain? And why were you talking to
yourself?
STUDENT: Didn't you see the milkmaid I was talking to?
OLD MAN (terrified): Milkmaid?
STUDENT: Yes, certainly. The girl who handed me the dipper.
 OLD MAN: Is that right? So, that's what it was . . . Well, even if I can't see, there
are other things I can do . . . (A white-haired woman sits down at the
window with the mirror.) Look at that old woman in the window! Do you
see her?—Good! She was once my fiancee, sixty years ago . . . I was
twenty then.—Don't be alarmed, she doesn't recognize me. We see each
other every day, but I feel nothing, despite that we swore to be true to
each other then—forever!
STUDENT: How indiscreet your generation was! Young people don't talk like
that nowadays.
OLD MAN: Forgive us, young man. We didn't know any better!—But can you
see that that old woman was once young and beautiful?
STUDENT: It doesn't show. Though I like the way she looks around, I can't see
0 her eyes. (The SUPERINTENDENT'S WIFE comes out of the house and hangs
UJ a funeral wreath on the front door.)
CD

Q OLD MAN: That's the Superintendent's Wife.—The Lady in Black over there
- is her daughter by the dead man upstairs. That's why her husband got the
H job as superintendent. . . but the Lady in Black has a lover, an aristocrat
^ with grand expectations. He's in the process of getting a divorce, and his
♦ wife is giving him a mansion to get rid of him. This aristocratic lover is
5 son-in-law to the dead man whose bedclothes you see being aired up
there on the balcony... As I said, it's all very complicated.
STUDENT: It's damned complicated!
OLD MAN: Yes, but that's the way it is, internally and externally. Though it
looks simple.
STUDENT: Yes, but then who was the dead man?
OLD MAN: You just asked me and I told you. If you could see around the
corner, by the service entrance, you'd notice a crowd of poor people,
whom he used to help .. . when he felt like i t . . .
STUDENT: So he was a kind man, then?
OLD MAN: Yes . . . sometimes.
STUDENT: Not always?
OLD MAN: No! . . . That's the way people are. Oh, young man, push my
wheelchair a little, into the sun! I'm so terribly cold. When you never get
to move around, the blood congeals.—I'm going to die soon, I know that.
But before I do, I have a few things to take care of.—Take my hand and
feel how cold I am.
STUDENT: Yes, incredibly! (He tries in vain to free his hand.)
OLD MAN: Don't leave me. I'm tired, I'm lonely, but I haven't always been
like this, you know. I have an infinitely long life behind me—infinitely.—
I've made people unhappy, but they've made me unhappy. The one
cancels out the other. Before I die, I want to see you happy . . . Our
destinies are intertwined through your father—and in other ways too . . .
STUDENT: But let go of my hand! You're draining my strength, you're freezing
me. What do you want of me?
OLD MAN: Patience, and you'll see and understand . . . Here comes the young
lady...
STUDENT: The Colonel's daughter?
OLD MAN: Yes! "His daughter"! Look at her!—Have you ever seen such a
masterpiece?
STUDENT: She's like the marble statue in there . . .
OLD MAN: Well, that is her mother!
STUDENT: You're right.—Never have I seen such a woman of woman born.—
Happy the man who leads her to the altar and his home.
OLD MAN: You can see it!—Not everyone recognizes her beauty . . . Well, so it
is written. (The YOUNG LADY enters left, wearing an English riding habit
She crosses slowly', without looking at anyone, to the front door, where she
stops and says a few words to the SUPERINTENDENT'S WIFE. She then enters
the house. The STUDENT covers his eyes with his hand.) Are you crying?
STUDENT: In the face of what's hopeless there can be only despair!
OLD MAN: But I can open doors and hearts if I but find a hand to do my
w i l l . . . Serve me and you shall prevail!
STUDENT: Is this some kind of pact? Do I have to sell my soul?
OLD MAN: Sell nothing!—You see, all my life I have taken. Now I have a
desperate longing to be able to give! give! But no one will accept... I am
rich, very rich, but I have no heirs, except for a good-for-nothing who
plagues the life out of me . . . Be like a son to me. Be my heir while I'm
still alive. Enjoy life while I'm here to see it, even if just from a distance.
STUDENT: What am I to do?
OLD MAN: First, go and listen to The Valkyrie.
STUDENT: As good as done. What else?
OLD MAN: Tonight you shall sit in there, in the Round Room.
STUDENT: How do I get there?
OLD MAN: By way of The Valkyrie!
STUDENT: Why have you chosen me as your medium? Did you know me
before?
OLD MAN: Yes, of course! I've had my eyes on you for a long time . . . But look,
up on the balcony. The maid is raising the flag to half-mast for the
Consul . . . and she's turning the bedclothes . . . Do you see that blue
quilt?—Once two people slept under it, but now only one . . . (The YOUNG
LADY, her clothes changed, appears at the window to water the hyacinths.)
Ah, there's my little girl. Look at her, look!—She's talking to the flowers.
Isn't she like a blue hyacinth herself? . . . She's giving them drink, just
ordinary water, and they transform the water into color and fragrance . . .
 Here comes the Colonel with a newspaper!—He's showing her the story
about the house collapsing . . . He's pointing out your picture! She's
interested . . . she's reading about your bravery . . . I think it's getting
cloudy. What if it should rain? I'll be in fine fix if Johansson doesn't come
back soon . . . (It grows cloudy and dark. The old woman at the mirror
closes her window.) My fiancee is closing her window . . . seventy-nine
years old. . . . That mirror is the only mirror she uses, because she can't
see herself in it, just the outside world in two different directions. But the
world can see her, and that she didn't think o f . . . A beautiful little old
lady though . . . (The DEAD MAN, in his winding-sheet, comes out the front
door.)
STUDENT: Oh my God!
O OLD MAN: What's the matter?
UJ STUDENT: Don't you see? There, in the doorway, the dead man!
CD
Q OLD MAN: I see nothing, but I expected this! Go on .. .
2 STUDENT: He's going out into the street... (pause) Now he's turning his head
jjj to look at the flag.
♦ OLD MAN: What did I tell you? Now he'll count the funeral wreaths and read
^ the names on the cards . . . God help those who are missing!
TH STUDENT: Now he's turning the corner . . .
OLD MAN: He's gone to count the poor people at the service entrance . . .
They'll add a nice touch to his obituary: "Accompanied to his grave by
the blessings of ordinary citizens." Well, he won't have my blessing!—Just
between us, he was a great scoundrel. ..
STUDENT: But charitable . . .
OLD MAN: A charitable scoundrel, who always dreamed of a beautiful
funeral . . . When he felt that the end was near, he fleeced the govern­
ment of fifty thousand crowns! . . . Now his daughter is having an affair
with another woman's husband and wondering if she's in his will... The
scoundrel can hear every word we say, and he deserves it!—Ah, here's
Johansson! (JOHANSSON enters from left.) Report! (JOHANSSON speaks hut
the audience cannot hear.) Not at home, eh? You're an ass!—Any tele­
grams?—Nothing at all! . . . Go on, go on! . . . Six o'clock this evening?
That's fine!—An extra edition?—And his name in full! Arkenholz, stu­
dent, born . . . parents . . . splendid . . . I think it's starting to rain . . . What
did he have to say? . . . Is that right?—He doesn't want to?—Well, he'll just
have to!—Here comes the aristocratic lover!—Push me around the cor­
ner, Johansson, I want to hear what the poor people are saying... Arken­
holz, you wait for me here . . . do you understand?—Hurry up, hurry up!
(JOHANSSON pushes the chair around the corner. The STUDENT remains
behind, watching the YOUNG LADY, who is loosening the soil around the
flowers, BARON SKANSKORG enters, wearing mourning, and speaks to the
LADY IN BLACK, who has been walking up and down the sidewalk.)
BARON SKANSKORG: Well, what can we do about it?—We'll simply have to
wait!
LADY IN BLACK: But I can't wait!
BARON SKANSKORG: Really? Better leave town then!
LADY IN BLACK: I don't want to.
BARON SKANSKORG: Come over here, otherwise they'll hear what we're say­
ing. (They cross to the poster column and continue their conversation,
unheard by the audience. JOHANSSON enters right and crosses to the
STUDENT.)
JOHANSSON: My master asks you not to forget the other matter, sir.
STUDENT (carefully): Listen—first tell me: who is your master?
JOHANSSON: Oh, he's a lot of things, and he's been everything. S
STUDENT: Is he sane? o
JOHANSSON: Yes, and what is that, eh?—He says all his life he's been looking §
for a Sunday child, but maybe it's not true . . . 5§
STUDENT: What does he want? Money? g
JOHANSSON: He wants power . . . All day long he rides around in his chariot, ♦
like the great god Thor . . . He looks at houses, tears them down, widens *
streets, builds over public squares. But he also breaks into houses, crawls *|
through windows, destroys people's lives, kills his enemies, and forgives
nothing.—Can you imagine that that little cripple was once a Don Juan?
Although he always lost his women.
STUDENT: That doesn't make sense.
JOHANSSON: Well, you see, he was so cunning that he got the women to leave
once he tired of them . . . However, now he's like a horse thief, only with
people. He steals them, in all kinds of ways . . . He literally stole me out of
the hands of justice . . . I had committed a . . . blunder that only he knew
about. Instead of turning me in, he made me his slave, which is what I
do, just for my food, which is nothing to brag a b o u t . . .
STUDENT: What does he want to do in this house?
JOHANSSON: Well, I wouldn't want to say. It's so complicated.
STUDENT: I think I'd better get out of here . . . (The YOUNG LADY drops her
bracelet through the window.)
JOHANSSON: Look, the young lady's dropped her bracelet through the win­
dow . . . (The STUDENT crosses slowly to the bracelet, picks it up, and hands
it to the YOUNG LADY, who thanks him stiffly. The STUDENT crosses back to
JOHANSSON.) So, you were thinking about leaving, eh? . . . It's not as easy
as you think, once the old man's dropped his net over your head . . . And
he's afraid of nothing between heaven and earth . .. well, except for one
thing, or rather one person . . .
STUDENT: Wait, I think I know who!
 JOHANSSON: How could you know that?
STUDENT: Fm guessing!—Is i t . . . a little milkmaid that he's afraid of?
JOHANSSON: He always turns away when he sees a milk wagon... and then he
talks in his sleep. You see, he was once in Hamburg . . .
STUDENT: Can anyone believe this man?
JOHANSSON: You can believe him—capable of anything!
STUDENT: What is he doing around the corner?
JOHANSSON: Listening to the poor people . . . Planting ideas here and there,
pulling out bricks, one at a time, until the house collapses . . . meta­
phorically speaking . . . You see, Fm an educated man; I was once a
bookseller . . . Are you going to leave now?
^ STUDENT: I don't want to seem ungrateful... The man saved my father once,
jjj and now he's only asking a small favor in return . ..
2 JOHANSSON: What's that?
5 STUDENT: Fm going to see The Valkyrie ...
\r JOHANNSON: That's beyond me . . . He's always coming up with a new idea . . .
# Look, now he's talking to the police. He's always close with the police.
♦ He uses them, involves them in his schemes, binds them hand and foot
3! with false hopes and promises. All the while he pumps them for informa­
tion.—You'll see—before the day is over he'll be received in the Round
Room.
STUDENT: What does he want there? What is there between him and the
Colonel?
JOHANSSON: Well, I have my suspicions, but I'm not sure. You'll just have to
see for yourself when you get there . . .
STUDENT: I'll never get in there . ..
JOHANSSON: That depends on you.—Go to The Valkyrie ...
STUDENT: Is that the way?
JOHANSSON: If he said it was.—Look, look at him, in his war chariot, drawn in
triumph by beggars who get nothing for their pains but the vague prom­
ise of a handout at his funeral! (The OLD MAN enters standing in his
wheelchair, drawn by one of the BEGGARS, and followed by others.)
OLD MAN: Hail the noble youth, who at the risk of his own life, rescued so
many in yesterday's accident! Hail, Arkenholz! (The BEGGARS bare their
heads but do not cheer. At the window the YOUNG LADY waves her hand-
kerchief The COLONEL stares out his window. The OLD WOMAN rises at her
window. The MAID on the balcony raises the flag to the top.) Clap your
hands, my fellow citizens! It's Sunday, it's true, but the ass in the well and
the stalk in the field give us absolution. Even though I'm not a Sunday
child, I have both the spirit of prophecy and the gift of healing, for once I
brought a drowned person back to life . . . Yes, it was in Hamburg on a
 Sunday afternoon just like this o n e . . . (The MILKMAID enters, seen only by
the STUDENT and the OLD MAN. She reaches out with her arms, like some-
one drowning, and stares at the OLD MAN, who sits down and shrinks back
in terror.) Johansson! Push me out of here! Quickly—Arkenholz, don't
forget The Valkyrie!
STUDENT: What is all this?
JOHANSSON: We'll have to wait and see! Well just have to wait and see!

SCENE 2

(The Round Room. Upstage is a white porcelain tile stove, studded with
mirrors and flanked by a pendulum clock and a candelabra. To the right the
entrance hall, through which can be seen a green room with mahogany furni-
ture. To the left a wallpaper-covered door leading to a closet Further left the
statue, shadowed by potted palms; it can be concealed by draperies. Upstage
left is the door to the Hyacinth Room, where the YOUNG LADY sits reading. The
COLONEL is visible, his back to the audience, writing in the green room.
BENGTSSON, the footman, dressed in livery, enters from the hall with
JOHANSSON, who is dressed as a waiter.)
BENGTSSON: Johansson, you'll do the serving, and I'll take their clothes.
You've done this sort of thing before, haven't you?
JOHANSSON: As you know, I push that war chariot around during the day, but
in the evenings I work as a waiter at receptions. Besides, it's always been
my dream to come into this house . . . They're peculiar people, aren't
they?
BENGTSSON: Well, yes, a little unusual, you might say.
JOHANSSON: Is it going to be a musical evening, or what?
BENGTSSON: Just the usual ghost supper, as we call it. They drink tea and
never say a word, or else the Colonel does all the talking. And they nibble
on cookies, all at the same time, so that it sounds like rats nibbling in an
attic.
JOHANSSON: Why is it called a ghost supper?
BENGTSSON: They look like ghosts . . . And this has been going on for
twenty years, always the same people, saying the same things, or else too
ashamed to say anything.
JOHANSSON: Isn't there a lady of the house too?
BENGTSSON: Oh yes, but she's queer in the head. She sits in a closet, because
her eyes can't stand the light. . . She's right in there . . . (points to the
wallpaper-covered door)
JOHANSSON: In there?
BENGTSSON: Well, I told you they were a little unusual.. .
JOHANSSON: How does she look?
 BENGTSSON: Like a mummy . . . Do you want to see her? (opens the door)
See, there she is!
JOHANSSON: Oh, Jesus .. .
MUMMY (like a baby): Why did you open the door? Haven't I told you to keep
it s h u t ? . . .
BENGTSSON (using baby talk): Ta, ta, ta, ta! Sweetums must be good, then
you'll get something nice!—Pretty polly!
MUMMY (like a parrot): Pretty polly! Is Jacob there? Awwk!
BENGTSSON: She thinks she's a parrot, and who knows?, maybe she is. . . (to
the MUMMY) Polly, whistle a little for us. (She whistles.)
JOHANSSON: I've seen lots in my life, but this beats everything!
0 BENGTSSON: You see, when a house gets old, it gets moldy. And when people
gj sit around tormenting each other for so long, they get crazy. Now the
g madam here—quiet Polly!—this mummy has been sitting here for forty
Z years—same husband, same furniture, same relatives, same friends . . .
* (closes the wallpaper-covered door) Even I don't know everything that's
& gone on in this house . . . Do you see this statue? . . . that's the madam
t when she was young!
eg JOHANSSON: Oh, my God!—Is that the Mummy?
^ BENGTSSON: Yes!—It's enough to make you cry!—And somehow or other—
the power of imagination, maybe—she's taken on some of the qualities of
a real parrot.—For instance, she can't stand cripples or sick people . . .
That's why she can't stand the sight of her own daughter...
JOHANSSON: Is the young lady sick?
BENGTSSON: Didn't you know that?
JOHANSSON: No! .. . And the Colonel, who is he?
BENGTSSON: You'll have to wait and see!
JOHANSSON: (looking at the statue): It's terrible to think t h a t . . . How old is the
madam now?
BENGTSSON: No one knows... but they say that when she was thirty-five, she
looked nineteen, and convinced the Colonel that she was . . . In this
house . . . Do you know what that black Japanese screen is for, there, next
to the chaise longue?—It's called the death screen, and when someone is
dying, it's put up around them, just like in a hospital...
JOHANSSON: What a horrible place! . . . And the student wants to come here
because he thinks it's a paradise . . .
BENGTSSON: What student? Oh, him! The one who's coming here this
evening . . . The Colonel and the young lady met him at the opera and
were taken by him . . . H m m ! . . . Now it's my turn to ask questions: Who
is your master? the businessman in the wheelchair?
JOHANSSON: Yes.—Is he coming here too?
BENGTSSON: He's not invited.
JOHANSSON: If necessary, he'll come uninvited . . . {The OLD MAN appears in
the hallway, dressed in a frock coat. He steals forward on his crutches to
eavesdrop.)
BENGTSSON: I hear he's an old crook!
JOHANSSON: Full blown!
BENGTSSON: He looks like the devil himself!
JOHANSSON: And he must be a magician too!—for he can go through locked
doors...
OLD MAN {crosses and grabs JOHANSSON by the ear): Rascal!—You watch your
step! {to BENGTSSON) Announce me to the Colonel!
BENGTSSON: Yes, but we're expecting guests...
OLD MAN: I know that! But my visit is as good as expected, if not exactly
looked forward to . . .
BENGTSSON: Is that so? And what was the name? Director Hummel!
OLD MAN: Precisely! (BENGTSSON crosses to the hallway and enters the green
room, closing the door behind him. The OLD MAN turns to JOHANSSON.)
Disappear! (JOHANSSON hesitates.) Disappear! (JOHANSSON disappears
into the hallway. The OLD MAN inspects the room, stopping in front of the
statue in great astonishment.) Amalia! . . . It's she! . . . She! {He wanders
about the room fingering things; he straightens his wig in front of the
mirror', and returns to the statue.)
MUMMY {from within the closet): Pretty polly!
OLD MAN {wincing): What was that? Is there a parrot in the room? I don't see
one!
MUMMY: Is Jacob there?
OLD MAN: The place is haunted!
MUMMY: Jaaaacob!
OLD MAN: I'm scared . . . So, these are the secrets they've been hiding in this
house! {He looks at a painting, his back turned to the closet.) There he
is! . . . He! {The MUMMY comes out of the closet, goes up to him from
behind, and yanks on his wig.)
MUMMY: Squir-rel! Is it Squir-rel?
OLD MAN {badly frightened): Oh my God!—Who are you?
MUMMY {in a normal voice): Is it you, Jacob?
OLD MAN: As a matter of fact, my name is Jacob . . .
MUMMY {moved): And my name is Amalia.
OLD MAN: Oh, no, no, no . . . Lord Je . . .
MUMMY: Yes, this is how I look!—And {pointing to the statue) that's how I
used to look! Life teaches us so much.—I stay in the closet mostly, to
 avoid both seeing people and being seen . . . But what do you want here,
Jacob?
OLD MAN: My child! Our child .. .
MUMMY: She's in there.
OLD MAN: Where?
MUMMY: There, in the hyacinth room.
OLD MAN (looking at the YOUNG LADY): Yes, there she is. (pause) What does
her father say? The Colonel? Your husband?
MUMMY: Once, when I was angry at him, I told him everything . . .
OLD MAN: And?
MUMMY: He didn't believe me. He just said: "That's what all wives say when
13 they want to murder their husbands."—Even so, it was a terrible crime.
S5 Everything in his life is a forgery, his family tree too. Sometimes when I
2 look at the List of the Nobility, I think to myself: "Why, that woman has a
Z false birth certificate, like a common servant girl. People get sent to
Jf prison for that."
OLD MAN: Many people do that. I seem to remember you falsified your
♦ age . . .
S8 MUMMY: My mother made me . . . it wasn't my fault!... But in our crime you
were most responsible . . .
OLD MAN: No, your husband provoked the crime when he stole my fiancee
away from me!—I was born unable to forgive until I've punished! I saw it
as a compelling duty .. . and still do!
MUMMY: What are you looking for in this house? What do you want? How did
you get in?—Is it my daughter? If you touch her, you'll die!
OLD MAN: I want what's best for her.
MUMMY: But you must spare her father!
OLD MAN: No!
MUMMY: Then you shall die. In this room. Behind that screen . . .
OLD MAN: That may be . . . but once I sink my teeth into something, I can't let
go...
MUMMY: You want to marry her off to that student. Why? He has nothing and
is nothing.
OLD MAN: He'll become rich, through me!
MUMMY: Were you invited here this evening?
OLD MAN: No, but I intend to get an invitation to the ghost supper.
MUMMY: Do you know who's coming?
OLD MAN: Not exactly.
MUMMY: The Baron . . . who lives upstairs and whose father-in-law was
buried this afternoon . . .
OLD MAN: The one who's getting divorced so he can marry the superinten­
dent's daughter . . . the one who was once your—lover!
MUMMY: Another guest will be your former fiancee, whom my husband
seduced...
OLD MAN: What an elegant gathering . ..
MUMMY: God, if only we could die! If only we could die!
OLD MAN: Then why do you associate with each other?
MUMMY: Crimes and secrets and guilt bind us together!—We've broken up
and gone our separate ways an endless number of times, but we're always
drawn back together again . . .
OLD MAN: I think the Colonel's coming . ..
MUMMY: Then I'll go in to Adele . . . (pause) Jacob, mind what you do! Spare
him . .. (pause; she leaves.)
COLONEL (entering; cool, reserved): Won't you sit down? (The OLD MAN sits S
down slowly; pause; the COLONEL stares at him.) Are you the one who o
wrote this letter? jj
OLD MAN: Yes. ♦
COLONEL: Your name is Hummel? ♦
OLD MAN: Yes. (pause) ^
COLONEL: Since I know you bought up all my unpaid promissory notes, it
follows that I am at your mercy. What is it you want?
OLD MAN: Payment of one kind or another.
COLONEL: What kind did you have in mind?
OLD MAN: A very simple one—but let's not talk about money.—Just tolerate
me in your house as a guest.
COLONEL: If that's all it takes to satisfy you . . .
OLD MAN: Thank you.
COLONEL: Anything else?
OLD MAN: Fire Bengtsson!
COLONEL: Why should I do that? My trusted servant, who's been with me for
a generation—who wears the national medal for loyal and faithful ser­
vice? Why should I do that?
OLD MAN: All his beautiful virtues exist only in your imagination.—He's not
the man he appears to be.
COLONEL: But who is?
OLD MAN (winces): True! But Bengtsson must go!
COLONEL: Are you trying to run my house?
OLD MAN: Yes! Since I own everything here: furniture, curtains, dinner ser­
vice, linen . . . and other things!
COLONEL: What other things?
 OLD MAN: Everything! I own everything! It's all mine!
COLONEL: Very well, it's all yours. But my family's coat of arms, and my good
name—they remain mine!
OLD MAN: No, not even those! (pause) You're not a nobleman.
COLONEL: How dare you?
OLD MAN (taking out a paper): If you read this extract from the Book of Noble
Families, you'll see that the name you bear died out a hundred years ago.
COLONEL (reading): I've certainly heard such rumors, but the name I bear
was my father's . . . (reading) It's true, you're right. . . I'm not a noble­
man!—Not even that remains!—Then I'll take off my signet ring.—It too
belongs to you . . . Here, take it!
OLD MAN (pocketing the ring): Now we'll continue!—You're not a colonel
ec either.
iu
* COLONEL: I'm not?
Q
Z OLD MAN: No! You were a former temporary colonel in the American Volun-
Jf teers, but when the army was reorganized after the Spanish-American
w
War, all such ranks were abolished . . .
i COLONEL: Is that true?
§ OLD MAN (reaching into his pocket): Do you want to read about it?
COLONEL: No, it's not necessary! . .. Who are you, that you have the right to
sit there and strip me naked like this?
OLD MAN: We'll see! But speaking about stripping . . . do you know who you
really are?
COLONEL: Have you no sense of shame?
OLD MAN: Take off your wig and look at yourself in the mirror! Take out your
false teeth too, and shave off your mustache! We'll have Bengtsson un­
lace your corset, and we'll see if a certain servant, Mr. XYZ, won't recog­
nize himself: a man who was once a great sponger in a certain kitchen . . .
(The COLONEL reaches for the bell on the table but is stopped by the OLD
MAN.) Don't touch that bell! If you call Bengtsson in here, I'll have him
arrested . . . Your guests are arriving.—You keep calm and we'll continue
to play our old roles awhile longer!
COLONEL: Who are you? I recognize that expression in your eyes and that
tone in your voice . . .
OLD MAN: No more questions! Just keep quiet and do as you're told!
STUDENT (enters and bows to the COLONEL): Good evening, sir!
COLONEL: Welcome to my home, young man! Everyone is talking about
your heroism at that terrible accident, and it's an honor for me to greet
you . . .
STUDENT: Colonel, my humble origin . . . Your brilliant name and noble
background . ..
COLONEL: Let me introduce you: Director Hummel, Mr. Arkenholz . . .
Would you go in and join the ladies? I have to finish my conversation
with the director . . . (The STUDENT is shown into the Hyacinth Room,
where he remains visible, engaged in shy conversation with the YOUNG
LADY.) A superb young man, musical, sings, writes poetry . . . If he were a
nobleman and our equal socially, I would have nothing against... yes . . .
OLD MAN: Against what?
COLONEL: My daughter . . .
OLD MAN: Your daughter?—By the way, why does she always sit in there?
COLONEL: Whenever she's at home, she feels compelled to sit in the Hya­
cinth Room. It's a peculiar habit she has. . . Ah, here comes Miss Beate
von Holsteinkrona . . . a charming old lady . .. Very active in the church
and with a modest income from a trust...
OLD MAN (to himself): My old fiancee! (The FIANCEE enters; she is white-
haired and looks crazy.)
COLONEL: Director Hummel, Miss Holsteinkrona . . . (She curtsies and sits.
The BARON enters, dressed in mourning and looking as if he is hiding
something; he sits.) Baron Skanskorg .. .
OLD MAN (to himself, without rising): If it isn't the jewel thief . . . (to the
COLONEL) Call in the Mummy, and the party will be complete . . .
COLONEL (at the door to the Hyacinth Room): Polly!
MUMMY (entering): Squir-rel!
COLONEL: Should the young people be in here too?
OLD MAN: No! Not the young people! They'll be spared . . . (They all sit in
silence in a circle.)
COLONEL: Can we have the tea served?
OLD MAN: What for? No one here likes tea, so there's no use pretending we
do. (pause)
COLONEL: Shall we talk then?
OLD MAN (slowly, with long pauses): About what: the weather, which we all
know? Ask about each other's health, which we also know? I prefer
silence. Then you can hear thoughts and see into the past. In silence you
can't hide anything . . . as you can in words. The other day I read that the
reason different languages developed was that primitive tribes tried to
keep secrets from each other. And so languages are codes, and whoever
finds the key will understand them all. But there are certain secrets that
can be exposed without a key, especially when it comes to proving pater­
nity. But proving something in a courtroom is something else. That takes
two false witnesses, providing their stories agree. But on the kinds of
expeditions I'm thinking of, witnesses aren't taken along. Nature itself
plants in human beings an instinct for hiding that which should be
hidden. Nevertheless, we stumble into things without intending to, and
 sometimes the opportunity presents itself to reveal the deepest of secrets,
to tear the mask off the imposter, to expose the villain . . . {pause; all
watch each other without speaking.) How quiet it's become! {long silence)
Here, for instance, in this honorable house, in this lovely home, where
beauty, culture, and wealth are united . . . {long silence) All of us know
who we a r e . . . don't we? . . . I don't have to tell you . . . And you know me,
although you pretend ignorance . . . In there is my daughter, mine! You
know that too . . . She had lost the desire to live, without knowing w h y . . .
because she was withering away in this atmosphere of crime, deceit, and
falseness of every kind . . . That's why I looked for a friend for her in
whose company she could sense the light and warmth of a noble deed . . .
{long silence) And so my mission in this house was to pull up the weeds,
expose the crimes, settle all accounts, so that those young people might
at start anew in a home that I had given them! {long silence) Now I'm going
oQ to give you a chance to leave, under safe-conduct, each of you, in your
z own time. Whoever stays, I'll have arrested! {long silence) Listen to the
S clock ticking, like a death watch beetle in the wall! Do you hear what it
w says? "Time's-up! Time's-up! " In a few moments it'll strike and
♦ your time will be up. Then you may go, but not before. But it sounds a
^ threat before it strikes.—Listen! There's the warning: "The clock-can-
i2 strike." 1 too can strike .. . {He strikes the table with his crutch.) Do
you hear? {silence; the MUMMY crosses to the clock and stops it.)
MUMMY {clearly and seriously): But I can stop time in its course.—I can wipe
out the past, undo what has been undone. Not with bribes, not with
threats—but through suffering and repentance {crosses to the OLD
MAN) We are only wretched human beings, we know that. We have
trespassed and we have sinned, like all the rest. We are not what we seem,
for deep down we are better than ourselves, since we detest our faults.
But that you, Jacob Hummel, with your false name, can sit here and
judge us, proves that you are worse than we miserable creatures! You too
are not what you seem!—You're a thief who steals souls. You stole mine
once with false promises. You murdered the Consul who was buried
today; you strangled him with debts. You stole the Student by binding
him to a debt you pretended was left by his father, who never owed you a
penny. {During her speech, the OLD MAN has tried to rise and speak but
has fallen back in his chair, crumpling up more and more as she con-
tinues.) But there's a dark spot in your life. I've long suspected what it is,
but I'm not sure . . . I think Bengtsson knows, {rings the bell on the table)
OLD MAN: No, not Bengtsson! Not him!
MUMMY: Ah, then he does know! {She rings again. The little MILKMAID ap-
pears in the hallway door, unseen by everyone except the OLD MAN, who
becomes terrified. The MILKMAID disappears as BENGTSSON enters.)
MUMMY: Bengtsson, do you know this man?
BENGTSSON: Yes, I know him, and he knows me. Life has its ups and downs,
as we all know. I was once in his service; another time he was in mine.
For two whole years he was a sponger who used to flirt with the cook in
my kitchen.—Because he had to get away by three o'clock, dinner was
ready by two. And so we had to eat the warmed-over leavings of that ox!—
And he also drank the soup stock, which the cook then filled up with
water. He was like a vampire, sucking the marrow out of the house and
turning us all into skeletons.—And he almost got us put in prison when
we called the cook a thief. Later, I met him in Hamburg under another
name. This time he was a usurer, a bloodsucker. And he was accused of
having lured a girl out onto the ice to drown her, because she had
witnessed a crime he was afraid would be discovered . . . {The MUMMY
passes her hand across the OLD MAN'S face.)
MUMMY: This is you! Now give me the notes and the will! (JOHANSSON
appears in the hallway door and watches the proceedings with great inter-
est, knowing that he will shortly be freed from his slavery. The OLD MAN
takes out a bundle of papers and throws them on the table. The MUMMY
strokes him on the back.) Polly! Is Jacob there?
OLD MAN {like a parrot): Ja-cob is there!—Kakadora! Dora!
MUMMY: Can the clock strike?
OLD MAN {clucking): The clock can strike! {imitating a cuckoo clock) Cuck-oo,
cuck-oo, cuck-oo!...
MUMMY {opens the closet door): Now the clock has struck!—Get up and go
into that closet, where I've spent twenty years grieving for our mistake.—
There's a rope hanging in there. Let it stand for the one you used to stran­
gle the Consul upstairs, and with which you intended to strangle your
benefactor . . . Go! {The OLD MAN goes into the closet. The MUMMY closes
the door.) Bengtsson! Put out the screen! The death screen! (BENGTSSON
puts the screen out in front of the door.) It is finished!—May God have
mercy on his soul!
ALL: Amen! {long silence; in the Hyacinth Room the YOUNG LADY can be seen
accompanying the STUDENT on the harp as he recites.)
STUDENT: {after a prelude):
I saw the sun, and thought I saw
what was hidden.
You cannot heal with evil
deeds done in anger.
Man reaps as he sows;
blessed is the doer of good.
Comfort him you have grieved
with your goodness, and you will have healed.
No fear has he who has done no ill;
goodness is innocence.
 SCENE 3

(The Hyacinth Room. The style of the decor is somewhat bizarre, with oriental
motifs. Hyacinths ofevery color everywhere. On top of the porcelain tiled stove is
a large statue of a seated Buddha. In his lap is a bulb, out of which the stalk ofa
shallot has shot up, bearing its globe-shaped cluster of white, starlike flowers.
Upstage right the door to the Round Room, where the COLONEL and the
MUMMY sit silently, doing nothing. A portion of the death screen is also visible.
To the left the door to the pantry and the kitchen.
The STUDENT and the YOUNG LADY, Adele, are near a table, she with the
harp, he standing.)
YOUNG LADY: Sing for my flowers!
STUDENT: Is the hyacinth the flower of your soul?
ec YOUNG LADY: The one and only. Do you love the hyacinth?
g STUDENT: I love it above all others—its virginal figure rising so slim and
Z straight from the bulb, floating on the water and sending its pure white
* roots down into the colorless fluid. I love its colors: the snow-white of
w
innocence, the honey-gold of sweetness and pleasure, the rosy pink of
^ youth, the scarlet of maturity, but above all the blue, the blue of deep
^ eyes, of dew, of faithfulness... I love its colors more than gold and pearls,
*H have loved them since I was a child, have worshipped them because they
possess all the virtues I lack . . . And yet.. .
YOUNG LADY: What?
STUDENT: My love is not returned, for these lovely blossoms hate me . . .
YOUNG LADY: How do you mean?
STUDENT: Their fragrance—strong and pure as the early winds of spring that
have passed over melting snow—it confuses my senses, deafens me,
crowds me out of the room, dazzles me, shoots me with poisoned arrows
that wound my heart and set my head on fire. Don't you know the legend
of this flower?
YOUNG LADY: Tell me.
STUDENT: But first its meaning. The bulb, whether floating on water or
buried in soil, is our earth. The stalk shoots up, straight as the axis of the
world, and above, with its six-pointed star flowers, is the globe of heaven.
YOUNG LADY: Above the earth—the stars! How wonderful! Where did you
learn to see things this way?
STUDENT: Let me think!—In your eyes!—And so this flower is a replica of the
universe . . . That's why the Buddha sits brooding over the bulb of the
earth in his lap, watching it grow outwards and upwards, transforming
itself into a heaven.—This wretched earth aspires to become heaven!
That's what the Buddha is waiting for!
YOUNG LADY: Now I see—aren't snowflakes also six-pointed, like hyacinth
lilies?
STUDENT: You're right!—Then snowflakes are falling stars . . .
YOUNG LADY: And the snowdrop is a snow star . . . rising from the snow.
STUDENT: And the largest and most beautiful of all the stars in the firma­
ment, the red and gold Sirius, is the narcissus, with its red and gold
chalice and six white rays . . .
YOUNG LADY: Have you ever seen the shallot in bloom?
STUDENT: I certainly have!—It too bears its flowers in a ball, a sphere like the
globe of heaven, strewn with white stars . . .
YOUNG LADY: Yes! God, how magnificent! Whose idea was this?
STUDENT: Yours!
YOUNG LADY: Yours!
STUDENT: Ours!—Together we have given birth to something. We are
wed...
YOUNG LADY: Not y e t . . .
STUDENT: What else remains?
YOUNG LADY: The waiting, the trials, the patience!
STUDENT: Fine! Try me! (pause) Tell me, why do your parents sit so silently
in there, without saying a word?
YOUNG LADY: Because they have nothing to say to each other, because nei­
ther believes what the other says. As my father puts it: "What's the point
of talking, when we can't fool each other?"
STUDENT: What a terrible thing to believe . .
YOUNG LADY: Here comes the C o o k . . . Oh, look at her, she's so big and fat...
STUDENT: What does she want?
YOUNG LADY: She wants to ask me about dinner. I run the house, you see,
while my mother is i l l . . .
STUDENT: Why should we bother about the kitchen?
YOUNG LADY: We have to e a t . . . You look at her, I can't bear to . . .
STUDENT: Who is this monstrous woman?
YOUNG LADY: She belongs to the Hummel family of vampires. She's devour­
ing u s . . .
STUDENT: Why don't you get rid of her?
YOUNG LADY: She won't go! We have no control over her. She is punishment
for our sins . . . Can't you see that we're wasting away, withering? . . .
STUDENT: You mean you don't get enough to eat?
YOUNG LADY: Oh yes, we get lots to eat, but nothing nourishing. She boils the
meat until there's nothing left but gristle and water, while she drinks the
stock herself. And when there's a roast, she first cooks out all the goodness
and drinks the gravy and broth. Everything she touches shrivels up and
dries out. It's as if she can drain you with her eyes. She drinks the coffee
 and we get the grounds. She drinks from the wine and fills the bottles
with water . . .
STUDENT: Drive her out of the house!
YOUNG LADY: We can't!
STUDENT: Why not?
YOUNG LADY: We don't know! She won't go! No one has any control over
her!—She's taken all our strength!
STUDENT: May I send her away?
YOUNG LADY: No! Things must be as they are!—Now she's here. She'll ask
what we'll have for dinner. I'll answer this and that. She'll object and get
her own way.
0 STUDENT: Then let her decide the meals.
2 YOUNG LADY: She won't do that!
Q STUDENT: This is a strange house. It's bewitched!
— YOUNG LADY: Yes.—Oh, she turned away when she saw you.
|jj COOK (in the door): No, that wasn't why. (She sneers, her teeth showing.)
♦ STUDENT: Get out, woman!
53 COOK: When I'm good and ready, (pause) Now I'm ready, (disappears)
*-* YOUNG LADY: Don't lose your temper!—You must be patient. She's one of the
trials we have to endure in this house. Another is the maid—we have to
clean up after her.
STUDENT: I feel myself sinking down! Cor in aetherel Music!
YOUNG LADY: Wait!
STUDENT: Music!
YOUNG LADY: Patience!—This room is called the room of trials.—It's beauti­
ful to look at, but it's full of imperfections. . .
STUDENT: I can't believe that! But we'll have to overlook them. It is beautiful,
but it feels cold. Why don't you have a fire?
YOUNG LADY: Because it smokes.
STUDENT: Can't you have the chimney cleaned?
YOUNG LADY: It doesn't help! . . . Do you see that writing table?
STUDENT: It's very beautiful.
YOUNG LADY: But it wobbles! Every day I put a piece of cork under that leg,
but the maid takes it away when she sweeps, and I have to cut a new one.
Every morning the penholder is covered with ink, and so is the inkstand.
As sure as the sun rises, I'm always cleaning up after that woman, (pause)
What chore do you hate most?
STUDENT: Separating dirty laundry. Ugh!
YOUNG LADY: That's what I have to do. Ugh!
STUDENT: What else?
YOUNG LADY: Be awakened from a sound sleep to lock a window . . . which
the maid left rattling.
STUDENT: What else?
YOUNG LADY: Climb a ladder tofixthe damper on the stove after the maid
pulled the cord loose.
STUDENT: What else?
YOUNG LADY: Sweep after her, dust after her, light the stove after her—she'll
only put the wood in! Open the damper, wipe the glasses dry, reset the
table, uncork the wine bottles, open the windows to air the rooms, re­
make my bed, rinse the water pitcher when it gets green with algae, buy
matches and soap, which we're always out of, wipe the lamp chimneys,
and trim the wicks to keep the lamps from smoking. And to be sure they D
won't go out when we have company, I have to fill them myself... g
o
STUDENT: Music! ">
t!
YOUNG LADY: Wait!—First, the drudgery, the drudgery of keeping the filth of .g
life at a distance. ^
STUDENT: But you're well off. You've got two servants. ♦
YOUNG LADY: It wouldn't help if we had three. It's so difficult just to live, and
10
sometimes I get so tired . . . Imagine if there were a nursery too!
STUDENT: The greatest joy of all. . .
YOUNG LADY: And the most expensive . . . Is life worth this much trouble?
STUDENT: That depends on what you want in return . . . I would do anything
to win your hand.
YOUNG LADY: Don't talk like that!—You can never have me.
STUDENT: Why not?
YOUNG LADY: You mustn't ask. (pause)
STUDENT: But you dropped your bracelet out of the window . . .
YOUNG LADY: Because my hand has grown so thin . . . (pause; the COOK
appears carrying a bottle of Japanese soy sauce.) It's she, who's devouring
me, devouring us all.
STUDENT: What's she got in her hand?
YOUNG LADY: The Japanese bottle with the lettering like scorpions! It's soy
sauce to turn water into broth. She uses it instead of gravy when she
cooks cabbage and makes mock turtle soup.
STUDENT: Get out!
COOK: You suck the juices out of us, and we out of you. We take the blood
and give you back water—with coloring. This is colored water!—I'm
going now, but I'm staying in this house, as long as I want! (exits)
STUDENT: Why did Bengtsson get a medal?
YOUNG LADY: For his great merits.
 STUDENT: Has he no faults?
YOUNG LADY: Oh yes, terrible ones, but you don't get medals for them. (They
smile.)
STUDENT: You have many secrets in this house . . .
YOUNG LADY: Like everyone else . . . Let us keep ours! (pause)
STUDENT: Don't you like frankness?
YOUNG LADY: Yes, within reason.
STUDENT: Sometimes I get a raging desire to say exactly what I think. But I
know that if people were really frank and honest, the world would col­
lapse. (pause) I was at a funeral the other day . . . in the church.—It was
very solemn and beautiful.
„ YOUNG LADY: For Director Hummel?
{Jj STUDENT: Yes, my false benefactor!—At the head of the coffin stood an old
2 friend of the dead man, carrying the funeral mace. I was especially
Z impressed by the minister because of his dignified manner and moving
jf words.—Yes, I cried, we all cried.—Afterwards we went to a restaurant...
** There I learned that the man with the mace had been in love with the
^ dead man's son . . . (The YOUNG LADY stares at him questioningly.) And
oo that the dead man had borrowed money from his son's . . . admirer . . .
^ (pause) The next day the minister was arrested for embezzling church
funds!—Pretty story, isn't it?
YOUNG LADY: Oh! (pause)
STUDENT: Do you know what I'm thinking now about you?
YOUNG LADY: Don't tell me, or I'll die!
STUDENT: I must, or I'll die! . . .
YOUNG LADY: It's only in asylums that people say everything they think . . .
STUDENT: Yes, exactly!—My father ended up in a madhouse . . .
YOUNG LADY: Was he ill?
STUDENT: No, he was well, but he was crazy. The madness broke out one
day, when things became too much for him . . . Like the rest of us, he had
a circle of acquaintances, whom, for the sake of convenience, he called
friends. Naturally, they were a miserable bunch, as most people are. But
he needed them because he couldn't bear to be alone. Well, he didn't
ordinarily tell people what he thought of them, any more than anyone
else does. He certainly knew how false they were, what treachery they
were capable of! . . . However, he was a prudent man, and well brought
up, and so he was always polite. But one day he gave a big party.—It was
in the evening, and he was tired, tired after the day's work, and tired from
the strain of wanting to keep his mouth shut and having to talk nonsense
with his guests . . . (The YOUNG LADY shrinks back in horror.) Anyway, at
the dinner table, he rapped for silence, raised his glass, and began to
talk . . . Then something loosed the trigger, and in a long speech he
 stripped everybody naked, one after another, exposing all their falseness!
Exhausted, he sat down in the middle of the table and told them all to go
to hell!
YOUNG LADY: O h !
STUDENT: I was there, and I'll never forget what happened next!... My father
and mother fought, and the guests rushed for the door .. . My father was
taken to a madhouse, where he died, (pause) When we keep silent for
too long, stagnant water starts to form, and everything rots! And that's the
way it is in this house too! There's something rotting here! And I thought
this was a paradise the first time I saw you enter here . . . On that Sunday
morning I stood outside and looked in. I saw a colonel who wasn't a
colonel. I had a noble benefactor who was a bandit and had to hang
himself. I saw a mummy who was not a mummy, and a maiden—which g
reminds me: where is virginity to be found? Where is beauty? Only in o
Nature or in my mind when it's dressed up in Sunday best. Where are t!
honor and faith? In fairy tales and children's games. Where is anything jg
that fulfills its promise? . . . In my imagination!—Do you see? Your jj
flowers have poisoned me, and now I've given the poison back to you.—I **"
begged you to be my wife and share our home. We made poetry, sang, 4
and played, and then in came the C o o k . . . Sursum cordal Try once more o
to strike fire and splendor from the golden harp . . . try, I beg you, I *H
command you on my knees! . . . Very well, then I'll do it myself! (takes
the harp and plucks the strings, but there is no sound)
It's deaf and dumb! Why is it that the most beautiful flowers are so
poisonous, the most poisonous? Damnation hangs over the whole of
creation . . . Why wouldn't you be my bride? Because you're sick at the
very source of life . . . I can feel that vampire in the kitchen beginning to
drain me. I think she's a lamia who sucks the blood of children. It's
always in the kitchen that a child's seed leaves are nipped, its growth
stunted, if it hasn't already happened in the bedroom . . . There are
poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.—I must have
been born with the second kind in my veins, for I can't see beauty in
ugliness or call evil good, I can't! Jesus Christ descended into hell. That
was his pilgrimage on this earth: to this madhouse, this dungeon, this
morgue of a world. And the madmen killed him when he tried to set
them free, but they let the bandit go. It's always the bandit who gets the
sympathy!—Alas! Alas for us all! Savior of the World, save us, we are
perishing! (The YOUNG LADY, apparently dying, lies crumpled in her chair.
She rings and BENGTSSON enters.)
YOUNG LADY: Bring the screen! Quickly—I'm dying! (BENGTSSON exits and
returns with the screen, which he unfolds and sets up around the YOUNG
LADY.)
STUDENT: He's coming to set you free! Welcome, you pale and gentle
deliverer!—Sleep, my beautiful one, lost and innocent, blameless in your
suffering. Sleep without dreaming. And when you awaken again . . . may
you be greeted by a sun that does not burn, in a home without dust, by
friends who cause no pain, by a love without flaw . . . You wise and gentle
Buddha, sitting there waiting for a heaven to rise up out of the earth,
grant us patience in the time of testing, and purity of will, so that your
hope may not be in vain! (The strings of the harp make a murmuring
sound. The room is filled with white light)
I saw the sun, and thought I saw
what was hidden.
You cannot heal with evil
deeds done in anger.
Man reaps as he sows;
blessed is the doer of good.
Comfort him you have grieved
with your goodness, and you will have healed.
No fear has he who has done no ill;
goodness is innocence.
(A whimpering can be heard from behind the screen.) You poor little child,
child of this world of illusion, guilt, suffering, and death; this world of
endless change, disappointment, and pain. The Lord of Heaven be mer­
ciful to you on your journey . . .
(The room disappears. Bocklins painting, uThe Island of the Dead,"
appears in the background, and from the island comes music, soft, calm,
and gently melancholy.)
 Zones of the Spirit

August Strindberg

Through Faith to Knowledge.—The pupil asked: "How shall I know that I

believe rightly?"
"I will tell you. Doubt the regular denials of your everyday intelligence.
Go out of yourself if you can, and place yourself at the believer's standpoint.
Act as though you believed, and then test the belief, and see whether it agrees
with your experiences. If it does, then you have gained in wisdom, and no
one can shake your belief. When I for the first time obtained Swedenborg's
Arcana Coelestia, and looked through the ten thousand pages, it appeared to
me all nonsense. And yet I could not help wondering, since the man was so
extraordinarily learned in all the natural sciences, as well as in mathematics,
philosophy, and political economy. Amid the apparent foolishness of the
book were some details which remained riveted in my memory.
"Some time later, in my ordinary life, there happened something inexpli­
cable. Subsequently light was thrown upon this by an experience which
Swedenborg refers to as his so-called heaven and his so-called angels. Then I
began to search and to compare, to make experiments and to find explana­
tions. I come to the conclusion that Swedenborg has had experiences which
resemble those of earthly life, but are not the same. This he brings out in his
theory of correspondences and agreements. The theosophists have expressed
it thus: parallel with the earth-life we live another life on the astral plane, but
unconsciously to ourselves."
The Enchanted Room.—The pupil became curious and asked: "What
opened your eyes as regards Swedenborg?"

Excerpt reprinted from August Strindberg, Zones of the Spirit, trans. Claud Field (New York:
Putnam, 1913), 28-43.
 "It is difficult to say, but I will try to do so. In my lonely dwelling there was
a room which I considered the most beautiful in the world. It had not been
so beautiful at first, but great and important events had taken place there. A
child had been born in it, and in it a man had died. Finally I fitted it up as a
temple of memory, and never showed it to anyone.
"One day, however, the demon of pride and ostentation took possession
of me, and I took a guest into it. He happened to be a 'black man/ a hopeless
despairer, who only believed in physical force and in wickedness and called
himself 'a load of earth/ As I admitted him I said, 'Now you will see the most
beautiful room in the country. I turned on the electric light, which generally
poured down from the ceiling such a blaze that not a dark corner was left in
the room. The man stood in the middle of the room, looked round, grum­
bled to himself, and said 'I can't see that/
ec "As he spoke, the room darkened, the walls contracted, the floor shrank
CD in size. My splendid temple was metamorphosed before my eyes. It seemed
z to me like a room in a hospital, with coarse wallpaper; the beautiful flowered
£ curtains looked dirty; the white surface of the little writing-table showed
a spots; the gilding was blackened; the brass fittings of the tiled oven were
♦ tarnished. The whole room was altered, and I was ashamed. It has been
w enchanted."
2 Concerning Correspondences.—"Now comes Swedenborg, but his ex­
planation is somewhat difficult. I must make a prefatory remark, in order that
you may not think I regard myself as an angel. By 'angel' Swedenborg means
a deceased mortal, who by death has been released from the prison of the
body, and by suffering in faith has recovered the highest faculties of his soul.
It is necessary to bear this definition of Swedenborg's in mind, and to re­
member that it does not apply to my guest or myself.
"Swedenborg further remarks regarding these dematerialised beings: 'AH
which appears and exists around them seems to be produced and created by
them. The fact that their surroundings are, as it were, produced and created
by them is evident, because when they are no longer there, the surroundings
are altered. A change in the surroundings is also apparent, when other beings
come in their place. Elysian plains change into their trees and fruits; gardens
change into their roses and plants, and fields into their herbs and grasses.
The reason for the appearance and alteration of such objects is that they are
produced by the wishes of these angel beings and the currents of thought set
in motion thereby/
"Is not this a subtle observation of Swedenborg's, and have not the facts
he alleges something corresponding to them in our lower sphere? Does it not
resemble my adventure in the 'enchanted room?' Perhaps you have had a
similar experience?"
The Green Island.—The pupil answered: "I have certainly had strange
experiences, but did not understand them because I thought with the flesh.
As I just heard you say that our experiences can receive a symbolical inter-
pretation, I remembered an incident which resembled that which you have
just related and compared with an observation of Swedenborg's. After a
youth spent under intolerable pressure and too much work, a friend gave me
a sum of money that I might spend the summer on the sea in literary
recreation. When I saw the 'Green Island' with its carpets of flowers, beds of
reeds, banks of willows, oak coppices, and hazel woods, I thought that I
beheld Paradise. Together with three other young poets I passed the summer
in a state of happiness which I have never experienced since. We were fairly
religious, although we did not literally believe in the gods of the state, and we
lived, as a rule, innocently enough, with simple pleasures such as bathing,
sailing, and fishing.
"But there was an evil man among us. He was overbearing, and regarded
mankind as his enemies, denied all goodness, spied after others7 faults, re­
joiced in others' misfortunes. Every time he left us to go to the town, the
island seemed to me more beautiful; it seemed like Sunday. I was always the
object of his gibes, but did not understand his malice. My friends wondered
that I was not angry with him, as I was generally so passionate. I do not myself
understand it, but I was as though protected, and noticed nothing, whatever
the cause may have been. Perhaps you ask whether the island really was so
wonderful. I answer: I found it so, but perhaps the beauty was in my way of
looking at it."
Swedenborg's Hell.—The pupil continued: "The next summer I came
again, but this time with other companions, and I was another man. The
bitterness of life, the spirit of the time, new teachings, evil companionship
made me doubt the beneficence of Providence and finally deny its exis­
tence. We led a dreadful life together. We slandered each other, suspected
each other even of theft. All wished to dominate, nobody would follow
another to the best bathing-place, but each went to his own. We could not
sail, for everyone wished to steer. We quarrelled from morning till night. We
drank also, and half of us were treating ourselves for incurable diseases. My
'Green Island,' the first paradise of my youth, became ugly and repulsive to
me. I could see no more beauty in nature, although at that time I worshipped
nature. But wait a minute, and see how it agreed with what Swedenborg says!
The beautiful weed-fringed bay began to exhale such miasmas that I got
malarial fever. The gnats plagued us the whole night and stung through the
thickest veil. If I wandered in the wood and wished to pluck a flower, I saw an
adder rear its head. One day, when I took some moss from a rock, I saw
immediately a black snake zigzagging away. It was inexplicable. The peace­
able inhabitants must have been infected by our wickedness, for they be­
came malicious, ugly, quarrelsome, and enacted domestic tragedies. It was
hell! When I became ill, my companions scoffed at me, and were angry,
because I had to have a room to myself. They borrowed money from me
which was not my own, and behaved brutally. When I wanted a doctor, they
would not fetch him."
 The teacher broke in: "That is how Swedenborg describes hell."
Preliminary Knowledge Necessary.—The pupil asked: "Is there a hell?"
"You ask that, when you have been in it?"
"I mean, another one."
"What do you mean by another one? Has your experience not sufficed to
convince you that there is one?"
"But what does Swedenborg think?"
"I don't know. It is possible that he means not a place, but a condition of
mind. But as his descriptions of another side agree with our experiences on
this side in this point, that whenever a man breaks the connection with the
higher sphere, which is Love and Wisdom, a hell ensues—it does not matter
whether it is here or there. He uses parables and allegories, as Christ did in
order to be understood.
flc "Emerson in his Representative Men regards Swedenborg's genius as the
a greatest among modern thinkers, but he warns us against stereotyping his
2 forms of thought. True as transitional forms, they are false if one tries to fix
£ them fast. He calls these descriptions a transitory embodiment of the truth,
</> not the truth itself."
t "But I do not yet understand Swedenborg."
^ "No, because you have not the necessary preliminary knowledge. Just
2 like the peasant who came to a chemical lecture and only heard about letters
and numbers. He considered it the most stupid stuff he had ever heard:
'They could only spell, but could not put the letters together/ He lacked the
necessary preliminary knowledge. Still, when you read Swedenborg, read
Emerson along with him."
Perverse Science.—The teacher continued: "Swedenborg never found a
contradiction between science and religion, because he beheld the harmony
in all, correspondences in the higher sphere to the lower, and the unity
underlying opposites. Like Pythagoras, he saw the Law-giver in His laws, the
Creator in His work, God in nature, history, and the life of men. Modern
degenerate science sees nothing, although it has obtained the telescope and
microscope.
"Newton, Leibnitz, Kepler, Swedenborg, Linnaeus—the greatest scien­
tists were religious, God-fearing men. Newton wrote also an exposition of
the Apocalypse. Kepler was a mystic in the truest sense of the word. It was his
mysticism which led to his discovery of the laws regulating the courses of the
planets. Humble and pure-hearted, those men could see God, while our
decadents only see an ape infested by vermin.
"The fact that our science has fallen into disharmony with God shows
that it is perverse, and derives its light from the Lord of Dung."
Truth in Error.—The teacher continued: "Let us return for a moment to
your green island. There you discovered that the world is a reflection of your
interior state, and of the interior state of others. It is therefore probable that
each carries his own heaven and hell within him. Thus we come to the
conclusion that religion is something subjective, and therefore outside the
reach of discussion.
"The believer is therefore right when he receives spiritual edification
from the consecrated bread and wine. And the unbeliever is also not wrong
when he maintains that for him it is only bread and wine. But if he asserts
that it is the same with the believer, he is wrong. One ought not to punish
him for it; one must only lament his want of intelligence. By calling religion
subjective, I have not thereby diminished its power. The subjective is the
highest for personality, which is an end in itself, inasmuch as the education
of man to superman is the meaning of existence.
"But when many individuals combine in one belief, there results an
objective force of tremendous intensity, which can move mountains and
overthrow the walls of Jericho."
Accumulators.—"When a race of wild men begins to worship a meteoric
stone and this stone is subsequently venerated by a nation for centuries, it
accumulates psychic force, i.e., becomes a sacred object which can bestow
strength on those who possess the receptive apparatus of faith. It can accord­
ingly work miracles which are quite incomprehensible to unbelievers.
"Such a sacred object is called an amulet, and is not really more remark­
able than an electric pocket-lamp. But the lamp gives light only on two
conditions—that it is charged with electricity and that one presses the knob.
Amulets also only operate under certain conditions.
"The same holds true of sacred places, sacred pictures and objects, and
also of sacred rites, which are called sacraments.
"But it may be dangerous for an unbeliever to approach too near to an
accumulator. The faith-batteries of others can produce an effect on them,
and they may be killed thereby, if they possess not the earth-circuit to carry
off the coarser earthly elements.
"The electric car proceeds securely and evenly as long as it is in contact
with the overhead wire and also connected with the earth. If the former
contact is interrupted, the car stands still. If the earth-circuit is blocked, an
electric storm is the result, as was the case with St. Paul on the way to
Damascus."
Eternal Punishment.—The pupil asked: "What is your belief regarding
eternal punishments?"
"Let me answer evasively, so to speak: since wickedness is its own punish­
ment and a wicked man cannot be happy and the will is free, an evil man
may be perpetually tormented with his own wickedness, and his punishment
accordingly have no end.
"But we will hope that the wicked man will not adhere to his evil will for
ever. A wicked man often experiences a change of nature when he sees
something good. Therefore, it is our duty to show him what is good. The
consciousness of fatality and being damned comes to everyone, even to the
incredulous. That proves that there is an inborn sense of justice, a need to
 punish oneself, and that quite independent of dogmas. Moreover, it is a gross
falsehood that the doctrine of hell was invented by Christianity. Greeks and
Romans knew Hades and Tartarus with their refined tortures; the Jews had
their Sheol and Gehenna; the cheerful Japanese rival Dante with their
Inferno. It is therefore thoughtless nonsense to make Christian theology
solely responsible for the doctrine of hell. It would be just as fair to trace it to
the cheerful view of life of the Greeks and Romans, who first came upon the
idea."
"Desolation."—The teacher continued: "When this feeling of fatality
strikes an unbeliever, it often appears as the so-called persecution mania. He
believes himself, for example, persecuted by men who wish to poison him.
Since his intelligence is so low that he cannot rise to the idea of God, his evil
conscience makes him conjure up evil men as his persecutors. Thus he does
ec not understand that it is God who is pursuing him, and therefore he dies or
io goes mad.
2 "But he who has strength enough to bow himself, or intelligence enough
S to guess at a method in this madness, cries to God for help and grace, and
a escapes the madhouse. After a season of self-chastisement, life begins to grow
♦ lighter; peace returns; he succeeds in his undertakings; his 'Green Island'
^ again blooms with spring. This feeling of woebegoneness often occurs about
2 the fortieth or fiftieth year. It is the balancing of books at the solstice. The
whole past is summed up, and the debit side shows a plus which makes one
despair. Scenes of earlier life pass by like a panorama, seen in a new light;
long-forgotten incidents reappear even in their smallest details. The opening
of the sealed Book of Life, spoken of in the Revelation, is a veritable reality. It
is the day of judgment. The children of the Lord of Dung who have lost their
intelligence understand nothing, but buy bromide at the chemist's and take
sick-leave because of 'neurasthenia/ That is a Greek word, which serves
them as an amulet.
"Swedenborg calls this natural process the desolation of the wicked. The
pietists call it the awakening before conversion."
A World of Delusion.—"Swedenborg writes: T h e angels are troubled
concerning the darkness on earth. They say that they can see hardly any light
anywhere, that men live and strengthen themselves in lying and deceit and
so heap up falsity upon falsity. In order to ratify these, they manage to extract,
by way of inference, such true propositions from false premises, as from the
darknesses which conceal the true sources, and, because the real state of the
case is unknown, cannot be refuted/
"This agrees with what every thinking man observes: that lying and
deceit are universal. The whole of life—politics, society, marriage, the fam­
ily—is counterfeit. Views which universally prevail are based upon false
history; scientific theories are founded on error; the truth of today is dis­
covered to be a lie tomorrow; the hero turns out to be a coward, the martyr a
hypocrite. Te Deums are sung over a silver wedding, and the wedded pair,
still secretly leading immoral lives, thank God that they have lived together
happily for five-and-twenty years. The whole populace assembles once in a
year to celebrate the memory of the 'Destroyer of the Country/ He who says
the most foolish thing possible receives a prize in money and a gold medal.
At the annual asses' festival, the worst is crowned the asses' king.
"A mad world, my masters! If Hamlet plays the madman, he sees how
mad the world is. But the spectator believes himself to be the only reason­
able person; therefore, he gives Hamlet his sympathy."
 3

Correspondences

assily Kandinsky, painter, playwright, and theorist, was born

W on December 4, 1866, in Moscow. After studying law at

Moscow University, he lectured on jurisprudence there un­
til 1896, when he declined a professorship at the University of Dorpat
to study painting in Munich. There he was able to gain traditional train­
ing as a painter while associating with many young experimental artists
working in Munich at the turn of the century. In 1908, Kandinsky began
to create Expressionist landscapes, and, from this point on, he moved
steadily in his painting toward more abstract visual forms. Along with
Franz Marc, he founded Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in 1911, a
group that embraced a wide range of art devoted to the exploration of the
artist's inner life.
In 1912, Kandinsky and Marc edited Der Blaue Reiter Almanach, which in­
cluded the first publication of Kandinsky's Dergelbe Klang (The Yellow Sound, a.k.a.
The Yellow Chord), with "On Stage Composition" as its introduction. Written in
1909, this play occupies a significant place in the history of theater as one of the
first abstract dramas (itself barely anticipated by the ideas in the Russian com­
poser Scriabin's Prometheus [ 1909-10]) and also one of the earliest of modern
light-and-sound "events." Its musical score, by the Russian composer Thomas
von Hartmann, was unfortunately lost during the Russian Revolution.
At about the same time as he was writing The Yellow Sound together with The
Green Sound (1909), Black and White (1909), and Violet (1911), Kandinsky pub­
lished his main theoretical tract on modern art, Ober das Geistige in der Kunst
(Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911), in which he advocated the creation of
increasingly nonobjective art, free from the confines of physical representa­
tion. As a member of the Bauhaus beginning in 1922, Kandinsky continued to
 influence the development of this movement—whose primary goals, like his,
were to reunite the arts, break down the barriers between artists and crafts­
men, and make artistic products available to the common people as well as make
them an integral part of daily life—until it was shut down by the Nazis in 1933. He
died on December 13, 1944, in Paris.

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The Yellow Sound as a Total Work of Art

r^^m M nspired by the Wagnerian notion of Gesamtkunstwerk, Kandinsky

L^J | aimed at creating a synthetic genre—the total work of art. Argu-
fjf^r ^ ™ ing, however, that the Wagnerian concept is based exclusively on
the principles of representational art, in which all connections between
IJJF and within different arts are artificial and external, Kandinsky offered
his own model of the Gesamtkunstwerk. He named his new model a stage
composition, a form centered on the principle of internal spiritual connections
between sound, movement, and color. Kandinsky first presented his concept of
purely theatrical, synthetic form and its relationship to the Wagnerian
Gesamtkunstwerk in his theoretical manifesto "On Stage Composition" (1912).
Kandinsky's own stage compositions The Yellow Sound, Daphnis and Chloe,
Black and White, Violet, and The Green Sound were written in the early 1900s,
simultaneously with his first attempts to break away from naturalism in art and
create abstract painting. By renouncing the material object and the human figure
in abstract painting, Kandinsky established a new relationship between form and
color. Similarly, by renouncing individualized character and psychological motiva-
tion in stage composition, Kandinsky introduced a purely theatrical, ecstatically
spectacular form that would have an exclusively spiritual, even regenerative
relation with its audience.
Unlike Wagner, Kandinsky contended that the three elements of his Ge-
samtkunstwerk—sound, movement, and color—should not have external or
narrative connections with each other. Kandinsky rejected the governing triad of
realistic drama—psychology, causality, and morality or providentiality—and cre-
ated his own formula in which the causal-motivational relationships among char-
acters and events were replaced by the internal or subjective causality contained
in sound, movement, and color. In Kandinsky's triad, the function of psychology
was taken over by different colors and their psychological effect on the audience.
And even though Kandinsky argued for the independence of all three elements in
his triad, color actually dictated the action. Color, in its relation to music and
dance and vice versa, replaced not only psychology in the triad, but also cause-
and-effect relationships, for changes in color programmed the movements of the
other elements in Kandinsky's composition.
While completely repudiating representational, realistic art in The Yellow
Sound, Kandinsky embraced some models of avant-garde drama and prefigured
others. Influenced by the principles of Gesamtkunstwerk and the Symbolist
theory of "correspondences"—the idea that there exists an inner, spiritual reci-
procity among the arts, whose different forms can potentially affect the same
senses—Kandinsky also explored some of the themes of Expressionistic drama,
such as the eternal contradiction between Dionysian frenzy (yellow) and Apollo-
nian "classicism" (blue) and the never-ending battle between the spiritual and
the physical. In emphasizing the importance of collage and the juxtaposition of
different arts within a total work of art, he also anticipated the Dadaist theories

By Julia Listengarten. Published here for the first time.

 of automatic writing, chance collages, and random stage compositions. Finally,
however, The Yellow Sound in its pure form cannot be identified with any particu­
lar avant-garde movement: instead, it is sui generis, presenting its own form and
perhaps its own movement.

Select Bibliography on Kandinsky

Berghaus, Gunter. "A Theatre of Image, Sound, and Motion." Maske und Kothurn 32.1 - 2
(1986): 7-28.
Grohmann, Will. Woss/7y Kandinsky: Life and Work. Trans. Norbert Guterman. New York:
a Abrams, 1958.
|j Kobialka, Michael. "Theatre of Celebration/Disruption: Time and Space/Timespace in
Z Kandinsky's Theatre Experiments." Theatre Annual 44 (1989-90): 71 -96.
Q Sheppard, R. W. "Kandinsky's Abstract Drama Der Gelbe Klang: An Interpretation." Forum
Z for Modern Language Studies 14(1975): 165-76.
2 Swoope, Charles. "Kandinsky and Kokoschka: Two Episodes in the Genesis of Total The­
ft atre." Yale/Theatre 3.1 (Fall 1970): 11-18.
tc
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02
 T h e Yellow Sound
A Stage Composition

Wassily Kandinsky

PARTICIPANTS

FIVE GIANTS
INDISTINCT BEINGS
TENOR (behind the stage)
A CHILD
A MAN
PEOPLE IN FLOWING GARB
PEOPLE IN TIGHTS
CHORUS (behind the stage)
[Thomas von Hartmann was responsible for the music]

INTRODUCTION

Some indeterminate chords from the orchestra.

Curtain.
Over the stage, dark-blue twilight, which at first has a pale tinge and later
becomes a more intense dark blue. After a time, a small light becomes visible in
the center, increasing in brightness as the color becomes deeper. After a time,
music from the orchestra. Pause.
Behind the stage, a CHORUS is heard, which must be so arranged that the
source of the singing is unrecognizable. The bass voices predominate. The
singing is even, without expression, with pauses indicated by dots.

Reprinted from Arnold Schoenberg, Wassily Kandinsky: Letters, Pictures, and Documents, ed.
Jelena Hahl-Koch; trans. John C. Crawford (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), 489-507.
 At first, DEEP VOICES.
Stone-hard dreams.... And speaking rocks... .
Clods of earth pregnant with puzzling questions....
The heaven t u r n s . . . . The stones.... m e l t . . . .
Growing up more invisible . . . rampart....
HIGH VOICES:
Tears and laughter.... Praying and cursing... .
Joy of reconciliation and blackest slaughter.
ALL:
Murky light on the . . . sunniest... day
(Quickly and suddenly cut off).
Brilliant shadows in darkest night!!
^ The light disappears. It grows suddenly dark. Long pause. Then orchestral
* introduction.
z
E
Z SCENE 1
<
4 {Right and left as seen by the spectator.)
♦ The stage must be as deep as possible. A long way back, a broad green hill.
g! Behind the hill a smooth, matt, blue, fairly dark-toned curtain.
*"" The music begins straightaway, at first in the higher registers, then de-
scending immediately to the lower. At the same time, the background becomes
dark blue (in time with the music) and assumes broad black edges (like a pic-
ture). Behind the stage can be heard a chorus, without words, which produces
an entirely wooden and mechanical sound, without feeling. After the CHOIR
has finished singing, a general pause: no movement, no sound. Then darkness.
Later, the same scene is illuminated. Five bright yellow GIANTS (as big as
possible) appear from right to left (as if hovering directly above the ground).
They remain standing next to one another right at the back, some with
raised, others with lowered shoulders, and with strange, yellow faces which are
indistinct.
Very slowly, they turn their heads toward one another and make simple
arm movements.
The music becomes more definite.
Immediately afterward, the GIANTS' very low singing, without words, be-
comes audible (pp), and the GIANTS approach the ramp very slowly. Quickly,
red, indistinct creatures, somewhat reminiscent of birds, fly from left to right,
with big heads, bearing a distant resemblance to human ones. This flight is
reflected in the music.
The GIANTS continue to sing more and more softly. As they do so, they
become more indistinct. The hill behind grows slowly and becomes brighter
and brighter, finally white. The sky becomes completely black.
Behind the stage, the same wooden chorus becomes audible. The GIANTS
are no longer to be heard.
 The apron stage turns blue and becomes ever more opaque.
The orchestra competes with the chorus and drowns it
A dense blue mist makes the whole stage invisible.

SCENE 2

The blue mist recedes gradually before the light, which is a perfect, brilliant
white. At the back of the stage, a bright green hill, completely round and as
large as possible.
The background violet, fairly bright
The music is shrill and tempestuous, with oft-repeated A and B and B and
A-flat. These individual notes are finally swallowed up by the raging storm.
Suddenly, there is complete stillness. A pause. Again is heard the plangent
complaint, albeit precise and sharp, of A and B. This lasts for some time. Then,
a further pause.
At this point the background suddenly turns a dirty brown. The hill be-
comes dirty green. And right in the middle of the hill forms an indefinite black
patch, which appears now distinct, now blurred. At each change in definition,
the brilliant white light becomes progressively grayer. On the left side of the
hill a big yellow flower suddenly becomes visible. It bears a distant resem-
blance to a large, bent cucumber, and its color becomes more and more in-
tense. Its stem is long and thin. Only one narrow, prickly leaf grows sideways
out of the middle of the stem. Long pause.
Later, in complete silence, the flower begins to sway very slowly from right
to left; still later the leaf, but not together. Still later, both begin to sway in an
uneven tempo. Then again separately, whereupon a very thin B accompanies
the movement of the flower, a very deep A that of the leaf. Then both sway
together again, and both notes sound together. The flower trembles violently
and then remains motionless. In the music, the two notes continue to sound. At
the same time, many PEOPLE come on from the left in long, garish, shapeless
garments (one entirely blue, a second red, a third green, etc.; only yellow is
missing). The PEOPLE hold in their hands very large white flowers that resem-
ble the flower on the hill. The PEOPLE keep as close together as possible, pass
directly in front of the hill, and remain on the right-hand side of the stage,
almost huddled together. They speak with various different voices and recite:
The flowers cover all, cover all, cover all.
Close your eyes! Close your eyes!
We look. We look.
Cover conception with innocence.
Open your eyes! Open your eyes!
Gone. Gone.*

* Vorbei in the German; in the earlier Russian version mimo, which means "passed" only in the
spatial sense, hence "passed by" or "missed."
 At first, they all recite together, as if in ecstasy (very distinctly). Then, they
repeat the same thing individually: one after the other—alto, bass and soprano
voices. At "We look, we look" B sounds; at "Gone, gone" A. Occasional voices
become hoarse. Some cry out as if possessed. Here and there a voice becomes
nasal, sometimes slowly, sometimes with lightning rapidity. In the first in-
stance, the stage is suddenly rendered indistinct by a dull red light. In the
second, a lurid blue light alternates with total darkness. In the third, every-
thing suddenly turns a sickly gray (all colors disappear!). Only the yellow
flower continues to glow more strongly!
Gradually, the orchestra strikes up and drowns the voices. The music
becomes restless, jumping from Sto pp. The light brightens somewhat, and one
can recognize indistinctly the colors of the people. Very slowly, tiny figures
cross the hill from right to left, indistinct and having a gray color ofindetermi-
£ nate value. They look before them. The moment the first figure appears, the
™ yellow flower writhes as if in pain. Later it suddenly disappears. With equal
2 suddenness, all the white flowers turn yellow.
z The PEOPLE walk slowly, as if in a dream, toward the apron stage, and
* separate more and more from one another.
♦ The music dies down, and again one hears the same recitative. * Suddenly,
^ the PEOPLE stop dead as if spellbound and turn around. All at once they no-
^ tice the little figures, which are still crossing the hill in an endless line. The
PEOPLE turn away and take several swift paces toward the apron stage, stop
once more, turn around again, and remain motionless, as if rooted to the spot, t
At last they throw away the flowers as if they were filled with blood, and
wrenching themselves free from their rigidity, run together toward the front of
the stage. They look around frequently. X It turns suddenly dark.

SCENE 3

At the back of the stage: two large rust brown rocks, one sharp, the other
rounded and larger than the first. Backdrop: black. Between the rocks stand
the GIANTS (as in Scene 1) and whisper noiselessly to one another. Sometimes
they whisper in pairs; sometimes all their heads come together. Their bodies
remain motionless. In quick succession, brightly colored rays fall from all sides
(blue, red, violet, and green alternate several times). Then all these rays meet
in the center, becoming intermingled. Everything remains motionless. The
GIANTS are almost invisible. Suddenly, all colors vanish. For a moment, there is
blackness. Then a dull yellow light floods the stage, which gradually becomes
more intense, until the whole stage is bright lemon yellow. As the light is
intensified, the music grows deeper and darker (this motion reminds one of a
snail retreating into its shell). During these two movements, nothing but light

* Half the sentence spoken in unison; the end of the sentence very indistinctly by one voice.
Alternating frequently.
t This movement must be executed as if at drill.
+ These movements should not be in time to the music.
is to be seen on the stage: no objects. The brightest level of light is reached, the
music entirely dissolved. The GIANTS become distinguishable again, are im-
movable, and look before them. The rocks appear no more. Only the GIANTS
are on the stage: they now stand further apart and have grown bigger. Back-
drop and background remain black. Long pause. Suddenly, one hears from
behind the stage a shrill tenor voice, filled with fear, shouting entirely indis-
tinguishable words very quickly (one hears frequently [the letter] a: e.g., "Ka-
lasimunafakolaf). Pause. For a moment it becomes dark.

SCENE 4

To the left of the stage a small crooked building (like a very simple chapel),
with neither door nor window. On one side of the building (springing from the C
roof) a narrow, crooked turret with a small, cracked bell. Hanging from the 3
O
bell a rope. A SMALL CHILD is pulling slowly and rhythmically at the lower end
O
of the rope, wearing a white blouse and sitting on the ground (turned toward
the spectator). To the right, on the same level, stands a very fat MAN, dressed
entirely in black. His face completely white, very indistinct. The chapel is a
dirty red. The tower bright blue. The bell made of brass. Background gray,
even, smooth. The black MAN stands with legs apart, his hands on his hips.
The MAN (very loud, imperiously; with a beautiful voice):
Silence!!
The CHILD drops the rope. It becomes dark.

SCENE 5

The stage is gradually saturated with a cold red light, which slowly grows
stronger and equally slowly turns yellow. At this point, the GIANTS behind
become visible (as in Scene 3). The same rocks are also there.
The GIANTS are whispering again (as in Scene 3). At the moment their
heads come together again, one hears from behind the stage the same cry, only
very quick and short. It becomes dark for a moment; then the same action is
repeated again. * As it grows light (white light, without shadows) the GIANTS
are still whispering but are also making feeble gestures with their hands (these
gestures must be different, but feeble). Occasionally, one of them stretches out
his arms (this gesture must, likewise, be the merest suggestion) and puts his
head a little to one side, looking at the spectator. Twice, all the GIANTS let their
arms drop suddenly, grow somewhat taller, and stand motionless, looking at
the spectator. Then their bodies are racked by a kind of spasm (as in the case of
the yellow flower), and they start whispering again, occasionally stretching out
an arm as if in feeble protest. The music gradually becomes shriller. The
GIANTS remain motionless. From the left appear many PEOPLE, clad in tights
of different colors. Their hair is covered with the corresponding color. Likewise

* Naturally, the music must also be repeated each time.

 their faces. (The PEOPLE resemble marionettes.) First there appear gray, then
black, then white, and finally different-colored PEOPLE. The movements of
each group are different; one proceeds quickly forward, another slowly, as if
with difficulty; a third makes occasional merry leaps; a fourth keeps turning
around; a fifth comes on with solemn, theatrical steps, arms crossed; a sixth
walks on tiptoe, palm upraised, etc.
All take up different positions on the stage; some sit in small, close-knit
groups, others by themselves. The whole arrangement should be neither "beau-
tiful" nor particularly definite. It should not, however, represent complete
confusion. The PEOPLE look in different directions, some with heads raised,
others with lowered heads, some with heads sunk on their chests. As if overcome
by exhaustion, they rarely shift their position. The light remains white. The
music undergoes frequent changes of tempo; occasionally, it too subsides in
£ exhaustion. At precisely these moments, one of the white figures on the left
™ (fairly far back) makes indefinite but very much quicker movements, sometimes
Q with his arms, sometimes with his legs. From time to time he continues one
Z movement for a longer space of time and remains for several moments in the
* corresponding position. It is like a kind of dance, only with frequent changes of
♦ tempo, sometimes corresponding with the music, sometimes not. (This simple
QQ action must be rehearsed with extreme care, so that what follows produces an
^ expressive and startling effect.) The other PEOPLE gradually start to stare at the
white figure. Many crane their necks. In the end, they are all looking at him.
This dance ends, however, quite suddenly; the white figure sits down, stretches
out one arm as if in ceremonious preparation and, slowly bending this arm at
the elbow, brings it toward his head. The general tension is especially expres-
sive. The white figure, however, rests his elbow on his knee and puts his head in
his hand. For a moment, it becomes dark. Then one perceives again the same
groupings and attitudes. Many of the groups are illuminated from above with
stronger or weaker lights of different colors: one seated group is illuminated
with a powerful red, a large seated group with pale blue, etc. The bright yellow
light is (apart from the GIANTS, who now become particularly distinct) concen-
trated exclusively upon the seated white figure. Suddenly, all the colors disap-
pear (the GIANTS remain yellow), and white twilight floods the stage. In the
orchestra, individual colors begin to stand out. Correspondingly, individual
figures stand up in different places: quickly, in haste, solemnly, slowly; and as
they do so, they look up. Some remain standing. Some sit down again. Then all
are once more overcome by exhaustion, and everything remains motionless.
The GIANTS whisper. But they, too, remain now motionless and erect as
from behind the stage the wooden chorus, which lasts only for a short time,
becomes audible.
Then one hears again in the orchestra individual colors. Red light travels
across the rocks, and they begin to tremble. The GIANTS tremble in alternation
with the passage of light.
At different ends of the stage, movement is noticeable.
 The orchestra repeats several times B and A: on their owny together, some-
times very shrill, sometimes scarcely audible.
Various PEOPLE leave their places and go, some quickly, some slowly, over
to other groups. The ones who stood by themselves form smaller groups of two
or three people, or spread themselves among the larger groups. The big groups
split up. Many PEOPLE run in haste from the stage, looking behind them. In
the process, all the BLACK, GRAY, AND WHITE PEOPLE disappear; in the end,
there remain only the DIFFERENT-COLORED PEOPLE on stage.
Gradually, everything takes on an arhythmical movement. In the orches-
tra—confusion. The same shrill cry as in Scene 3 is heard. The GIANTS tremble.
Various lights cross the stage and overlap.
Whole groups run from the stage. A general dance strikes up, starting at
various points and gradually subsiding, carrying ALL THE PEOPLE with it. "g
Running, jumping, running to and fro, falling down. Some, standing still, %
make rapid movements with their arms alone, others only with their legs, $
heads, or behinds. Some combine all these movements. Sometimes, there =:
are group movements. Sometimes, whole groups make one and the same ^
movement. h-
At that moment, at which the greatest confusion in the orchestra, in the ♦
movement, and in the lighting occurs, it suddenly becomes dark and silent. ^
Only the yellow GIANTS remain visible at the back of the stage, being only ^J
slowly swallowed up by the darkness. The GIANTS seem to go out like a lamp;
i.e., the light glimmers several times before total darkness ensues.
 O n Stage Composition

Wassily Kandinsky

Every art has its own language, i.e., those means which it alone possesses.
Thus every art is something self-contained. Every art is an individual life.
It is a realm of its own.
For this reason, the means belonging to the different arts are externally
quite different. Sound, color, words!...
In the last essentials, these means are wholly alike: the final goal ex­
tinguishes the external dissimilarities and reveals the inner identity.
This final goal (knowledge) is attained by the human soul through finer
vibrations of the same. These finer vibrations, however, which are identi­
cal in their final goal, have in themselves different inner motions and are
thereby distinguished from one another.
This indefinable and yet definite activity of the soul (vibration) is the aim
of the individual artistic means.
A certain complex of vibrations—the goal of a work of art.
The progressive refinement of the soul by means of the accumulation of
different complexes—the aim of art.
Art is for this reason indispensable and purposeful.
The correct means that the artist discovers is a material form of that
vibration of his soul to which he is forced to give expression.
If this means is correct, it causes a virtually identical vibration in the
receiving soul.
This is inevitable. But this second vibration is complex. First, it can be
powerful or weak, depending upon the degree of development of him who

Reprinted from Arnold Schoenberg, Wassily Kandinsky: Letters, Pictures, and Documents, ed.
Jelena Hahl-Koch; trans. John C. Crawford (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), 111-17.
receives it, and also upon temporal influences (degree of absorption of the
soul). Second, this vibration of the receiving soul will cause other strings
within the soul to vibrate in sympathy. This is a way of exciting the "fantasy" of
the receiving subject, which "continues to exert its creative activity" upon the
work of art* [am Werke "writer schaffi"]. Strings of the soul that are made to
vibrate frequently will, on almost every occasion other strings are touched,
also vibrate in sympathy. And sometimes so strongly that they drown the origi­
nal sound: there are people who are made to cry when they hear "cheerful"
music, and vice versa. For this reason, the individual effects of a work of art be­
come more or less strongly colored in the case of different receiving subjects.
Yet in this case the original sound is not destroyed, but continues to live
and works, even if imperceptibly, upon the soul.t
Therefore, there is no man who cannot receive art. Every work of art and
every one of the individual means belonging to that work produces in every
man without exception a vibration that is at bottom identical to that of the
artist.
The internal, ultimately discoverable identity of the individual means of
different arts has been the basis upon which the attempt has been made to
support and to strengthen a particular sound of one art by the identical
sound belonging to another art, thereby attaining a particularly powerful
effect. This is one means of producing [such] an effect.
Duplicating the resources of one art (e.g., music), however, by the identi­
cal resources of another art (e.g., painting) is only one instance, one pos­
sibility. If this possibility is used as an internal means also (e.g., in the case of
Scriabin),+ we find within the realm of contrast, of complex composition,
first the antithesis of this duplication and later a series of possibilities that lie
between collaboration and opposition. This material is inexhaustible.

The nineteenth century distinguished itself as a time far removed from inner
creation. Concentration upon material phenomena and upon the material
aspect of phenomena logically brought about the decline of creative power
upon the internal plane, which apparently led to the ultimate degree of
abasement.
Out of this one-sidedness other biases naturally had to develop.
Thus, too, on the stage:
1. There necessarily occurred here also (as in other spheres) the painstaking
elaboration of individual, already existing (previously created) constituent

* Among others, theater designers in particular count today upon this "collaboration," which
has of course always been employed by artists. Hence derived also the demand for a certain distance,
which should separate the work of art from the ultimate degree of expressiveness. This not-saying-
the-ultimate was called for by, e.g., Lessing and Delacroix, among others. This distance leaves space
free for the operation of fantasy.
t Thus, in time, every work is correctly "understood."
+ See the article by L. Sabaneyev in this book [i.e., in the almanac Derblaue Reiter].
 parts, which had for the sake of convenience been firmly and definitively
separated one from another. Here, one sees reflected the specializa­
tion that always comes about immediately when no new forms are being
created.
2. The positive character of the spirit of the times could lead only to a form
of combination that was equally positive. Indeed, people thought: two is
greater than one, and sought to strengthen every effect by means of repe­
tition. As regards the inner effect, however, the reverse may be true,
and often one is greater than two. Mathematically, 1 + 1 =2. Spiritually,
1—1 can = 2.
Re (1). Through the primary consequence of materialism, i.e., through
specialization, and bound up with it, the further external development of the
>. individual [constituent] parts, there arose and became petrified three classes
u of stage works, which were separated from one another by high walls:
z
5 A) Drama
| B) Opera
* C) Ballet
♦
♦ (A) Nineteenth-century drama is in general the more or less refined and
oo profound narration of happenings of a more or less personal character. It is
usually the description of external life, where the spiritual life of man is
involved only insofar as it has to do with his eternal life.* The cosmic element
is completely lacking.
External happenings and the eternal unity of the action compose the form
of drama today.
(B) Opera is drama to which music is added as a principal element,
whereby the refinement and profundity of the dramatic aspect suffer greatly.
The two constituent [elements] are bound up with one another in a com­
pletely eternal way. I.e., either the music illustrates (or strengthens) the
dramatic action, or else the dramatic action is called upon to help explain
the music.
Wagner noticed this weakness and sought to alleviate it by various
means. His principal object was to join the individual parts with one another
in an organic way, thereby creating a monumental work of art. t
Wagner sought to strengthen his resources by the repetition of one and
the same external movement in two substantive forms, and to raise the effect
* We find few exceptions. And even these few (e.g., Maeterlinck, Ibsen's Ghosts, Andreyev's
Life of Man, etc.) remain dominated by external action.
t This thought of Wagner's took over half a century to cross the Alps, on the other side of which
it was expressed in the form of an official paragraph. The musical "manifesto" of the Futurists reads:
"Proclamer comme une necessite absolue que le musicien soit l'auteur du poeme dramatique ou
tragique qu'il doit mettre en musique" [To proclaim as an absolute necessity that the musician
should be the author of the dramatic poem or tragedy that he would set to music] (May 1911,
Milan).
produced to a monumental level. His mistake in this case was to think that
he disposed of a means of universal application. This device is in reality only
one of the series of often more powerful possibilities in [the realm of]
monumental art.
Yet apart from the fact that a parallel repetition constitutes only one
means, and that this repetition is only external, Wagner gave to it a new form
that necessarily led to others. E.g., movement had before Wagner a purely
external and superficial sense in opera (perhaps only debased). It was a naive
appurtenance of opera: pressing one's hands to one's breast (love), lifting
one's arms (prayer), stretching out one's arms (powerful emotion), etc.
These childish forms (which even today one can still see every evening) were
externally related to the text of the opera, which in turn was illustrated by the
music. Wagner here created a direct (artistic) link between movement and
the progress of the music: movement was subordinated to tempo.
The link is, however, of only an external nature. The inner sound of >*
movement does not come into play. j£
In the same artistic but likewise external way, Wagner on the other hand "§
subordinated the music to the text, i.e., movement in a broad sense. The ^
hissing of red-hot iron in water, the sound of the smith's hammer, etc., were ♦
represented musically. w
This changing subordination has been, however, yet another enrichment 2
of means, which of necessity led to further combinations.
Thus, Wagner on the one hand enriched with the effect of one means,
and on the other hand diminished the inner sense—the purely artistic inner
meaning of the auxiliary means.
These forms are merely the mechanical reproduction (not inner collab­
oration) of the purposive progress of the action. Also of a similar nature is the
other kind of combination of music with movement (in the broad sense of
the word), i.e., the musical "characterization" of the individual roles. This
obstinate recurrence of a [particular] musical phrase at the appearance of a
hero finally loses its power and gives rise to an effect upon the ear like that
which an old, well-known label on a bottle produces upon the eye. One's
feelings finally revolt against this kind of consistent, programmatic use of
one and the same form.*
Finally, Wagner uses words as a means of narration, of expressing his
thoughts. He fails, however, to create an appropriate setting for such aims,
since as a rule the words are drowned by the orchestra. It is not sufficient to
allow the words to be heard in numerous recitatives. But the device of
interrupting the continuous singing has already dealt a powerful blow to the
"unity." And yet the external action remains untouched even by this.

* This programmatic element runs right through Wagner's work and is probably to be ex­
plained in terms not only of the character of the artist but also of the search for a precise form for this
new type of creation, upon which the spirit of the nineteenth century impressed its stamp of the
"positive."
 Apart from the fact that Wagner here remains entirely in the old tradi­
tions of the external, in spite of his efforts to create a text (movement), he
still neglects the third element, which is used today in isolated cases in a
still more primitive form*—color, and connected with it, pictorial form
(decoration).
External action7 the external connection between its individual parts and
the two means employed (drama and music), is the form of opera today.
(C) Ballet is a form of drama with all the characteristics already de­
scribed and also the same content. Only here the seriousness of drama loses
even more than in the case of opera. In opera, in addition to love, other
themes occur: religious, political, and social conditions provide the ground
upon which enthusiasm, despair, honor, hatred, and other similar feelings
grow. Ballet contents itself with love in the form of a childish fairy tale. Apart
£ from music, individual and group movement both help to contribute. Every-
£ thing remains in a naive form of external relationships. It even happens that
Q individual dances are in practice included or left out at will. The "whole" is
Z so problematic that such goings-on go completely unnoticed.
* External action, the external connection between its individual parts and
♦ the three means employed (drama, music, and dance), is the form of ballet
^ today.
2 Re (2). Through the secondary consequence of materialism, i.e., on ac­
count of positive addition (1 + 1 = 2 , 2 + 1 =3), the only form that was
employed involved the use of combination (alternatively, reinforcement),
which demanded a parallel progression of means. E.g., powerful emotions
are at once emphasized by an ff in music. This mathematical principle also
constructs affective forms upon a purely external basis.
All the above-mentioned forms, which I call substantive forms [Sub-
stanzformen] (drama—words; opera—sound; ballet—movement), and like­
wise the combinations of the individual means, which I call affective means
[Wirkungsmittel], are composed into an external unity. Because all these
forms arose out of the principle of external necessity.
Out of this springs as a logical result the limitation, the one-sidedness
( = impoverishment) of forms and means. They gradually become orthodox,
and every minute change appears revolutionary.

Viewing the question from the standpoint of the internal, the whole matter
becomes fundamentally different.
1. Suddenly, the external appearance of each element vanishes. And its
inner value takes on its full sound.
2. It becomes clear that, if one is using the inner sound, the external ac­
tion can be not only incidental but also, because it obscures our view,
dangerous.

* See the article by Sabaneyev.

3. The worth of the external unity appears in its correct light, i.e., as un­
necessarily limiting, weakening the inner effect.
4. There arises of its own accord one's feeling for the necessity of the inner
unity, which is supported and even constituted by the external lack of
unity.
5. The possibility is revealed for each of the elements to retain its own
external life, which externally contradicts the external life of another
element.
Further, if we go beyond these abstract discoveries to practical creation,
we see that it is possible
re (1) to take only the inner sound of an element as one's means;
re (2) to eliminate the external procedure ( = the action);
re (3) by means of which the external connection between the parts
collapses of its own accord;
likewise,
re (4) the external unity, and
re (5) the inner unity place in our hands an innumerable series of means,
which could not previously have existed.
Here, the only source thus becomes that of internal necessity.

The following short stage composition is an attempt to draw upon this

source.
There are here three elements that are used as external means, but for
their inner value:
1. musical sound and its movement
2. bodily spiritual sound and its movement, expressed by people and objects
3. color-tones and their movement (a special resource of the stage).
Thus, ultimately, drama consists here of the complex of inner experi­
ences (spiritual vibrations) of the spectator.
re 1. From opera has been taken the principal element—music—as the
source of inner sounds, which need in no way be subordinated to the exter­
nal progress of the action.
re 2. From ballet has been taken dance, which is used as movement that
produces an abstract effect with an inner sound.
re 3. Color-tones take on an independent significance and are treated as
a means of equal importance.
All three elements play an equally significant role, remain externally self-
sufficient, and are treated in a similar way, i.e., subordinated to the inner
purpose.
Thus, e.g., music can be completely suppressed, or pushed into the back­
ground, if the effect, e.g., of the movement, is sufficiently expressive, and
could be weakened by combination with the powerful effect of the music.
The growth of musical movement can correspond to a decrease in the
movement of the dance, whereby both movements (the positive and the
negative) take on a greater inner value, etc., etc. A series of combinations,
which lie between the two poles: collaboration and opposition. Conceived
graphically, the three elements can take entirely individual, in external
terms, completely independent, paths.
Words as such, or linked together in sentences, have been used to create
a particular "mood," which prepares the ground of the soul and makes it
receptive. The sound of the human voice has also been used purely, i.e.,
without being obscured by words, by the sense of the words.

The reader is asked not to ascribe to the principle the weaknesses of the
following short composition, Yellow Sound, but to attribute them to the
author.
 01
>
• ■Mil

1
Italian Futurism

mberto Boccioni, playwright, painter, and theorist, was born

U October 19, 1882, in Reggio Calabria, Italy. Following Mari-

i netti's publication of the first Futurist manifesto in 1909, Boc­
cioni became one of the authors of the "Technical Manifesto of Futurist
Painting" (1910), the first manifesto to adapt the principles of Futurism
to painting. In his book Futurist Painting and Sculpture (1914), Boccioni
proposed a Futurist aesthetic for the visual arts. He was one of several
painters featured in the first Futurist exhibition of paintings in Milan in
1911. His sintesi Genius and Culture (1915), a satiric indictment of artis­
tic criticism, exemplifies the Futurists' variety aesthetic in its use of a
quick set-up for a single, brief joke. He died on August 17, 1916, from injuries
sustained in battle as an artillery soldier during World War I.
.-^^ ^ L rancesco Cangiullo (born in Naples, 1888; died in Livorno,
ls^» ■ 1977), poet, playwright, theorist, and visual artist, wrote several
n g v » ^ k Futurist sintesi, including Detonation (1915), The Paunch of the
^ Vase (1920), Lights (1919, 1922), and Piedigrotta (1914), a parole in liberta
0 ^ ^ (words-in-freedom) drama, which was one of the first Futurist plays to
expand upon the aesthetic Marinetti proposed in his "Variety Theater Mani­
festo" (1913). With Marinetti, he wrote "The Theater of Surprise" (1921), a
manifesto in which the two men reasserted the principles of Futurism and
proclaimed its historical importance as an influence on much of the grotesque,
tragicomic theater produced in Italy since the founding of Futurism. Cangiullo
toured Italy with Rudolfo DeAngelis and Marinetti as part of the Theater of
Surprise Company (1921) and as part of DeAngelis's New Futurist Theatre
(1924), two of the most visible Futurist theatrical companies in the later years of
the movement.
_ ^ ^ ^ L ilippo Tommaso Marinetti, playwright, poet, novelist, journalist,
u^* ■ and theorist, was born on December 22, 1876, in Alexandria,
n^^ Jkm Egypt. After moving to Italy in 1894 and earning a law degree in
1899, he embarked on a literary career. Initially he was a strong propo-
0 ^ ^ nent of Symbolism in Italy, and in 1905 he founded Poesia, Italy's first
Symbolist journal. During his Symbolist period, Marinetti wrote two full-length
plays, Le Roi Bombance (King Glutton, 1905) and Poupees electriques (Electric Dolls,
1909), both of which premiered at the Theatre de I'Oeuvre in Paris on April I,
1909. Le Roi Bombance was influenced by Jarry's King Ubu (1896) and uses a
gastronomical metaphor to explore the relationship between the ruling elite and
their starving, rebellious subjects; Poupees electriques introduces robotic charac­
ters who are the synthesis of deadening forces in bourgeois existence. Yet
Marinetti had already changed the focus of his artistic work by this time. In 1909
he published the first Futurist manifesto, which initiated the Italian Futurist
movement that he would lead for the next thirty-five years.
The central preoccupations of the Futurists were speed and technology;
they were particularly drawn to the intoxicating power of machines. Having little
tolerance for the theatrical conventions of the past and taking his inspiration
from the innovations of the machine age, Marinetti proposed that theater (as
well as many other arts) should break free of conventional plots, psychological
characterization, logical structure, and the constraints of reality. He and his
Futurist followers accordingly introduced sintesi—"synthetic" drama, or brief,
compressed plays that frequently incorporated simultaneous action occurring in
different places or times, and which rarely took more than five minutes to
perform. The Futurists put on these plays, along with readings of their poetry,
performances of their music, film screenings, rounds of speech-making, and
displays of their paintings, in several Italian cities as part of an evening's entertain­
ment, or serata, which can be seen as a predecessor of the Happenings of the
1960s. The Futurists attempted to disorient and shock audiences, if not to
provoke them to violence, with each of the serate, which consisted of a mixture
of politics and art. Above all, the Futurist theater was to be brief, improvised,
and dynamic, not lengthy, calculated, and static; objects and events were con­
sidered more important than the psychological presentation of character or the
analytical demonstration of a theme. In his 1913 manifesto "The Variety The­
ater," Marinetti traced the Futurist aesthetic to the variety stage of nightclubs,
circuses, and the music hall, which he extolled for its speed, spectacle, and
structure.
Marinetti died on December 2, 1944, in Bellagio, but the originality of his
work and the enormous influence it had on the subsequent development of
theater (not to speak of music, painting, sculpture, dance, and cinema) were not
recognized for many years, owing to his Fascist sympathies during and well after
 World War I. Despite Marinettfs devotion to the anarchic, revolutionary prin­
ciples of Futurism, he was able to justify his participation in Mussolini's re­
pressive, totalitarian regime—perhaps because some of the Futurist rhetoric
concerning nationalism, heroism, youth, and athleticism had been thoroughly
absorbed by the Fascists.

D
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♦
♦
The Italian Futurist Theatre
r^—» _ mages of war and aggression had abounded in the works of the
Is^J J Futurists from 1909 onwards. They had declared war to be "la
n^» ^ k sola igiene del mondo" (the sole hygiene of the world), and they
_ joined battle with enthusiasm, both aesthetic and physical. They had
D^* found a partial focus for their adulation of war in the war in Libya
(1911-12), but now it became one of the major considerations of the group.
Examples of sintesi written to appeal to Italian patriotism are F. T. Marinettfs
L'arresto and Umberto Boccioni's Kultur, both performed during the tours of
I9l5and 1916.
In L'arresto (The Arrest) a number of critics and observers are gathered in a
comfortable room, and express their disapproval of the war. Suddenly, from the
trenches a young soldier cries: "O venite un po' voi signori pessimisti, a far quel
che facciamo noi!" (Come on, you pessimists, and do what we Ve doing!). One of
the critics, described as spiteful and gouty, is forced to pick up a rifle and fight,
with a gun instead of his tongue. The soldiers, from being participants in the war,
become spectators, and watch the critic fighting the Austrians until he is killed by
a bullet. The police arrive, and one of them says: "E gia cadavere!" (He's already
dead!), to which a soldier replies: "Arrestate almeno il suo fetore passatista" (At
least arrest his traditionalist stink). Kultur represents the struggle between Latin
genius and unbearable Germanic pedantry, which destroys all creativity by mak­
ing it the subject of arid study.
Syntheses such as these were applauded, especially in 1916, and helped to
create an atmosphere more favourable to the experimentation of the Futurists.
It is worth saying that many of the sintesi remain schematic, like the ones
described above, and that their value for the most part lies in their experimental
nature. It is, however, worth analysing the approach of the Futurists to the
theatre in these works, as they are the first practical realisation of their man­
ifestos. Extended plot and action give way to brief and essential moments; logic
and realism are abandoned in favour of a mingling of reality and imagination, the
banal and the incredible, or even the supernatural; simultaneity of time and space
is seen as the only means of presenting the complexity of life to the audience;
characters are no longer such, but rather become allusions or syntheses, and the
cast comes to include animals, flowers, noises, objects, and so on; the element of
surprise is dominant; at all times, the theatre and society of the past are attacked.
Time in the theatre is no longer chronological, but is, to use Marinetti's terms,
"created" or "invented," and is used for dramatic rather than naturalistic effects.
Dissonanza (Dissonance), by Bruno Corra and Emilio Settimelli, has a
fourteenth-century setting in which a lady and a page exchange impassioned
hendecasyllables. They are interrupted by a man asking for a match, and then
continue as before. Similarly, space is no longer unitary, but can be used by the
dramatist to show different situations at the same time, with no regard for

Excerpted from Julie Dashwood, "The Italian Futurist Theatre," in Drama and Society, ed. James
Redwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 129-46.
verisimilitude. In MarinettPs Simukaneita the life of a modest bourgeois family
installed around a table reading, preparing accounts, and sewing is juxtaposed
with that of a prostitute preparing I ier toilette. A dim greenish light surrounds
the family, while a very bright electric light is focussed on the cocotte. The two
groups seem unaware of each other until the end, when the family falls asleep
and the cocotte moves towards them. She throws all their work onto the floor
and then continues to polish her nails. She is, Marinetti wrote, not a symbol but a
synthesis, of luxury, disorder, adventure, and waste, all things both desired and
regretted by the family. He said that time and space were fused here, and a new
dynamism and simultaneity were created. Evident here is Marinettfs wish to
contain reality in a moment rather than an act, using light and gesture rather than
words to convey his meaning.
The cocotte is not a naturalistic or psychological whole, and in this is typical
of many of the protagonists of the Futurist theatre. "II signore grasso e panciuto"
(the fat, paunchy man) in MarinettPs Un chiaro di luna (Moonlight) is described by
the author as an alogical synthesis of many emotions: fear of the future, of the
cold and solitude of the night, of his vision of life in twenty years' time, and so on.
Even, at times, only part of the actor is seen by the audience. In MarinettPs Le basi
(The Feet) the curtain is raised so that only the legs and feet of the actors are
visible. The actors are instructed to give the maximum expression to the scenes
by using the movements of these limbs. The same approach is used in Le mani
(Hands) by Marinetti and Corra. In this case, only gestures of the hands are used
to convey emotion and situation. Among the protagonists in his Caccia all'usignolo
(Hunting the Nightingale)y Corrado Govoni lists the sound of bells, the voices of
drunkards, the rustling of wind, the interplay of light, moonlight, the voice of the
nightingale, the movement of lizards, voices from the town, breathing, sighing,
the sound of the clock, a cap, a hoopoe, and a god.
Animals, inanimate objects, sounds, light, and movement come, therefore, to
be as important as human actors, and even, at times, to replace them. MarinettPs
play Vengono (They're Coming) is subtitled "Dramma d'oggetti" (drama of objects).
Servants continually move eight chairs and an armchair around the stage as the
majordomo receives different orders from his masters. Marinetti intended to
give the impression that the chairs gradually acquired a life of their own through
these movements. Finally, they are placed diagonally across the stage, and an
invisible spotlight is used to project their shadows onto the floor. As the spot­
light is moved, so the shadows move, making it appear as though the chairs
themselves are going out of the French window. Marinetti wanted the three
most important "characters" in his Teatrino dell'amore (Little Theatre of Love) to be
the little theatre itself (in this case, a puppet-theatre), the buffet, and the side­
board. Fortunato Depero's Colori (Colours) is entirely abstract, consisting only of
sound and light.
Accompanying the reduction of human actors to a secondary role, or their
total disappearance, is the reduction of words to very brief exchanges, or to
nonsense. The characters in Mario Carli's Stati d'animo (States of Mind) have lines
written in parole in liberta (words in freedom) or which are meaningless, and use
gesture and tone of voice to convey their different emotions. Three sintesi by
Francesco Cangiullo are an attack on the whole theatrical tradition, as well as on
the use of words in the theatre. In Non c'e un cane (There Isn't a Soul About), called
a synthesis of night, the protagonist is the Man Who Isn't There. On a cold,
deserted street at night, a dog (cane) crosses the road. Cangiullo's Detonazione
(Detonation) is called a synthesis of the whole modern theatre. The setting is the
same as in the previous synthesis, but this time, after a minute of silence, there is
a revolver-shot—and only a revolver-shot. We are told that his Decisione is a
tragedy in fifty-eight acts, and perhaps more, but that it is useless to perform
fifty-seven of them. The final, brief act concludes with the words: "Questa e una
cosa che deve assolutamente FINIRE!" (This is something which absolutely must
finish).
Parody is also used to attack not just the traditional theatre but contempo­
rary society as well. Passatismo (Traditionalism), by Corra and Settimelli, consists
of three brief, identical, and static scenes, set in I860, 1880, and 1910. An old
man and an old woman hold the same conversation in each. At the end of the
third scene, both die, identically, of a heart attack. Further assaults on surround­
ing realism are provided by Umberto Boccioni in // corpo che sale (The Body which
Rises). Here, the tenants of a block of flats see a body rising up past their
windows. They call the portress, who explains calmly that this is the body of the
lover of the fifth-floor tenant, sucked up every day by his mistress's eyes. The
portress will not allow him to use the stairs, as she is concerned about the good
reputation of the building. In Paolo Buzzi's // pesce d'aprile (The April Fool), a dead
wife announces the death of her husband to the priest. The unexpected, the
weird, and the supernatural are all elements used by the Futurists, as is the
grotesque, or the resolving of tragic situations into comedy and the reverse.
The conclusion of Giacomo Balla's Per comprendere il pianto (To Understand Grief)
is "Bisogna ridere" (You must laugh), lacopo, protagonist of Verso la conquista
(Towards the Conquest), by Corra and Settimelli, renounces his debilitating love
for Anna in order to fulfil his self-appointed mission as a hero. On leaving her,
however, he slips on the skin of a fig, and dies after falling downstairs.
Some of the sintesi obviously made great demands on the ability of the
audience to understand the new idiom. Of the audience, however, more was
expected than mere comprehension and reaction to the Futurist theatre. In
Dalla finestra (From the Window), by Corra and Settimelli, the spectators them­
selves are listed among the characters. At the beginning of the play, we are told
that:

Tutti gli spettatori che sono qui, personaggi-protagonisti, per comprendere il

dramma devono porsi per suggestione nei panni di un paralizzato che non pud ne
muoversi ne parlare, a cui solo viva e chiara e rimasta I'intelligenza imprigionata
nella carne morta e che si trova in letto presso a una finestra, con le persiane
aperte dal vento nelle tre notti lunari di cui fan parte gli attimi della azione.
(All the spectators here are characters and protagonists, who in order to under­
stand the play, must try to imagine that they are paralysed and cannot move or
speak, with only their intelligence, imprisoned in the flesh, left alive and un­
clouded; that they are in bed next to a window, with the blinds opened by the
wind in the three moonlit nights which make up the moments of the action.)
The audience is asked, then, not just to react, but to participate directly in the
mood of the play.
These were the themes and techniques used by the Futurists to convey their
ideas to their audiences. The manifesto of the synthetic theatre had claimed that:
"II teatro futurista sapra esaltare i suoi spettatori, cio& far loro dimenticare la
monotonia della vita quotidiana, scaraventandoli attraverso un labirinto di sen-
sazioni improntate alia piu esasperata originalita e combinate in modi imprevedibiir
(The Futurist theatre will be able to excite its audience, that is, make it forget the
monotony of everyday life, by hurling it through a labyrinth of sensations expressed
with the most exacerbated originality and combined in unpredictable ways). While the
success of the dramatists in achieving this ambition was varied, serious attempts
were made to create a new theatrical idiom, and to work up the sensibilities of
the audience in a new way.

Select Bibliography on Marinetti and Futurism

Gordon, R. S. "The Italian Futurist Theatre: A Reappraisal." Modern Language Review 85.2
(April 1990): 349-61.
Modernism/Modernity 1.3 (Sept. 1994). Special issue: "Marinetti and the Italian Futurists."

See also Apollonio; Berghaus; Hewitt; House; Kirby; Rawson; Shankland; and Taylor, in
the General Bibliography.
 G e n i u s and Culture

Umberto Boccioni

In the center, a costly dressing table with a mirror in front of which a very
elegant WOMAN, already dressed to leave, finishes putting on rouge. At the
right, a CRITIC, an ambiguous being, neither dirty nor clean, neither old nor
young, neutral, is sitting at a table overburdened with books and papers, on
which shines a large paper knife, neither modern nor antique. He turns his
shoulder to the dressing table. At left, the ARTIST, an elegant youth, searches in
a large file, sitting on thick cushions on the floor.

THE ARTIST {leaving the file, and with his head between his hands): It's terri­
ble! {Pause.) I must get out of here! To be renewed! {He gets up, tearing
the abstract designs from the file with convulsive hands.) Liberation!!
These empty forms, worn out. Everything is fragmentary, weak! Oh!
Art! . . . Who, who will help me!? {He looks around; continues to tear up
the designs with sorrowful and convulsive motions.)
(THE WOMAN is very near him but doesnt hear him. The CRITIC becomes an-
noyed, but not very, and going near her, takes a book with a yellow jacket.)
THE CRITIC {half asking the WOMAN, and half talking to himself): But what's
the matter with that clown that he acts and shouts that way?
THE WOMAN {without looking): Oh well, he is an artist... he wants to renew
himself, and he hasn't a cent!
THE CRITIC {bewildered): Strange! An artist! Impossible! For twenty years I
have profoundly studied this marvelous phenomenon, but I can't recog-

Reprinted from Futurist Performance, ed. Michael Kirby, trans. Victoria Nes Kirby (New York:
Dutton, 1971), 238-41.
 nize it. {Obviously with archeological curiosity.) That one is crazy! Or a
protester! He wants to change! But creation is a serene thing. A work of
art is done naturally, in silence, and in recollection, as a nightingale
sings .. . Spirit, in the sense that Hegel means spirit...
THE WOMAN {intrigued): And if you know how it is done, why don't you tell
him? Poor thing! He is distressed . . .
THE CRITIC {strutting): For centuries, the critic has told the artist how to
make a work of art. . . . Since ethics and aesthetics are functions of the
spirit.. .
THE WOMAN: But you, you've never made any?
THE CRITIC {nonplussed): Me? . . . Not me!
THE WOMAN {laughing with malice): Well, then, you know how to do it, but
you don't do it. You are neutral. How boring you must be in bed! {She
Z continues putting on her rouge.)
- THE ARTIST {always walking back and forth sorrowfully, wringing his hands):
U Glory! Ah! Glory! {Tightening his fists.) I am strong! I am young! I can
a face anything! Oh! Divine electric lights . . . sun . . . To electrify the
♦ crowds... Burn them! Dominate them!
<£> THE WOMAN {looking at him with sympathy and compassion): Poor thing!
TH Without any money . . .
THE ARTIST {struck): Ah! I am wounded! I can't resist any longer! {Toward the
WOMAN, who doesnt hear him.) Oh! A woman! {Toward the CRITIC, who
has already taken and returned a good many books, and who leafs through
them and cuts them.) You! You, sir, who are a man, listen . . . Help me!
THE CRITIC: Calm down . . . let's realize the differences. I am not a man, I am
a critic. I am a man of culture. The artist is a man, a slave, a baby,
therefore, he makes mistakes. I don't see myself as being like him. In him
nature is chaos. The critic and history are between nature and the artist.
History is history—in other words, subjective fact, that is to say, fact, in
other words, history. Anyway it is itself objective.
{At these words, the ARTIST, who has listened in a stupor, falls on the
cushions as if struck by lightning. The CRITIC, unaware of this, turns, and
goes slowly to the table to consult his books.)
THE WOMAN {getting up dumbfounded): My God! That poor youth is dying!
{She kneels in front of the ARTIST and caresses him kindly.)
THE ARTIST {reviving): Oh! Signora! Thank you! Oh! Love . . . maybe love . . .
{Revives more and more.) How beautiful you are! Listen . . . Listen to
me . . . If you know what a terrible thing the struggle is without love! I
want to love, understand?
THE WOMAN {pulling away from him): My friend, I understand you . . . but
now I haven't time. I must go o u t . . . I am expected by my friend. It is
dangerous. . . . He is a man . . . that is to say, he has a secure position . . .
THE CRITIC {very embarrassed): What's going on? I don't understand
anything...
THE WOMAN {irritated): Shut up, idiot! You don't understand anything. . . .
Come! Help me to lift him! We must cut this knot that is choking his
throat!
THE CRITIC {very embarrassed): Just a minute . . . {He carefully lays down
the books and puts the others aside on the chair.) Hegel . . . Kant . . .
Hartmann . . . Spinoza.
THE WOMAN (goes near the youth, crying irritably): R u n ! . . . come here, help
me to unfasten it.
THE CRITIC {nonplussed): What are you saying?
THE WOMAN: Come over here! Are you afraid! Hurry... back here there is an §
artist who is dying because of an ideal. "a
THE CRITIC {coming closer with extreme prudence): But one never knows! An ■©
impulse . . . a passion... without control... without culture . . . in short, I J
prefer him dead. The artist must be . . . {He stumbles, and falls clumsily *1
on the ARTIST, stabbing his neck with the paper knife.) O
THE WOMAN {screaming and getting up): Idiot! Assassin! You have killed him. t
You are red with blood! ^
rH
THE CRITIC {getting up, still more clumsily): I, Signora? How?! I don't under-
stand.... Red? Red? Yours is a case of color blindness.
THE WOMAN: Enough! Enough! {Returns to her dressing table.) It is late. I
must go! {Leaving.) Poor youth! He was different and likable! (Exits.)
THE CRITIC: I can't find my bearings! (Looks attentively and long at the dead
ARTIST.) Oh my God! He is dead! (Going over to look at him.) The artist is
really dead! Ah . . . he is breathing. I will make a monograph. (He goes
slowly to his table. From a case, he takes a beard a meter long and applies
it to his chin. He puts on his glasses, takes paper and pencil, then looks
among his books without finding anything. He is irritated for the first time
and pounds his fists, shouting.) Aesthetics! Aesthetics! Where is Aes-
thetics? (Finding it, he passionately holds a large volume to his chest.) Ah!
Here it is! (Skipping, he goes to crouch like a raven near the dead ARTIST.
He looks at the body, and writes, talking in a loud voice.) Toward 1915, a
marvelous artist blossomed . . . (He takes a tape measure from his pocket
and measures the body.) Like all the great ones, he was 1.68 [meters] tall,
and his width . .. (While he talks, the curtain falls.)
 Detonation
Synthesis of All Modern Theater

Francesco Cangiullo

CHARACTER

A BULLET

Road at night, cold, deserted.

A minute of silence.—A gunshot

CURTAIN

Reprinted from Futurist Performance, ed. Michael Kirby, trans. Victoria Nes Kirby (New York:
Dutton, 1971), 247.
 Feet

Filippo Marinetti

A curtain edged in black should be raised to about the height of a mans

stomach. The public sees only legs in action. The actors must try to give the
greatest expression to the attitudes and movements of their lower extremities.

1.
Two Armchairs
(one facing the other)
A BACHELOR
A MARRIED WOMAN

HIM: All, all for one of your kisses!...

HER: N o ! . . . Don't talk to me like that!...

2.

A MAN WHO IS WALKING BACK AND FORTH

MAN: Let's meditate . . .

3-
A Desk
A SEATED MAN WHO IS NERVOUSLY MOVING HIS RIGHT FOOT

SEATED MAN: I must find . . . To cheat, without letting myself cheat!

Reprinted from Futurist Performance, ed. Michael Kirby, trans. Victoria Nes Kirby (New York:
Dutton, 1971), 290-91.
 3 A.

A MAN WHO IS WALKING SLOWLY WITH GOUTY FEET

A MAN WHO IS WALKING RAPIDLY

THE RAPID ONE: Hurry! Vile passeiste!

THE SLOW ONE: Ah! What fury! There is no need to run! He who goes slowly
is healthy . . .

A Couch
THREE WOMEN

p ONE: Which one do you prefer?

1- ANOTHER: All three of them.
IU
Z

< A Couch
THREE OFFICIALS
♦
ONE: Which one do you prefer?
Oi
ANOTHER: The second one.
(The second one must be the woman who shows the most leg of the three.)

5-
A Table
A FATHER
A BACHELOR
A YOUNG GIRL

THE FATHER: When you have the degree you will marry your cousin.

6.
A Pedal-Operated Sewing Machine
A GIRL WHO IS WORKING

THE GIRL: I will see him on Sunday!

A MAN WHO IS RUNNING AWAY

A FOOT THAT IS KICKING AT HIM

THE MAN WHO is GIVING THE KICK: Imbecile!

 T h e Futurist Synthetic
Theater, 1915

Filippo Marinetti, Emilio Settimelli, and

Bruno Corra

As we await our much prayed-for great war, we Futurists carry our violent
antineutralist action from city square to university and back again, using our
art to prepare the Italian sensibility for the great hour of maximum danger.
Italy must be fearless, eager, as swift and elastic as a fencer, as indifferent to
blows as a boxer, as impassive at the news of a victory that may have cost fifty
thousand dead as at the news of a defeat.
For Italy to learn to make up its mind with lightning speed, to hurl itself
into battle, to sustain every undertaking and every possible calamity, books
and reviews are unnecessary. They interest and concern only a minority, are
more or less tedious, obstructive, and relaxing. They cannot help chilling
enthusiasm, aborting impulses, and poisoning with doubt a people at war.
War—Futurism intensified—obliges us to march and not to rot [marciare,
non marcire] in libraries and reading rooms, THEREFORE, WE THINK THAT
THE ONLY WAY TO INSPIRE ITALY WITH THE WARLIKE SPIRIT TODAY IS THROUGH
THE THEATER. In fact, 90 percent of Italians go to the theater, whereas only
10 percent read books and reviews. But what is needed is a FUTURIST THE­
ATER, completely opposed to the passeiste theater that drags its monotonous,
depressing processions around the sleepy Italian stages.
Not to dwell on this historical theater, a sickening genre already aban­
doned by the passeiste public, we condemn the whole of contemporary
theater because it is too prolix, analytic, pedantically psychological, explana­
tory, diluted, finicking, static, as full of prohibitions as a police station, as cut
up into cells as a monastery, as moss-grown as an old abandoned house. In

Reprinted from Futurist Manifestoes, ed. Umbro Apollonio; trans. R. W. Flint (New York:
Viking, 1973), 183-96.
 other words it is a pacifistic, neutralist theater, the antithesis of the fierce,
overwhelming, synthesizing velocity of the war.

* Our Futurist Theater will be

o
u Synthetic. That is, very brief. To compress into a few minutes, into a few
2 words and gestures, innumerable situations, sensibilities, ideas, sensations,
< facts, and symbols.
j The writers who wanted to renew the theater (Ibsen, Maeterlinck, An-
iu dreyev, Claudel, Shaw) never thought of arriving at a true synthesis, of free-
= ing themselves from a technique that involves prolixity, meticulous analysis,
»- drawn-out preparation. Before the works of these authors, the audience is in
v> the indignant attitude of a circle of bystanders who swallow their anguish and
£ pity as they watch the slow agony of a horse who has collapsed on the pave-
£ ment. The sigh of applause that finally breaks out frees the audience's stom-
Z ach from all the indigestible time it has swallowed. Each act is as painful as
* having to wait patiently in an antechamber for the minister (coup de theatre:
£ kiss, pistol shot, verbal revelation, etc.) to receive you. All this passeiste or
t semi-Futurist theater, instead of synthesizing fact and idea in the smallest
CQ number of words and gestures, savagely destroys the variety of place (source
02 of dynamism and amazement), stuffs many city squares, landscapes, streets
into the sausage of a single room. For this reason this theater is entirely static.
We are convinced that mechanically, by force of brevity, we can achieve
an entirely new theater perfectly in tune with our swift and laconic Futurist
sensibility. Our acts can also be moments [atti—attimi] only a few seconds
long. With this essential and synthetic brevity the theater can bear and even
overcome competition from the cinema.

Atechnical The passeiste theater is the literary form that most distorts and
diminishes an author's talent. This form, much more than lyric poetry or the
novel, is subject to the demands of technique: (1) to omit every notion that
doesn't conform to public taste; (2) once a theatrical idea has been found
(expressible in a few pages), to stretch it out over two, three, or four acts;
(3) to surround an interesting character with many pointless types: coat-
holders, door-openers, all sorts of bizarre comic turns; (4) to make the length
of each act vary between half and three-quarters of an hour; (5) to construct
each act taking care to (a) begin with seven or eight absolutely useless pages,
(b) introduce a tenth of your idea in the first act, five-tenths in the second,
four-tenths in the third, (c) shape your acts for rising excitement, each act
being no more than a preparation for the finale, (d) always make the first act
a little boring so that the second can be amusing and the third devouring;
(6) to set off every essential line with a hundred or more insignificant pre-
paratory lines; (7) never to devote less than a page to explaining an entrance
or an exit minutely; (8) to apply systematically to the whole play the rule of a
superficial variety, to the acts, scenes, and lines. For instance, to make one
act a day, another an evening, another deep night; to make one act pathetic,
another anguished, another sublime; when you have to prolong a dialogue
between two actors, make something happen to interrupt it, a falling vase, a
passing mandolin player Or else have the actors constantly move around
from sitting to standing, from right to left, and meanwhile vary the dialogue
to make it seem as if a bomb might explode outside at any moment (e.g., the
betrayed husband might catch his wife red-handed), when actually nothing g
is going to explode until the end of the act; (9) to be enormously careful o
about the verisimilitude of the plot; (10) to write your play in such a manner -o
that the audience understands in the finest detail the how and why of every- <«
thing that takes place on the stage, above all that it knows by the last act how 0)
the protagonists will end up. J
With our synthetist movement in the theater, we want to destroy the ^
Technique that from the Greeks until now, instead of simplifying itself, has
become more and more dogmatic, stupid, logical, meticulous, pedantic, <5
strangling. THEREFORE: T

1. It's stupid to write one hundred pages where one would do, only because the
audience through habit and infantile instinct wants to see character in a ♦
play result from a series of events, wants to fool itself into thinking that the g
02
character really exists in order to admire the beauties of Art, meanwhile
refusing to acknowledge any art if the author limits himself to sketching
out a few of the character's traits.
2. It's stupid not to rebel against the prejudice of theatricality when life itself
(which consists of actions vastly more awkward, uniform, and predictable
than those which unfold in the world of art) is for the most part anti-
theatrical and even in this offers innumerable possibilities for the stage.
EVERYTHING OF ANY VALUE IS THEATRICAL.
3. It's stupid to pander to the primitivism of the crowd, which, in the last
analysis, wants to see the bad guy lose and the good guy win.
4. It's stupid to worry about verisimilitude (absurd because talent and worth
have little to do with it).
5. It's stupid to want to explain with logical minuteness everything taking
place on the stage, when even in life one never grasps an event entirely, in
all its causes and consequences, because reality throbs around us, bom­
bards us with squalls of fragments of interconnected events, mortised and
tenoned together, confused, mixed up, chaotic. E.g., it's stupid to act out a
contest between two persons always in an orderly, clear, and logical way,
since in daily life we nearly always encounter mere flashes of argument
made momentary by our modern experience, in a tram, a cafe, a railway
station, which remain cinematic in our minds like fragmentary dynamic
symphonies of gestures, words, lights, and sounds.
6. It's stupid to submit to obligatory crescendi, prepared effects, and post-
poned climaxes.
 7. It's stupid to allow one's talent to be burdened with the weight of a
technique that anyone (even imbeciles) can acquire by study, practice,
and patience.
< 8. IT'S STUPID TO RENOUNCE THE DYNAMIC LEAP INTO THE VOID OF TOTAL
K
* CREATION, BEYOND THE RANGE OF TERRITORY PREVIOUSLY EXPLORED.
o
Q Dynamic, simultaneous. That is, born of improvisation, lightning-like intu-
Z ition, from suggestive and revealing actuality. We believe that a thing is
_• valuable to the extent that it is improvised (hours, minutes, seconds), not
j extensively prepared (months, years, centuries).
2» We feel an unconquerable repugnance for desk work, a priori, that fails
h to respect the ambience of the theater itself. THE GREATER NUMBER OF OUR
t WORKS HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN THE THEATER. The theatrical ambience is our
^ inexhaustible reservoir of inspirations: the magnetic circular sensation in-
£ vading our tired brains during morning rehearsal in an empty gilded theater;
■JJ an actor's intonation that suggests the possibility of constructing a cluster of
5 paradoxical thoughts on top of it; a movement of scenery that hints at a
< symphony of lights; an actress's fleshiness that fills our minds with genially
4 full-bodied notions.
♦ We overran Italy at the head of a heroic battalion of comedians who
^
02 imposed on audiences Elettricita and other Futurist syntheses (alive yes­
terday, today surpassed and condemned by us) that were revolutions im­
prisoned in auditoriums. From the Politeama Garibaldi of Palermo to the
Dal Verme of Milan. The Italian theaters smoothed the wrinkles in the rag­
ing massage of the crowd and rocked with bursts of volcanic laughter. We
fraternized with the actors. Then, on sleepless nights in trains, we argued,
goading each other to heights of genius to the rhythm of tunnels and stations.
Our Futurist theater jeers at Shakespeare but pays attention to the gossip of
actors, is put to sleep by a line from Ibsen but is inspired by red or green re­
flections from the stalls. W E ACHIEVE AN ABSOLUTE DYNAMISM THROUGH THE
INTERPENETRATION OF DIFFERENT ATMOSPHERES AND TIMES. E.g., whereas
in a drama like Piii che I'Amore [by D'Annunzio] the important events (for
instance, the murder of the gambling-house keeper) don't take place on the
stage but are narrated with a complete lack of dynamism; and in the first act
of La Figlia di Jorio [by D'Annunzio] the events take place against a simple
background with no jumps in space or time; in the Futurist synthesis, Simul-
taneity, there are two ambiences that interpenetrate and many different
times put into action simultaneously.
Autonomous, alogical, unreal. The Futurist theatrical synthesis will not be
subject to logic, will pay no attention to photography; it will be autonomous,
will resemble nothing but itself, although it will take elements from reality
and combine them as its whim dictates. Above all, just as the painter and
composer discover, scattered through the outside world, a narrower but
more intense life, made up of colors, forms, sounds, and noises, the same is
true for the man gifted with theatrical sensibility, for whom a specialized
reality exists that violently assaults his nerves: it consists of what is called THE
THEATRICAL WORLD.
T H E FUTURIST THEATER IS BORN OF THE TWO MOST VITAL CURRENTS in
the Futurist sensibility, defined in the two manifestos "The Variety Theatre"
and "Weights, Measures, and Prices of Artistic Genius," which are (1) our
frenzied passion for real, swift, elegant, complicated, cynical, muscular,
fugitive, Futurist life; (2) our very modern cerebral definition of art, accord- g
ing to which no logic, no tradition, no aesthetic, no technique, no oppor- o
tunity can be imposed on the artist's natural talent; he must be preoccupied -o
only with creating synthetic expressions of cerebral energy that have THE <«
ABSOLUTE VALUE OF NOVELTY. =
The Futurist theater will be able to excite its audience, that is, make it J
forget the monotony of daily life, by sweeping it through a labyrinth of f
sensations imprinted on the most exacerbated originality and combined in
unpredictable ways. a!
Every night the Futurist theater will be a gymnasium to train our race's T
spirit to the swift, dangerous enthusiasms made necessary by this Futurist Z
year. ♦

o
Conclusions
1. TOTALLY ABOLISH THE TECHNIQUE THAT IS KILLING THE PASSEISTE
THEATER.
2. DRAMATIZE ALL THE DISCOVERIES (no matter how unlikely, weird, and
antitheatrical) THAT OUR TALENT IS DISCOVERING IN THE SUBCONSCIOUS,
IN ILL-DEFINED FORCES, IN PURE ABSTRACTION, IN THE PURELY CEREBRAL,
THE PURELY FANTASTIC, IN RECORD-SETTING AND BODY-MADNESS. (E.g.,
Vengono, F. T. Marinetti's first drama of objects, a new vein of theatrical
sensibility discovered by Futurism.)
3. SYMPHONIZE THE AUDIENCE'S SENSIBILITY BY EXPLORING IT, STIRRING UP
ITS LAZIEST LAYERS BY EVERY MEANS POSSIBLE; ELIMINATE THE PRECON­
CEPTION OF THE FOOTLIGHTS BY THROWING NETS OF SENSATION BETWEEN
STAGE AND AUDIENCE; THE STAGE ACTION WILL INVADE THE ORCHESTRA
SEATS, THE AUDIENCE.
4. FRATERNIZE WARMLY WITH T H E ACTORS, W H O ARE AMONG T H E F E W THINK­
ERS WHO FLEE FROM EVERY DEFORMING CULTURAL ENTERPRISE.
5. ABOLISH T H E FARCE, VAUDEVILLE, T H E SKETCH, T H E COMEDY, T H E S E ­
RIOUS DRAMA, AND TRAGEDY, AND CREATE IN THEIR PLACE THE MANY
FORMS O F F U T U R I S T THEATER, SUCH AS: LINES WRITTEN IN F R E E VERSE,
SIMULTANEITY, INTERPENETRATION, T H E SHORT, ACTED-OUT P O E M , T H E
DRAMATIZED SENSATION, COMIC DIALOGUE, T H E NEGATIVE ACT, T H E R E ­
E C H O I N G L I N E , "EXTRA-LOGICAL" DISCUSSION, SYNTHETIC DEFORMATION,
THE SCIENTIFIC OUTBURST THAT CLEARS T H E AIR.
 6. THROUGH UNBROKEN CONTACT, CREATE BETWEEN US AND THE CROWD A
CURRENT OF CONFIDENCE RATHER THAN RESPECTFULNESS, IN ORDER TO
INSTILL IN OUR AUDIENCES THE DYNAMIC VIVACITY OF A NEW FUTURIST
< THEATRICALITY.
DC

0 These are the first words on the theater. Our first eleven theatrical syntheses
Q (by Marinetti, Settimelli, Bruno Corra, R. Chiti, Balilla Pratella) were vic-
z toriously imposed on crowded theaters in Ancona, Bologna, Padua, Naples,
_. Venice, Verona, Florence, and Rome, by Ettore Berti, Zoncada, and Petro-
lini. In Milan we soon shall have the great metal building, enlivened by all
iii
£ the electromechanical inventions, that alone will permit us to realize our
H freest conceptions on the stage.
H
iu
v>
H
LU
Z
<
z
♦
♦
s
02
 X|

German E x p r e s s i o n i s m

r einhard [Johannes] Sorge, the first German Expressionist play­

wright to be published, was born on January 29, 1892, in Rix-
dorf, Germany. His single most important play, The Beggar
(1912), introduced the chief element of Expressionist drama to the
stage—the use of the central character's completely subjective point of
view to develop the action and distort the other characters. Although
outwardly structured as or divided into a traditional five-act play, The
Beggar episodically blended realistic scenes with dreams, thereby dis­
rupting the notion of objective reality onstage. Even though all his plays
support the notion of some form of renewal for humankind, The Beggar
can be seen as the culmination of Sorge's early obsession with Nietzschean
philosophy, which drove him to find redemption in the form of the "superman"
in such previous dramas as Odysseus (1910), Prometheus (1911), and Antichrist
(1911). After his conversion to mystical Catholicism in 1912, Sorge rejected his
previous focus on the individual as artist-prophet and focused instead on human
renewal or regeneration through the Catholic/catholic unity of humankind.
These later works, which include liturgical drama and mystery plays, have been
for the most part limited in their appeal to those who share Sorge's religious
beliefs. Sorge was wounded in World War I during the battle at Albaincourt,
France, and died on July 20, 1916.

The action of The Beggar, subtitled "A Dramatic Mission," takes place in
Berlin; it traces the spiritual and psychological development of a young man in his
various roles as Poet, Son, and Lover. As Son and youthful Lover, he must
overcome the dominance of his parents and return the love of the Young Girl, if
he is to achieve manhood. As Poet, the Beggar must strive to realize his "holy"
vocation—that is, to transform a decadent society into a nobler one. This he
desires to do through the experimental dramas he writes and the theater in
 which he would stage his own plays. The Beggar's new theater, of course, has
nothing in common with the conventional one. It is not a place of entertainment,
but a place of worship and salvation—more like a church, a school, a political
gathering place, or a revivalist meetinghouse than the traditional stage. Its in­
spiration is the Greek theater, and therefore it is a communal affair, not the
prerogative of individuals who pay to be amused. Failing to find a patron for his
experimental theater, however, the Beggar Poet realizes that his role is that of an
outsider who must pursue his visionary mission alone.
Z A "station play" that depicts the transformation theme already found in
- Strindberg's To Damascus (1898-1904), The Beggar simultaneously belongs to
O the genre of Ich-drama (drama of the self) because of its many autobiographical
o elements—also like To Damascus. One autobiographical aspect of the play is its
[u inherent criticism of the dramatic tradition that Sorge had outgrown: through
a- the voice of the critics in The Beggar, the young playwright not only attacks the
iu neo-Romantic drama of Ernst Hardt and Gerhart Hauptmann but also distances
Z himself from the kind of elitist art championed by Stefan George and his circle.
Z The dramatic poet's art, according to Sorge, is meant to be universal, so that it
JJj can reach all mankind.

♦
♦
8
02
Modernist Consciousness and Mass Culture
Alienation in Reinhard Sorge's Der Bettler
•r^—. g^M he 1912 play Der Bettler, generally considered to be the first
«^^ | Expressionist drama, is an invaluable resource through which to
n^^ \ J learn about the contributions Expressionism made to the de­
velopment of dramatic aesthetics and staging techniques. Sorge's semi-
0 8 ^ nal play influenced the works of a number of writers whose names are
readily connected with German Expressionist drama, such as Walter Hasen-
clever, Paul Kornfeld, and Rolf Lauckner.
Certain innovative formal features of the play, furthermore, became staples
for subsequent—and not only German—artistic movements. Sorge called, for
instance, for a stage-lighting technique by means of which segments of the stage
area and of the actors' bodies were to be isolated and emphasized by light, a
technique later taken up by Oskar Schlemmer, Kasimir Malevich, and other
Constructivists in their works for the stage. It is also worth noting that Sorge
further anticipated thematic techniques employed by later Expressionists and—
after World War I—by the Surrealists, as he drew upon the central tenet of
Impressionism and pointed through his aesthetics to realities beyond those
immediately perceived.
Der Bettler represented a transition in the development of the drama, which
in the second decade of the twentieth century was in the process of redefining
itself. What we have in this prototypical Expressionist drama is a work of art
whose form and content cross-fertilize one another and are mutually derived
from the youthful generation's response to real-life social conditions. The play's
essential characteristic is its opposition to conventional drama. In both form and
content it subverts the logic of the culture industry, whose central features are
rationalization and cost efficiency.
Soon after Der Bettler was completed, Sorge's "dramatic mission" attracted
the attention of significant figures in the German-language literary community,
who went on later to become involved in Max Reinhardt's concerted effort to
promote Expressionist drama at his Deutsches Theater in Berlin between 1917
and 1920. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Felix Hollaender, and Samuel Fischer, for
instance, wrote favorably of Der Bettler prior to its publication.
Yet despite the considerable reputation it had gained early on, Der Bettler was
not to be produced on stage until 1917, when Reinhardt's Berlin literary associa­
tion, Das junge Deutschland, premiered it on December 23. The . . . delay
between Reinhardt's acceptance of Der Bettler for production (1913) and the
production itself (late 1917) was certainly not due alone to the fact that Sorge's
was a new type of drama per se. By 1913 Reinhardt had produced such plays
as Wedekind's Fruhlings Erwachen (1906), Hofmannsthal's Der Tor und der Tod
(1908), and Strindberg's Todestanz (1912) at his Berlin theaters. Instead, the delay

Excerpted from Stephen Shearier, "Modernist Consciousness and Mass Culture: Alienation in
Reinhard Sorge's Der Bettler;' German Studies Review 11.2 (May 1988), 227-40.
 was due most probably to the particular manner in which the modern condition
was rendered by Sorge.
It seems that in the careful consideration of Reinhardt and the others at the
Deutsches Theater, Der Bettler was simply "too new" in . . . its explicitly opposi-
tional character to offer the public before 1917. Then, approximately eleven
months before the end of the war and the beginning of the revolution, and four
years after Der Bettler was accepted for production, it was felt that conditions
within the disintegrating social order were right for staging Sorge's "dramatische
Z Sendung." After December of 1917 Sorge's play would no longer stand out as an
- anomaly as it would have earlier, since it was to be given a meaningful and
0 coherent context through the other new dramatic works presented in the
Jg junges Deutschland series.
w Drawing upon the German literary tradition in order to supersede it, Sorge
a- subtitled his play "Eine dramatische Sendung," in an unmistakable allusion to
ui Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Eine theatralische Sendung, which had just
2 been discovered in 1910. Sorge's "Sendung" was similar to Goethe's. Both Mei-
Z ster and the Beggar were intent on inscribing indelibly their mark on theater.
S5 There is a salient difference in the aesthetics explicated by Goethe's and
^ Sorge's main figures, however. Meister's plan was to raise the intellectual level of
t the German National Theater by establishing a program consisting of master-
o pieces from the international pantheon, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. The
c3 Beggar, by contrast, wanted to break with his masters and to have a theater at his
disposal so that he could introduce oppositional, that is, his own, works to the
public. This difference may be taken to denote a critical disillusionment vis-a-vis
the aesthetic tradition, which Sorge, along with other writers of his generation,
believed had become bankrupt. [Motivated] by this disillusionment, Sorge openly
defied what was considered to be the hegemony of the theater establishment.
The most conspicuous testimony of the play's oppositional character is
Sorge's subject: the poet who resists and is ultimately crushed through his
absolute alienation in the age of the culture industry. The young, ambitious
playwright stubbornly refuses to allow his art to be commodified. Desiring
nothing more than to have his plays produced in the public sphere—not merely
because they are his own works, but because they would serve to fulfill his
dramatic mission, which was to break the control of the theater establishment-
he vehemently insists that a theater be placed at his disposal in order that he may
be able personally to see his work brought to unadulterated fruition.
His insistence on autonomy, however, only exacerbates the alienation to
which the poet is subjected by mass culture, and his intransigence in his position
with regard to the oppositional character of drama leads ineluctably to his ruin.
In this sense, the play functions as a direct affront to the culture industry, which
refuses to tolerate the oppositional voice. Establishment theater, buttressed by
affirmative art that serves the need for legitimization of the existing power
structure, is the focus of Sorge's critical assault. The Beggar, the maverick artist,
is the personification of absolute alienation, as he is thoroughly estranged from
his environment, from himself, and finally from life itself.
The dissolution of the individual in the modern age of mass phenomena, such
as mass political movements, mass media, and mass culture in the form of the
culture industry, is conveyed through Sorge's particular nomenclature. Here
attention is drawn to the diverse personae that make up the play's central figure.
The Beggar of the title, who, as the term implies, stands outside mass culture's
main stream, plays at particular times various "roles" signified as "Der Dichter,"
" D e r Sohn," and "Der Jungling." Unwilling to abide by society's normative values
and incapable of achieving a congruence of the various aspects of his "I," the
Beggar perishes a veritable madman, forced, as it were, into utter alienation.
Madness, which in Der Bettler is tantamount to complete isolation and aliena­
tion of the subject, operates as an essential part of Sorge's critique of the culture
industry in late Wilhelminian society. The Beggar's madness, whose roots are c
explicitly social and implicitly genetic, serves as a metaphor for the crisis of -|
dehumanization that Sorge perceived in Germany immediately preceding World .2
W a r I. Sorge was by no means alone in this respect, since many Expressionist 3
writers—for instance, Hasenclever, Heym, Hoddis, Toller, and Unruh—con- g-
sidered conditions during the second decade of the twentieth century, and "Jj
especially the war, to be the expression of a crisis situation that was both a 2
manifestation of, and inevitably led to, madness. The young at this time had a Jj
predilection [for drawing] analogies between the contemporary situation and ^
the individuals it victimized, that is, themselves, or who they saw themselves to t
be: intellectuals, artists, individuals possessing genius. The plight of the artist or ^
of the genius wronged by the culture industry therefore became a preoccupation 01
of writers during this period. Sorge certainly shared these sentiments with
others of his generation.
It may be argued, however, that Sorge departs from other Expressionist
writers in that he takes a critical stance vis-a-vis the widely maintained position
that freedom is to be sought in the mere negation of the existing social order.
That the Beggar utterly fails in his efforts and succumbs to what he opposes may
say something of Sorge's awareness of the artist's false consciousness. Sorge's
critique is thus a dialectical one, as he comments on mass culture as well as on
the consciousness shaped by it, by showing an artist who is victimized by the
culture industry, but whose downfall may ultimately be due to his inflated ego, as
he responds to oppressive conditions through a process of self-alienation by
distancing himself from the profane world.

Select Bibliography on Sorge

Lewis, Ward B. "The Early Dramas of Reinhard Johannes Sorge: A Poet's Search for the
Inner Light." Modern Drama 14(1972): 449-54.

See also Hill and Ley; Krispyn; Kuhns; Raabe; Ritchie; Samuel and Thomas; and Sokel, in
the General Bibliography.
 T h e Beggar
A Dramatic Mission

Reinhard Sorge

In far-flung circles youVe plowed your flights

Through darkness and chaotic dreams, gigantic,
Through torments' regions, caves of space, gigantic-
Restless at dawn and restless in your nights....
When your wild screams hoist you in a gyre
Of father's curse, and every mother's pain;
Eternal procreation shows it's not in vain:
Salvation mounts defiant from the mire....
Then with your wings you'll move that bolted gate
Whose jawlike hinges crushed so many brains;
You love the longing leading to these pains,
You clutch it, reeling downward to your fate.

The Human Beings:

THE POET THE GIRL
THE FATHER THE OLDER FRIEND
THE MOTHER THE PATRON OF THE ARTS
THE SISTER THE THREE CRITICS

Groups:
THE NEWSPAPER READERS, THE PROSTITUTES, THE FLIERS

Reprinted from An Anthology of German Expressionist Drama: A Prelude to the Absurd, ed.
Walter H. Sokel, trans. Walter H. Sokel and Jacqueline Sokel (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1963), 22-89.
 Incidental Persons:
THE NURSE, THE WAITER

Mute Persons:
THE ATTENDANT, WAITER, PATRONS OF THE CAFE

Projections of the Poet:

THE THREE FIGURES OF THE DIALOGUE,
THE FIGURE OF THE POET, THE FIGURE OF THE GIRL

ACT I
Before a curtain.

THE POET and the OLDER FRIEND facing each other. The stage behind the gj
curtain is illuminated. From behind the curtain, greatly muffled voices. co
THE POET. The joy and memory of the applause still linger in your e y e s . . . £
THE OLDER FRIEND. Yes, it was a great success. There were seven curtain calls t
for him. Even after the third act people applauded wildly. co
THE POET. After such an experience you can hardly be in the mood for my °*
things...
THE FRIEND. Don't talk like that! You know, we couldn't make the appoint­
ment for any other time; I must leave town tonight again, and your
patron—I'm already beginning to call him that—incidentally, he too was
in the theater tonight...
THE POET. Did you speak to him?
THE FRIEND. I called on him this afternoon. He seems to be really impressed
with your writing; at least, he had nothing but praise. I think everything
will turn out all right. Of course, you mustn't mention the demands you
talked about the other day; today I tried to drop a hint, but he imme­
diately refused.
THE POET. You mentioned it, and he said no?
THE FRIEND. Of course he refused. I only did it to convince you it was
impossible. I've talked to you about it often enough; and you do under­
stand, don't you?
THE POET. Certainly, I understand your advice.
THE FRIEND. At last! Just imagine! A theater of your own! And at your age!
Despair brought you to that, but despair is precisely what should make
you humble; in your situation one must be grateful for every penny.
THE POET. Certainly, the situation is desperate.
THE FRIEND. If he merely paid for the printing of your last plays, you would
be helped; you'd have a small income, you could live. You can't expect
 performances soon anyway; your plays are too strange and avant-garde for
that. It would be better yet if he were to give you a permanent income,
then once and for all you would be free of money worries and could
develop undisturbed.
THE POET. It would be very kind of him .. .
THE FRIEND. I see youVe become reasonable and have profited from my
advice.
THE POET. When will you stop wanting to give me advice?
THE FRIEND. NOW, my dear fellow, that sounds stubborn again. But I hope I'll
be able to advise you for the rest of my life, and that you'll benefit from it;
after all, I'll always be more than twenty years your senior.
THE POET. YOU are right there.
THE FRIEND. Well, how are things at home?
THE POET. There gloom advances every day.
5 On every nook the sun spews distress.
* Our father's dreadful illness terrifies us.
w
THE FRIEND. What do the doctors say?
i THE POET. They talk of my father's sound constitution, and say that no one
2 can know how long it will last. Death could come any moment, but it
02
might also be delayed for very long. Their talk does not mean a thing; but
such uncertainty, I suppose, is characteristic of this disease . . .
THE FRIEND. As far as I know, yes, that's the case. And your mother?
THE POET. She languishes.
Mainly she anxiously stares at the door and hearkens for my father's
steps.
When they come dragging, then she forces for the madman a smile
upon her lips,
So helpless and touching that tears well up in my eyes.
She weeps so much and speaks of dying. Poverty fills her cup.
THE FRIEND. It's dreadful. No, you can't develop in such surroundings.
Brief silence.
Come, now; we want to meet him in the foyer. The time has come. Your
hands are shaking. Be calm, all will turn out well for you.
THE POET, while both exit slowly to the right My hands are shaking . . . ?! You
see, it does mean something to me, after all!

Now the curtain parts in the middle and the interior of a cafe is seen. The cafe
rises toward the back, steps at center-back. At the right, in the foreground and
center-stage: Tables of the usual kind, many customers, waiters running back
and forth. At the left: A free space, newspapers on the wall, clothes trees in
front, in the center a long leather sofa, which is curved at the ends. On the sofa
sit the NEWSPAPER READERS, closely huddled together. At the moment, the
FIRST READER is reading aloud, seated on a second leather bench, somewhat
smaller and higher than the first; two others are seated beside him: the SECOND
and THIRD READERS, who, while listening, keep their papers lowered. Likewise
the listeners on the lower sofa, among whom there are some without papers. In
the background, tables are laid for supper; very few of them are occupied. The
back wall has a few white-curtained windows. In the right-hand background
there is a kind of alcove forming an octagonal space, shut off by a curtain. To
the right of it, leading toward the alcove, the top of a staircase leading up from
the vestibule, which is to be imagined as being to the right of the stage. Electric
light. The sources of the upstage illumination are invisible. Full attention is to
be focused on the group of READERS, the rest of the public onstage speaking in
muffled tones, serving as decoration. Muffled sounds of dishes.
THE FIRST READER. . . . and it is very possible that the Italian charge d'affaires
in Constantinople has received instructions to immediately . . .
FIRST LISTENER. Stop, please! This has been read once before! Are we sup­
posed to croak of boredom?
SECOND LISTENER. We are finished.
THIRD LISTENER. Can't we get the latest editions yet?
FOURTH LISTENER. Well, gentlemen, let's start all over again.
Laughter.
FIFTH LISTENER. Backward, gentlemen! Then it sounds like new . . .
SIXTH LISTENER. Let's read the ads—they are full of obscenities!
FIRST LISTENER, yawns. Oh . . . how boring! . ..
They sit hunched over, staring vacantly, yawning, gloomy-faced.
THIRD LISTENER. Where are the critics hiding, for God's sake?
SECOND LISTENER. If it takes this long, it means a hit.
SIXTH LISTENER. Is that so? . . . So Miss Gudrun was a hit—
Yawns.
or is she "Mrs."—which is it, really?
FOURTH LISTENER. Well, we'll see .. .
SIXTH LISTENER. At best, we'll hear, am I r i g h t . . . ?
FOURTH LISTENER. All right: so, we'll hear, we'll hear .. .
ALL in a hubbub, yawning, stretching. Yes, we'll hear.
SECOND READER cries out. Here come the papers!
Two waiters with papers from the left.
VOICES lively, to and fro. Here! Bring them here! Give me one! Give me one!
Me! Me!
No, the Tribunel
Allow me—
What on earth . . . ?
Hell, give it to me!!
Put it here! Put it here!
Crap . . . !
 The papers have been torn out of the hands of the waiters, are being read
greedily; those who have not obtained any read over their neighbors'
shoulders.
SEVENTH LISTENER. G o o d Lord . . .
EIGHTH LISTENER without a paper. Read aloud! Read to us!
SIXTH LISTENER. Well, boys, what did I tell you . . . ?
EIGHTH LISTENER. So, let's start, for God's sake! Whaf s holding you up?
SECOND LISTENER. Listen: earthquake in Central America!
VOICES. Ha, ha! Well, well! How many killed?
SECOND READER. Five thousand.
THIRD LISTENER. What a filthy mess!
Commotion.
SECOND READER. Skirmish near Tripoli.

iii VOICES. How many killed?

o
SECOND READER. About two hundred dead. Three hundred and fifty
2 wounded.
♦ Murmur.
♦
SECOND READER, skimming the paper. Crash of a French pilot.
02 NINTH LISTENER. Always those French . . .
FOURTH LISTENER. How many dead?
Laughter.
THIRD READER. Mass revolt in Spain .. .
FIRST READER. Mine disaster .. .
SECOND READER, continuing to skim. Factory fire . . . Hurricane flood . . .
FIRST READER. Train accident. ..
TENTH LISTENER. Stop! Fm freezing! Brr . . .
VOICES. Stop!!
FIFTH LISTENER. Fm freezing, too. Really.
SIXTH LISTENER. G O on ! Go on!
SEVENTH LISTENER. No! No! Something constructive!
THIRD READER. Constructive. Good . . . A new German warship.
VOICES. Ah! Hear, hear!
THIRD READER. Two new English warships.. .
Commotion.
EIGHTH LISTENER. Devil take it!
SIXTH LISTENER. That's unconstructive.
VOICES. What? How come?
SIXTH LISTENER. Three warships mean three years of hunger.
VOICES. Rubbish! Bravo! Subversive! Bravo! How, subversive!? . . . Crazy!
SEVENTH LISTENER. Quiet, please! We want to hear more constructive things!
SECOND READER. A strong healthy boy was born!
VOICES. Bravo! Bravo! Constructive boy! Constructive boy!
THIRD READER. New successful experiments with Ehrlich-Hata?!*
VOICES. Ah! Bravo! Heavenly!
Great applause, clapping of hands.
THE THREE CRITICS enter from the left.
VOICES. Ah! Aha! Hallo!
Loud greetings.
Report! Report!
SIXTH LISTENER, drowning out the others. Well?! Well!? Was Miss Gudrun
well built? Did she have her decent climaxes, hah? Did she go down
nicely at the end?!
Laughter and noise. The SECOND and THIRD CRITICS take seats next to the
others.
FIRST CRITIC, more in the foreground than the others, humming grimly, as
though answering the question of the SIXTH.
"Her heart a dagger pierced!" How bitter, my dear Mr. Poet!
Kindly don't bother us with such nonsense—
The Modern Woman preening herself;
Leave her at home—may I humbly request!
SIXTH LISTENER. What are you grumbling about?
The FIRST CRITIC sits down on the right end of the sofa, since there is no
other seat available. They are gradually calming down.
FIRST LISTENER. And now, please, a sensible report! Let's hear it!
To the FIRST CRITIC.
You start!
FIRST CRITIC. Gentlemen, an unqualified success. But all mediocrity is un­
equivocally successful.
Voices of accord.
The play is no good at all.
SECOND CRITIC. Now, listen—no, really, I must say—that's a completely mis­
guided opinion! . . . On the contrary, it's a very good play. Quite wonder­
ful. But it so happens that the author is not a dissolute genius and a
braggart, the way the mob usually likes them, but a serious, conscien­
tious craftsman—
FIRST CRITIC. My dear friend, you misunderstand me. I esteem the crafts­
man; but this one is lacking in Heavenly Inspiration, for all he can do is
transplant; take from him the time-tested theme and he will starve.

* Ehrlich, the famous German bacteriologist, together with his Japanese assistant, Hata, dis­
covered the chemical compound Salvarsan for the treatment of syphilis in 1910, one year before
Sorge's play was written.
SECOND CRITIC. But his beautiful language—!
FIRST CRITIC. Beautiful crowing you can hear from any rooster.
SECOND CRITIC. My God, in such a manner you can poke fun at Goethe too!
THIRD CRITIC. Allow me to butt in! On the whole, I happen to find the play
quite acceptable. It shows good taste, ifs tactful, it does not offend; in short:
it is the work of a gentleman. Ant this is precisely the point—I think—this
is its fatal flaw: it lacks a certain capriciousness that seeks to conquer its
own particular territory; somewhere there is a weakness in it which he
can't disguise for all his blood-and-thunder violence—quite the contrary,
by such means he actually reveals his weakness all the sooner; this author
has a lack deep down in his depths—a lack which condemns him.
FIRST CRITIC. Bravo! And I want to tell you what's the fundamental lack: a
heart that gives itself to the point of humility; self-surrender toward the
world to the point of foolishness; divine blindness that penetrates pro­
foundly into all secrets—indeed, whafs missing is the visionary—!
SECOND CRITIC interrupts laughingly. Well! Well! Well! Don't get maudlin
over it! Heart has nothing to do with either his style or his theme.
FIRST CRITIC. That's just it! You happen to see the problem upside down!
That very lack relegates him forever to the ranks of sterile hacks. Poets are
lovers, lovers of the world, and endlessly addicted to their love; but he is
stunted in his heart, and out of his narrowness and vanity he invents vain
females.
THIRD CRITIC, without a pause answering the FIRST. And he lacks the de­
monic element, that great confirmation of the self transcending the self.
He's always merely his own shadow, never his better self. In the face of
the Spirit he turns to chaff.
SECOND CRITIC. Ah, that's just so much—
SIXTH LISTENER. Please, don't get tragic! Spare us that! Don't become
fanatical!
THIRD CRITIC. With such mediocrity as we have today! Who could work
himself up to fanaticism!
SECOND CRITIC. You are quick to proclaim a tabula rasa! Now, really! Look,
among the youngest writers we have now this dramatist of the Arthurian
legends!*
FIRST CRITIC. Who needs him! King Arthur and Gudrun—our own age
searches—gazes far and wide—and its soul is aflame!—
Or would you add that poet who, when he had nothing more to say, still
boasted of his poverty and who is now miracle-mongering with pan­
tomimes, woman, and pomp and circumstance?! That's enough to drive
one to distraction!

* Reference to the neo-Romantic movement of the time, which formed a stylish and stylizing
opposition to the naturalist theater, but was despised by the Expressionists.
THIRD CRITIC. Calm yourself! Restrain yourself! My dear friend.
SECOND CRITIC to the FIRST. Oh, well, you! You don't feel right unless you're
bellyaching.
SIXTH LISTENER. Gentlemen, are we still going over to the Victoria Cafe?
MANY VOICES. Yes, of course. Let's go. To the Victoria. Right away.
Noise and general exodus.
THIRD CRITIC, who, while exiting, advances to the front in conversation with
FIRST CRITIC. That's right. We are waiting for someone who will rein­
terpret our destiny for us. Such a one I shall then call a dramatist and a
mighty one. Our Haupt-Mann,* you see, is great as a craftsman, but
deficient as a seer. It's really high time: once again someone must take up
the search for all our sakes.
Curtain.
The OLDER FRIEND, the PATRON, and the POET enter from the right and
p
walk in front of curtain to center-stage. t&
THE PATRON to the OLDER FRIEND, while still walking. May I congratulate you *
on the fine success of your friend . . . iE
THE FRIEND. Thank you. I am really very happy . . . t
THE PATRON. You have every reason to be. It was a truly extraordinary success, o>
a literary event. °*
Turning to the POET.
But I must extend a second congratulation to you, sir. I have now read all
your writings and find in them a very rich and serious talent, a promising
future, and interesting potentialities. I should like to contribute towards
your further education.
THE POET. Many thanks! Unfortunately, I am afraid difficulties might arise
between us.
THE PATRON. Until now, sir, you have had not the least cause for such a fear.
THE FRIEND, to the POET. You're giving yourself useless worries . . . !
THE POET. I shouldn't like to speak about all of this in such a hurry. After­
ward—I believe—better occasion will be found . . .
THE PATRON. Certainly. However, I did not want to leave you unclear about
my overall impressions. Naturally, concerning details, I have many
things to tell you; also, I should like to see some things changed—that's
only to be expected. Please, come, a table has been reserved.
He exits to the left.
THE FRIEND to the POET. What possessed you to make that remark about your
apprehensions and difficulties? It was uncalled-for. It seems to have put
him out of sorts.

* This is a pun and a gibe at Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946), the leading dramatist of
German Naturalism and, subsequently, of neo-Romanticism. The pun consists in the fact that
"Hauptmann" means "head man" or "captain" in German.
 THE POET. Yes, it probably was uncalled-for.
THE FRIEND. Speak discreetly, one word can spoil a lot. Now come, he's
waiting.
He exits to left, the POET follows.
The curtain separates again. Now the right half of the stage is dark and
deserted. From somewhere high at the left, a floodlight falls slantwise across
the left half of the stage, illuminating the PROSTITUTES, who are seated, laugh-
ing and babbling, on the lower leather bench. They are still out of breath from
a quick run and are adjusting their disordered garments. Their voices empha-
size the shrill and bare impression made by the floodlight. Three PROSTITUTES
enter briskly from the left and sit down by the others.
THE FIRST ONE. Quick! They'll be here any minute! Who's still missing?
ONE OF THE NEW ARRIVALS. The Redhead and the tall one are still primping
downstairs.
UJ A SECOND NEWCOMER. Or they're waiting for the fellows because they'd like
tt to smack their lips over the first kisses!
</) THE SECOND, to a NEIGHBOR. How many?
t THE NEIGHBOR. About a dozen!
o THE SECOND. Ha, a good catch!
02
THE FOURTH, bending over the FIRST. The Redhead is rich now, she only
wears real stuff.
THE FIRST. Oh, you little dope! You still believe that fraud? Three PROS­
TITUTES on the right side of the bench, who until now have been whisper-
ing, suddenly burst into loud laughter.
THE THIRD. Yes, sure the Redhead has an Englishman, all stiff with money.
And he has red eyes and the jaws of a horse!
THE FOURTH. Ha-ha! I saw him too; I think he's an American.
THE FIRST. She is stupid; if she's so well fixed, what's she going with us
for?
THE THIRD. She can never get enough.
They laugh.
ONE OF THE THREE PROSTITUTES ON THE RIGHT, screeching. And she simply
smacked him one on his ass?! Hee-hee!
Laughter.
A PROSTITUTE approaches from the left.
THE THIRD to the one entering. You, pale tall one with the craving for death—
where is the Redhead hiding herself? Has she already gone to bed with
them down there?
THE TALL ONE. No, she is only painting herself. The others aren't here yet.
THE SECOND yawns. That red bitch'll choke on her paint some day.
THE TALL ONE. She's got the best paint, from Paris.
THE FIRST. Hey, there she is!
The REDHEAD approaches from the left.
THE SECOND. Where you been hiding, painted gypsy!
THE THIRD AND THE FOURTH, screeching. Hi, painted gypsy!
THE REDHEAD slaps the SECOND. There, take this . . . That'll show you . . .
there!
THE OTHERS, laughing, all together. Hey, she's mad . . .
THE REDHEAD, scuffling with them. You fresh cockroach—fresh . . .
In the heat of battle, a compact drops from the REDHEAD'S handbag,
opens, and the powder dusts out.
THE SECOND, convulsed with laughter. Her powder! Ho-ho! Parisian powder!
Ho-ho!
THE THREE ON THE RIGHT, becoming attentive. Hey, look! Her powder . . . !
VOICES. Powder . . . powder . . . ha-ha!
Noise and laughter.
THE THIRD. Watch out or you'll drop your baby like that!
ONE OF THE THREE PROSTITUTES. Sit down in it; maybe that way it'll do you
some good!
THE REDHEAD, in a rage. You whores! nyeh!
Grimacing at them. She quickly picks up the compact and cleans up what
has been spilled.
THE THIRD. Sh-h-h . . . sh-h-h . .. They're coming now!
The three PROSTITUTES burst into laughter again.
THE FOURTH. Hush, be quiet!
All are listening intently.
THE SECOND. Ah, rubbish, it's all quiet—it's not them yet.
THE THIRD, to the FOURTH. Say, does my hair look all right?
THE FOURTH. Sure. How's mine?
THE SECOND, to the FOURTH, while looking into a compact mirror. Lend me
your makeup! I'm all dark around my eyes.
THE FOURTH hands it to her. Here.
THE REDHEAD, to the SECOND. Gee, you're cross-eyed! No paint will help
you—ha-ha! You'd be better off with a glass eye!
Steps and VOICES on the left. Silence quickly descends.
THE SECOND puts out her tongue. You horror!!
VOICES. Shh . . . shh ...
All quiet. The PROSTITUTES, staring to the left, grin. Their expressions and
postures are all alike. The LOVERS (eight or nine) enter from the left. They
stop short at the sight of the PROSTITUTES. They make their selections,
bargain with each other, pointing their fingers at individual prostitutes.
Their talk is rapid and the individual remarks fuse into each other.
FIRST. There they are. Ha! Choice! Here is selection!
SECOND. Come on! Forward! Hoi—this flesh! What the devil!
SOME, holding him back. You, control yourself!
THIRD. I'll take the redhead!
FIRST. I the one next to her . . .
FOURTH. You won't take the redhead!
THIRD. She gave me looks .. .
VOICES. Let me at them! Not yet! Choose first! What? Choose first!?
FIFTH. That brunette there for me . . .
SIXTH. Fine. And for me the tall one.
SEVENTH. Man, no . .. that one's too short. The other—
EIGHTH. That one looks dangerous. She's cross-eyed.
FOURTH. I get this one here.
SECOND, furious. What! Let me go! Do you want me to suffocate!? You—!
MANY VOICES. Forward! Let's go! Let's go!
They rush toward the girls. Noise, screeching, pushing, embraces, shrill
laughter. Wild commotion of the group swaying back and forth in the
white beam of the floodlight.
VOICES OF THE PROSTITUTES AND LOVERS, back and forth.
Take met Not him! I'm strong as a bear!
It isn't true! He's a weakling! Me!
You know how to kiss, girl! Kiss me, girl!
What are you being coy for, why don't you let me grab you?
Keep out, you! You bald-headed fright! Get away from me, you
horror!
So take the two of us! You won't die of it!
You are white as a sheet! Ho! How you scratch me with your kisses!
Crazy about her breasts?! Slap them and they'll explode!
You're driving me crazy . . . Ouch, you're biting me!
Yes, up there! Come fast, you bewitching brunette!
One couple sits down on the raised leather couch, which is roomy enough for
three persons.
You want something sweet, huh? Something sweet? Fine!
Slap his filthy face! Slug him! Slug him!
Let go, buster! Want to get slapped?
I'll get sherbet. .. Any kind you want. Vanilla?
Let's go home! Into bed. Quick! Get a move on! Hey, you thieving
bitch!
At the end the group postures as a monument.
The VOICES resound rhythmically, like chanting.
You feed me flames; I'm burned to ashes, wild one, you!
You crush like iron, you'll smother me!
 I'll teach you joys that you have never known!
Fll show you nights of which youVe never dreamed!
You are Hell's bottom and are black with lust!
You are like Satan and I want your thrust!
Lights out. Darkness. The noise fades. Brief silence. Then the space in front of
the alcove is lit. The GIRL and the NURSE have just come up the steps from the
vestibule and are now standing in front of the curtain.
THE GIRL. Here, please, Nurse! There is no one up here. Here people can't
see us.
THE NURSE. Why don't you want to sit among people? You shouldn't worry so
much. The doctor has told you so often enough. You should spare your­
self as much as possible, and you've just seen how necessary it is. We
shouldn't have gone to the theater yet. We had hardly walked ten minutes
when you became dizzy! Don't torment yourself unnecessarily! Your fate
can't be changed any more, and God will surely forgive you your baby.
THE GIRL. No waiter here? I'd like to sit here.
A WAITER comes up the steps.
THE NURSE. We'd like to have a quiet table.
THE WAITER. Certainly!
The WAITER draws the curtain back so that the octagonal alcove becomes
visible. In it are a table and chairs. Through the windows one sees the night
sky. A star sparkles brightly. Clouds drift past. The alcove is lit; the source
of the light is invisible.
THE GIRL. Yes, we'd like to sit here!
As the WAITER wants to pull the curtain shut.
Please, let us have the view, don't close the curtains!
THE NURSE. Why not? There always is a little draft through the cracks, and
you catch cold so easily. You can close them!
The WAITER does so.
The GIRL and the NURSE sit down at the table opposite each other, in
profile to the audience. Now the lights within and in front of the alcove go
out, and during the subsequent scene the two figures can be seen only as
shadows. The WAITER soon leaves, and after some time brings the order. In
the moment of darkening of the alcove, the rest of the proscenium turns
bright. Approximately in the center sit the PATRON, the OLDER FRIEND and
the POET, eating. A WAITER comes and goes from time to time.
THE POET, beginning to speak almost simultaneously with the brightening of
the proscenium. On the basis of my writings, you've explained my aims so
accurately that I can now speak to you with increased hope for a favor­
able result. Still, an aspiring young author can so easily be misunder­
stood and give the impression of being immature and on the wrong
path—you do understand, don't you?
Brief pause.
 My friend spoke to you about my situation; you know in what kind of an
environment I have to work—and the theaters reject my plays—so much
in them is novel that they shy away from risking the experiment of a
performance.
THE PATRON. I agree with you. You are in an unfortunate position, since your
plays tend only to become more and more peculiar and strange, and—if I
may speak frankly—they actually have less and less chance of accep­
tance. Of course, one can't be completely sure about that.
THE POET. I am glad you anticipate the same things I do, and are therefore in
a position to understand my ideas all the better. This impossibility of
getting a performance is my greatest handicap. For me performance is a
necessity, the one basic condition for creation. It is my duty toward my
work.
THE OLDER FRIEND. Please, consider what I told you before!
m Brief pause.
2 THE POET. You'll realize that the mere printed publication of my plays can't
O mean very much to me; that would always be merely a half measure,
4 never my final purpose—that is performance. So I have just this one
♦ request: Help me found my own theater.
gj THE OLDER FRIEND. Be reasonable, please! This is absurd!
THE POET. Let me finish my say. I am speaking after careful deliberation.
THE PATRON. Yes, sir, let him finish what he has to say.
THE OLDER FRIEND. I only want the best for you. That will never be in your
best interest.
THE POET. I've reflected at length about all this and examined it from all
angles, considered every alternative, but I've always come back to this: I
must be performed—I see my writings as the foundation and beginning
of a rejuvenated drama; you yourself expressed a very similar idea a
moment ago. But this new drama can become properly effective only by
being performed; the only solution is a stage of my own.
THE PATRON. You are speaking of a new drama; considering the state of our
modern theater, I think you're justified in some degree. And your plays
seem indeed to bear within them so many seeds of future possibilities
that one can understand your high opinion of yourself. On the whole, I
can assure you I understand your ideas and your decision very well. If in
spite of that I propose a different course, I don't do so from lack of
understanding but from sound insight. I see your near future in a dif­
ferent light—even though I fully sympathize with your request—I see so
many risks and problems in realizing it that a different solution appears
necessary to me and, I believe, I have found one.
THE POET. Please, tell me! What is it?
THE PATRON. I consider this proposal sound and fruitful. I shall grant you a
 fixed income, sufficient to cover your expenses in the next few years so
that you can live as you desire. Above all—I think—if s time for you to do
some traveling. Unless you find new stimulation, in your environment,
you're threatened with sterility. Let ten years pass in this fashion and we
shall be able to discuss the other questions. You'll have developed greatly,
the risk will no longer be so great. What do you say?
THE OLDER FRIEND. Your fate is now in your own hands.
Brief pause.
THE POET. Sir, IVe pondered over this possibility too, for a long time, and
have rejected it. I do not need external inspiration for future creation, but
I must gain experience of theatrical technique by seeing my finished
works performed. I must be able to test in practice the extent of what is
possible on the stage. I must test experimentally the limits of drama. My
writings are still deficient in this respect. Only by mastering these matters
can I mature. The external world is necessary only secondarily, and
sterility will never threaten me! My mission dictates this one path; there­
fore, I have to decline your offer.
THE PATRON. You talk heedlessly! You overlook the real advantage of my
proposal—your mental growth in undisturbed security. That is what you
need. Dramatic performances would actually be harmful to you, be­
cause your whole being would be so engrossed in them, there would be
no peace left for your work; and your work can flourish only in peace and
quiet.
THE POET. I will be able to unite work and fulfillment. I have the call, and
hence I can accomplish what I must do.
THE PATRON. Forgive me, but now you are becoming fantastic, and we want
to consider only what's realistic.
Brief pause.
THE POET, abruptly bursting forth.
I see, you'll never want to grant me this?!
I know this well, you only think fantastic nonsense
What I demand, such as my thoughts about
My calling!? . . . How shall I begin my tale?!
Shall I relate how this began in me with visions,
Even when I was a child, and then matured
And grew in might, compelling me and driving me
Into much loneliness and tortured grief-
How it imposed upon me such laws which sundered ties
Between my loved ones and myself, condemning me
To cruelties against those nearest me, whose blood I share?!
My work! My work! My work alone was master!
How best to say i t . . . I want to show you images
Of coming things which have in me arisen
 In all splendor, visions that led me on
To where I am today, and neither love nor lust
Has hitherto been able to displace them
Or even for one instant make them dim!
You shall see what riches wait for you,
What vast good fortune.
Truly this will prove a gold mine! And no risk at all!
Just listen now: this will become
The heart of art: from all the continents,
To this source of health, people will stream
To be restored and saved, not just a tiny esoteric
Group! . . . Masses of workmen will be swept
By intimations of a higher life
In mighty waves, for there they will see
From smokestack and towering scaffold, from
{Jj The daily danger of clamoring cogs arise
tf Their souls, beauteous, and wholly purged
i/j Of swarming accidents, in glorious
♦ Sublimity, conquerors of gripping misery,
^ Living steel and spire soaring up
§2 In defiant yearning, regally.... Starving girls,
Emaciated bodies bent, toiling for their children
Out of wedlock born, in this shall find their bread
And resolutely raise their little ones aloft,
Even though these lie already lifeless in their arms!
Cripples, whose twisted limbs betoken the teeming
Misery of this crooked age, whose bitter souls
Ooze from their poor misshapen forms,
Will then with courage and from love of straight-limbed life
Repress their bile and toss to Death
The fallow refuse that was their lives. But men
Shall stiffen their brows in sorrow and joy,
And open their hearts to yearn and—renounce!
Let woman excel in allegiance to man!
Let his aim be—graciously to yield to her!

To lofty birth let a highborn but in many ways corrupted age

Advance toward me;
Indeed, this age shall truly view itself
In mirrors of omnipotence and lapse into silence when
From the deep reaches of the skies
Issues the gracious vision of the anchor which holds us all
Inexorably, like rock-bound ore,
To the bottom of divinity.
During the POET'S verses the GIRL has risen and draws softly nearer, until she
stands to the left by the entrance to the alcove. Subsequently, the NURSE joins
her. Standing on tiptoe, she looks curiously over the GIRL'S shoulder.
THE PATRON. Please, sir, calm yourself!—What you envision as the future is a
figment of your imagination, a dream that will never come true. There­
fore, I feel really justified in declining your request, first of all because in
a few years' time you will think of your plans with greater maturity. Then
perhaps you will have learned to realize and appreciate more seriously
the limits of possibility; your ideas will have adjusted to them, and we
both will have it easier.
THE POET. Your words have been unmistakable, and we are finished!
The NURSE has meanwhile returned to her table, but the GIRL remains
rooted to the spot, hearkening, slightly bent forward. The light upstage goes
out immediately after the POET'S last word. Left-downstage is dimly illumi-
nated. In the chiaroscuro one can see the FIVE FLIERS seated on the lower g
bench. Their rigid posture makes each resemble all the others. They also are g
unified by their sharp and steely expressions. «
FIRST FLIER, rhythmically.
Of course, you speak for joyfulness, ♦
But fetters of constraining fear hold fast my senses. £5
SECOND FLIER. I feel like him. My pulse beat overwhelms
My laughter with gloom and violence.
THIRD FLIER. Grief does not befit this festive hour,
Even the worst fate merits more than that. ..
FOURTH FLIER. How his eyes gazed upward radiantly at the sun
In ardent communion, joyous in holy effort...
FIFTH FLIER. How his courage, assured, gave strength to his handshake,
His every word betokened success...
FIRST FLIER. His courage pushed his hands too far,
Overconfidence has shattered many—
SECOND FLIER. TOO much like the sun were his eyes,
Many have burned to ashes near the sun—
THIRD FLIER. Grief does not befit this festive hour,
Even the worst fate merits more than that.
FOURTH FLIER. Still, let us wait, let us not heed vague apprehensions—
FIFTH FLIER. They often deceived us; soon we shall know.
SIXTH FLIER enters from the left, steps in front of the others, turns his face
toward them, and remains in this posture during the subsequent scene.
FIRST FLIER. Woe . . . Your eyes bespeak the airy grave . . .
SECOND FLIER. Your brow foreshadows a desolate coffin.
SIXTH FLIER. Woe: The storms of heaven shattered the airplane.
It splintered on the rock-covered earth . . .
 ALL EXCEPT THE THIRD AND SIXTH. W o e . . .
FIRST FLIER. My apprehension did not deceive me,
Rightly did fear hold me in clammy embrace!
SECOND FLIER. Rightly did engulfing waves of
Bitter sadness drown all my laughter!
SIXTH FLIER. Woe: Dead he lies with his brains spilled out,
And his hand still clutches rudder and wing.
ALL EXCEPT THE THIRD AND SIXTH. W o e . . .
FOURTH FLIER. His courage lifted him into the stormy skies-
Raging elements have no respect for courage in man!
FIFTH FLIER. Brightly his eyes greeted the sun—
The radiant star scorns the greeting of man!
ALL EXCEPT THE THIRD. Let the monotonous dirge resound,
the soul's lament,
£ Psalm and organ for the dead.
Q THIRD FLIER. Grief does not befit the festive hour,
w
Worst fate merits a nobler choral.
i FIRST FLIER. Which god's gospel do your works proclaim?
c§ SECOND FLIER. Which is the freedom your trumpets declare?
THIRD FLIER. From storms of destruction rises my God,
From death-dealing rays He draws living breath.
FOURTH FLIER. Your word of courage moves the boulder from the grave
And adumbrates the verdict against death.
FIFTH FLIER. Your hope unseals hidden accords,
Y e s . . . It intones eternal life.
SIXTH FLIER. Give us the gift of wisdom, give us the gift of omnipotence!
THIRD FLIER. Where has his fervor gone out, where has his courage been
broken?
All the more fiery was it infused into us!
FIRST FLIER. Yes, you're piercing the clouds of my heart with heavenly rays—!
SECOND FLIER. YOU transfigure my sorrow with inward shared smiles!
THIRD FLIER. Think it through! Descend deep down into yourselves!
Did he die? Or did he rise in resurrection?
Our eyes now see with sight from his soul—
FOURTH FLIER, with gesture. His longing lifts high our hands.
FIFTH FLIER. His death has been solder for our union:
It has welded and fused us—deepest nerve and broadest dominion . . .
Silence.
THIRD FLIER, softer, yet more intent, his voice coming as though from afar.
Prophetic vision above and beyond the groping of language—
ALL, as though groping. Prophetic vision above and beyond the groping of
language—
THIRD FLIER. Beyond uncertain solace—faith.
ALL, their heads bowed. Beyond uncertain solace—faith!
Darkening of downstage, center-upstage is lit Only the OLDER FRIEND
and the POET are left at the table.
THE OLDER FRIEND. You have killed your last opportunity. Do you realize
what this means? I've warned you so many times. You appeared to agree
with me, but it was all pretense. I detest from the bottom of my heart such
secretiveness. I can't comprehend what's happened! It will be a long time
before I can forgive you for this. What's going to happen? How do you
expect to get on?
THE POET. I did not like being secretive with you. I'd expressed many objec­
tions to you, but you rejected them all out of hand and you repeated your
very definite opinions again and again. So I let it be. You held my wish in
your hands and contemplated it like a lifeless thing, like a stone or a
piece of wood. But there was organic development here, ever-changing
and unfathomable, so much soul and mystery that neither you nor I
could know anything absolute about it. Yet this is your way, your bitter
habit: you had tagged me with a number and were looking for the for­
mula it would fit. But I myself had not yet found my number and my law.
Now, don't be angry with me!
THE FRIEND. I am upset by what's happened. This obstinacy and blindness of
yours make one wonder. You are too young to afford such negativity.
Pause. He looks at his watch.
It's time now to catch my train. Good-bye. Look me up soon at home. In
any case, let's not be angry.
They shake hands.
THE POET. I thank you. Farewell!
The FRIEND exits to the right, past the alcove and down the steps.
The POET looks silently into space.
Lights dim. The alcove is lit.
The GIRL, still standing rooted as before. The NURSE seated, sipping her
cup of chocolate.
THE NURSE. D O sit down! Your chocolate is all cold by now.
Besides it's high time you were home.
The GIRL still standing rooted as before. The NURSE seated, at the right.
Excuse me, Nurse!
Exits to the right.
Lights out on this part of the stage; the lower stage is lit. It is completely
deserted. The POET descends slowly downstage while speaking the subse-
quent monologue. Right after the first few words, the GIRL appears down-
stage at the right and remains standing there, staring at the POET and
listening intently to his words.
THE POET. YOU hurled a sky-high rock
Upon my road—
 With rocks you cluttered, too, my brain, and
I can barely think.
Yet your hostile force steels all my pulses,
0 Destiny!
One day I shall stretch up defiantly toward blue sun . . . ,
An eagle,
1 shall spread my wings
Toward the fires of the sun.
Talon and eagle! And your rock becomes a mote.
He continues to descend the steps and is about to turn right Just then,
THE GIRL advances toward him, blocks his way, and lifts her arm as though to
stop him, saying. I must speak to you, wondrous stranger . ..
Curtain.

UJ ACT II
o
0 In front of a curtain.

♦ The FATHER in a blue dressing gown. He hammers away with an outsized

§ drumstick at a multicolored toy drum. Even before the curtain opens, the
01
first drumbeats can be heard; while the stage becomes visible, the drum-
beats follow each other more and more rapidly, finally merging in a furious
roll.
THE FATHER, screaming over the din. Yippee! Yippee! Whee! Hallo! Away!
Away with you, you scoundrels! Yippee! Look at them run! Away, away
with you, scoundrels! Get out! Get out! Beat! Beat, my good drum, beat!
He stops himself.
Ah—now they're gone.
Looking up.
Ha-ha, I can see you again, Mars, I can see you again . . .! And you shall
have a kiss, drum, because you're so kind, and chased away those old
rascals. So here it is . . .
Kisses his drum.
Shame on them, those old rascals.—Here a fire, over there a coffin lid
and smoke; over here a louse, over there a toad; there a heart, there a
heart with a knife stuck in it; here a bucket of tears, there a chest filled
with murder—surely it's enough to drive one mad. But I have my drum
now—nyaah—yes, I have my drum. The good Lord still means well by
his old master builder. Up there in the attic it lay all forgotten—the old
drum, when I went up to look for my old blueprints. Ha-ha-ha, the good
Lord still means well by his master builder, yah, yah.
Short drumbeats.
One, two, three, and I see Mars again.
Sends up a kiss.
 Good day, dear Mars, how do you do, good Mars? I have my drum now!
Abruptly changing.
What, you mean fellow . . . what! You smoky giant, don't block my view
of Mars, you!
He starts drumming again.
Hallo, yippee, get out, get out, will you! You devil... get out of there! get
out! Will you go! go! away!
Wildly drumming, he advances to the left as though driving someone out.
For a short while the drumming can he heard behind the scene; then
silence descends.
Now the curtain parts, and opens on a view of a living room. Downstage at
the right, a settee. In front of a red curtain in the center of the back wall, a
table and three chairs. Left center an armchair. Upstage at the left, a door
papered with the same paper as the surrounding wall. Red carpet, red
wallpaper, red furniture cushions, red table cover.
The MOTHER and the SON (the POET) seated at the table opposite each
other (in profile to the audience).
THE MOTHER. . . . it's the first time since your return that you deign to grant
me a free hour. And youVe been back for over a week. But you stay in
your room all day or take walks. You don't concern yourself at all about
me, I only see you at meals; for that I'm good enough. If you only
knew . . . I cry over you . . .
THE SON. Dearest, let's use this free hour for talking of other things...
THE MOTHER. NO, no, I must be able to talk about it. You, of course, don't like
that! Ah, I'm dead to you—do you tell me anything at all about your inner
life? It was bad enough those last few months, but now, since you met
that girl, you've become completely closemouthed! You haven't told me
a thing about your trip; why did you come back so soon?
THE SON. You know that I undertook the trip to gather some stimulation for
my art. I came back when I got enough . . .
THE MOTHER. And you've come back so soon?! But I think you went on that
trip for quite different reasons, I'm quite certain of that. In that connec­
tion you had some bad experience, and that's why you came back so soon.
THE SON. Where do you get all that information?
THE MOTHER. When you came back, I noticed that something deep inside
was troubling you. And it had to be something sad, I noticed that too.
After all, I know you! After all, I know what goes on inside you! Oh, I
know! Perhaps you went there to sell a play of yours, and it was turned
down.
THE SON. Ah, don't trouble yourself with these useless thoughts . . .
THE MOTHER. Yes, I notice it all right; it's true. I thought so . ..
Sighs.
At the left, behind the scene, a door is heard to slam.
 THE MOTHER, startled. Listen! that was his bedroom! What does this mean?
What is he up to? Isn't he asleep? he won't be coming in here, will he?
Brief silence.
THE SON. It's all quiet.
THE MOTHER. The attendant is with him, I hope?
THE SON. Shall I go look?
THE MOTHER. Yes, go, go, but quietly! If he's asleep, don't wake him by any
means. Maybe it's better you don't go?
THE SON. I'd better go.
THE MOTHER. Yes, but very quietly, yes, it's better you go, I suppose. After all,
one never knows . . . But very softly, do you hear?
The SON nods and exits through curtain. Silence.
THE MOTHER, inclining her head sorrowfully, folding her hands, stares straight
ahead, and then she prays monotonously and mournfully. Lord, you bring
j|J everything to its rightful ending—all my sorrow, too! O Lord, O Lord,
g take my hands and lead me . . .
v> A wild sobbing causes her head to jerk. A chair is moved behind the scene;
t the MOTHER quickly wipes away her tears and looks at the curtain.
CM THE SON, returning. Yes, the attendant is with him.
02
THE MOTHER. Is Father sleeping?
THE SON. He's lying on the bed in his dressing gown and seems to be asleep.
THE MOTHER. Didn't you talk to the attendant?
THE SON, resuming his seat. No, I didn't go into the room at all. I only peeped
in through the open door, no one heard me.
THE MOTHER. Ah, when I think that this can go on another year, or even
longer, I can't endure it.
THE SON. Did you write to Aunt once more?
THE MOTHER. She wrote again herself. I meant to show you her letter.
Searching in her dress.
Where did I put i t . . . ? Maybe I left it upstairs...
THE SON. What does she write?
THE MOTHER. She writes with no heart at all... No, I don't have the letter now.
THE SON. She writes heartlessly again?
THE MOTHER. She ignored everything I said. She falls back on the statement
of the doctors and insists on his spending his last days, not in the institu­
tion, but at home. She accuses me of lacking in love because I wanted it
the other way. But you know how I love him . . .
THE SON. One can't reach her, appeals are of no use. She gives us so much
money that we are dependent on her.
THE MOTHER. If at least it were his heart's desire! If it could only relieve his
last days. Yes, then I would take everything upon myself! But the doctor
 told me himself that those afflicted with his illness don't care at a l l . . . ah,
it's so difficult, I can't sleep any more from fear...
THE SON. She loves her brother, to be sure, but she can't sympathize with our
torments here and with your great love.
THE MOTHER, bowing her head. Yes, I love him utterly and I'm always with
him.
THE SON, more softly. Know this, I love you completely and am always near
you.
The MOTHER looks up sorrowfully.
THE MOTHER. I weep for both of you in my pillows at night. One eye weeps
for your father, the other for you!
A door is slammed, right afterward another one. Steps are heard ap-
proaching.
THE MOTHER jumps up7 screaming. That's him! he's coming!
She flees into a corner of the room. 3
Bolt the door! «
Tries to run out through the door upstage-left.
Oh God, the door is locked!
THE SON. Calm yourself! Stay here! Calm yourself!
THE MOTHER, fleeing through the room into the farthest corner. For heaven's CM
sake, call the attendant!
The red curtain in the background opens up; the FATHER appears in the
doorframe. He is again in his blue robe.
THE FATHER, in the doorframe. Now I'm away
Tralala
And can dance
Trala!
He enters the room from the right, circumventing the table, without being
aware of the others, who stand at the side to his right; the SON puts his hand
on his MOTHER'S arm to calm her.
THE FATHER. So you see, my dearest Boss,
I'm no longer at a loss.
One! two! three!
Ha-ha-ha!
Tralala!
Pretending I was a stupid mule,
I played my patron for a fool,
Now I can laugh at him—
Whoops-
Scoff at him—
Whoops—
And say I have enough of him—
Boomps.
 He twirls around. Then he perceives the S O N and M O T H E R .
T H E FATHER. Ah, there you are! G o o d evening! G o o d evening!
T H E M O T H E R . G o o d evening, little papa. N o t asleep yet?
T H E FATHER. Ha-ha-ho—how d o you like that—Pve only pretended I was
asleep! But that fellow fell into m y trap a n d t h o u g h t I was really asleep.
So I've gotten rid of h i m in a nice way—ha-ha—Fm rid of h i m . F m
d a n c i n g with joy, you shouldn't think F m crazy. I only d a n c e with joy!!
Yes, let's all d a n c e , w h e r e is Hedi, let h e r play t h e piano. Hopsa . . .
hopsa . . . tralala . . . Well, how d o you like that, I a m even a poet! T h a t
p o e m was good, wasn't it? A crazy m a n c o u l d n ' t make such poetry! Yes,
poetry, that's always b e e n my forte. You still r e m e m b e r , M o m m y ?
O h , dearest bride with myrtle wreath,
W i t h a goose you're putting your groom at ease . . .
Ha-ha-ha...
m Brief silence.
2 But sit down, sit down! What are you standing around for?
0 Mommy, come, come here!
^ They all take seats around the table.
♦ Well, my boy, you really should b e in b e d already—but you aren't a child
co any more. T i m e was w h e n you h a d to b e in bed by half past seven o n t h e
d o t . . . Punctually at half past seven! M a r c h , to bed—nothing to b e d o n e
about it! I still remember—ha-ha—five minutes before, you already cast
sidelong glances at the clock, a n d winked all secretly to yourself. . . b u t
you couldn't fool me—I saw it anyway. A n d you always begged to take
your book along to bed, b u t that was o u t of the question. Yes, you were a
rascal! A n d d o you still r e m e m b e r how we did t h e puzzles, son? W e two
always solved t h e m — o n e , two, three, just like that, b u t M o m m y could
never solve t h e m . . . never .. .
Pats her shoulder.
Yes, yes, Mommy. It's not as simple as all that. Ha-ha.
THE SON. Sometimes you had the answer before I'd been able to finish
reading the puzzle.
THE MOTHER. Yes, little papa, you really could solve them beautifully.
THE FATHER. But now, how is it now! We must discuss what we are to do. I am
well again now, and we'll fire the attendant on the first. I think, Mommy,
we two will first take a nice trip south: anywhere else it would still be too
cold. Yes, I've figured it all out. Well, will you be surprised, little mommy!
THE MOTHER. That'll be wonderful. ..
THE FATHER. It sure will be wonderful! And afterward with new strength I'll
buckle down to work. And at full steam! Ha-ha, if you only knew .. .
Work makes our life so sweet
Never is a burden—
Oh yes, oh yes.
THE MOTHER. The other day you fetched your old blueprints from the attic.
THE FATHER. Yes, that's right. . . and the drum too! Ha-ha, have you already
heard the story of my dear old drum . . . ? Well, I'll tell you that an­
other time. Mommy, you don't have to make such an anxious face right
away—it's true about the drum . . . Yes—well—what were we talking
about...
THE MOTHER. Of your old blueprints, little papa, and your work.
THE FATHER. Oh yes, the blueprints, I need them for something—ha-ha! Yes,
there is lots to be done, ho, if you only knew! We'll get filthy rich some­
day, we'll laugh at everyone. But we mustn't let anyone know.
THE SON. You have a special project lined up, haven't you?
THE FATHER. No, nothing must be divulged. Well, maybe I'll tell it to you, my
boy, now you are "a colleague." How are you doing? Pretty busy, aren't
you? How long will it take you to become construction boss? . . .
Mommy, do you still remember, when I . . .
The MOTHER nods.
Ha-ha-ha, you still remember that. My boy, as soon as I am well, we'll go
drinking together, absolutely, I want to have a real drinking spree again
with the boys of the fraternity. Ad exercitium salamandri. . . * one, two,
three . . . yes, yes, I can still do i t . . . one doesn't forget that.
The MOTHER has gotten up quietly and is about to exit through curtain.
THE FATHER. Where are you going, Mommy? Oh, no, you stay here! Tonight
you can stay up a little longer, for my sake, can't you? Can't you, my dear
little wifey?
THE MOTHER sits down again. Certainly, little papa.
THE FATHER. YOU can sleep late tomorrow—tomorrow is Sunday. Sunday we
never got out of bed before nine! My God, how long it's been now since
we slept together, you and I! But just let the attendant go—it will soon be
the first. Let him go, Mommy, and we'll have our wedding ceremony a
second time. My dear, beautiful wifey!
Silence.
The MOTHER regards the FATHER with increasing anxiety.
THE FATHER slowly. Tell me—
Silence.
THE MOTHER, timidly. W h a t . . . ?
THE FATHER. Tell me, what was it I wanted to discuss with you . . . what was
it—what was it—
Silence.
... Well, just you wait, Mommy, when I start earning again! Then I won't
come home with a miserly six thousand marks, but with no less than six
hundred thousand. Yes, then you'll be surprised, but you have to wait a

* A drinking ritual of the student fraternities.

 little. It's so dreadful that I couldn't do anything at all these years. I go
crazy even now when I think of it. Here, here—
Rolls up right sleeve.
I bit my own flesh with rage, b u t it was no use, I could not make myself
work. I could bite and bite as m u c h as I pleased . . .
THE SON. But now you're planning new work again, Father.
THE FATHER. Yes, now everything is fine again. So my biting was good for
something anyway. Ha-ha, enough blood flowed out—one time a whole
bowl was full. Ha-ha, but now we can laugh and be happy! M o m m y , you
know, we could afford a bottle of wine to celebrate the day. And—you
know what—I'll bring Hedi along too, she must join in our t o a s t . . .
He rises quickly, rubbing his hands, and hops around with joy.
Hopsa, we'll have a grand time . . .
The MOTHER whispers with the SON by the curtain in the back, while the
FATHER, humming, entirely self-absorbed, paces up and down the room.
UJ
3 The MOTHER leaves the room. The SON comes downstage, seats himself on
Q the settee, and looks at the FATHER. Silence.
THE SON. You wanted to talk to m e about your project, Father . . .
♦ THE FATHER, stopping. About my project; of course! . . . Well, it can't be told
co that easily . . .
THE SON. How long have you been working on it, actually?
THE FATHER. H m m , the first thought or the dream of it c a m e to m e already
four months ago. And then I finished the plan, b u t at that time I hadn't
c o m e back h o m e yet.—The blueprint itself I started only yesterday.
THE SON. You have to show m e everything. W h a t were you saying before
about a dream . . . ?
THE FATHER. Well—as I said—it's not so easy to explain. T h e r e is something
great, miraculous, b e h i n d this work, you know—an utterly mysterious
power—yes, I know it sounds crazy, but it isn't. Just listen to me.—How
can I begin . . .
THE SON. You had a dream?
THE FATHER. Yes, that's it! Yes! Just imagine! O n e night I saw the planet Mars
in my dream, I saw it in the sky just as usual, but suddenly it grew brighter
and brighter and bigger and bigger, it grew and grew, finally it became as
large as this room here, and it was so near I could have touched it—so
minutely visible, imagine, I could see the canals quite clearly. T h e Mars
canals, you know?
T H E SON. Yes.
THE FATHER. I saw t h e m distinctly shimmering and flowing—they ran
straight through across the whole planet, straight as a yardstick.
THE SON. Had you seen t h e m at any time before through a telescope?
THE FATHER. Yes, but m u c h , m u c h smaller, not bigger than a five-mark
piece, but then I saw t h e m as large as this wall.
THE SON. How miraculous.
THE FATHER. Yes, truly miraculous! For the next night I dreamed the same,
only this time I could see them building on one of the Mars canals!
THE SON. Ah . . .
THE FATHER, growing in stature as he revels in his vision. I saw the scaffolds
and ditches—I saw everything!—and very curiously shaped—and it all
hummed and whirred so in front of me that I became quite dizzy! I also
saw people, very much like ourselves, except that they all had long trail­
ing garments on and pointed hats, exactly the way I had once read it in a
novel.
THE SON. Had you read it all?
THE FATHER. How could I have? . . . I had read about the people there, but
nothing of all the other things; in that case there would have been
nothing miraculous about it at all. Ha-ha-ha! N o w , . . . where was I? . . .
THE SON. With the people and the machines.
THE FATHER. Right. As I said—of course I hadn't read anything whatever
about the machines and the whole construction. Otherwise there would
have been nothing to this!
THE SON. How was it then on the third night?
THE FATHER. On the third night? Well, then I saw a little more of the con­
struction site, and everything even more distinct! Then I also saw gigantic
objects on the water—ships probably—I didn't understand at all how
those monsters could float! I didn't comprehend anything, not the ma­
chines, not a single construction, nothing at all, I stood like a dumb ox be­
fore all those things! Gradually, however, I began to sense this and that—
ah—I racked my brain trying to understand those things. They could
drive one out of his mind, but I was probing into them! What times those
were, my boy! I raced like a madman through the days, hardly able to wait
for the night to come. I believe I must have been in a permanent state of
fever from waiting. I burned. At night, when my glance fell on Mars, all
red in the sky, I spoke to him. Then, in the night, I was up there. Yes, I was
up there, every night for weeks, I didn't dream—it was real, what I saw...
THE SON. I believe you, Father. And how did it go on?
Sounds behind the curtain. The MOTHER and the SISTER come. The SISTER
carries a tray with a bottle of wine and four glasses. The MOTHER carries a
tray. They put these on the table. The SISTER'S long blond hair streams
down loose; she has a robe over her shoulders.
The FATHER, having thrown a rapid glance at them entering, paces back
and forth, confused and completely absorbed in his visions.
THE MOTHER, anxiously. Here we are, little papa . . .
The FATHER fails to hear her.
THE SISTER. I'd already gone to bed, little papa. That's why it took me so
long. ..
 THE SON, getting up. Come, Father, now we'll drink a toast.
Leads the FATHER to the table.
THE FATHER, as above. W e l l . . . w e l l . . . w e l l . . .
Now he stands by the table; at that moment his glance lights on the tray,
he wakes from his trance, and speaks in a lively tone:
Ah! Macaroons! Hurrah, Mommy! Is this a surprise! Macaroons! My
favorites!
THE MOTHER, radiantly. They are still quite fresh, little papa. Actually, you
were not supposed to get them till tomorrow.
THE FATHER. Well, in that case I have to taste one right now—
Eats a macaroon.
Mmm, delicious!
Eats another one.
Really superb, Mommy, the way you make them.
Continues eating.
V3 Oh, does this taste good!
0 THE SON. Let's all sit down!
V)
♦ THE FATHER. Right, all around the table! We are short one chair . . .
THE SON pushes a chair to the table, at an angle. Here, take this chair,
$ Father.
THE FATHER, taking it. Yes, I take the chair. Sick man that I am!—But now a
toast! . .. Mommy, where do you have the corkscrew?
THE MOTHER hands him the corkscrew. Here.
THE FATHER. W e l l . . . tralala . . . this will taste out of this world!
He tries to pull the cork.
Hopla .. . Well, this is a difficult business.. .
Tries again.
THE SON. Let me try, Father!
All sit around the table.
THE FATHER. All right, you try. This is damned complicated—damned
complicated.
The SON drives the screw further and pulls out the cork.
THE FATHER. Ah, this boy is getting clever . . . just look at him!
THE MOTHER. Yes, he used to be our all-thumbs.
THE FATHER. Sure enough! . . . And now let's pour.
Pours and fills the glass till it overflows and spills.
Hopla . . . this is too good. Well, let the rug too take part in the feast.
THE SISTER. Let me pour, little papa.
She takes the bottle from him and fills the other glasses.
THE FATHER. How do you like our children, Mommy—efficient, aren't they?
THE MOTHER. Yes, very, little papa!
THE FATHER. Wouldn't you like to make a speech, my boy?—Well? You used
to love doing it. No birthday passed without one of your speeches.
THE SON. Yes, I still remember. I always made long speeches, but tonight, I
think, we'll just toast quietly.
THE FATHER. NO, no, that's impossible, you have to speak! Really, you have to
make a speech!
The SON rises, raps on his glass.
THE FATHER. Ah . .. psst... psst.. . quiet! Listen to the speaker!
THE SON. Fraternity brothers!
THE FATHER. Splendid. This will be a real fraternity carousal.
THE SON. Tonight we welcome into our midst our dear old brother restored to
his old gay and happy disposition. For a long time he stayed away from
our drinking bouts, and his absence kept away good cheer. Now we can
delight together with him in his health, and wish him the best for his fe
future and his great enterprise. go
THE FATHER, wiping offhis tears. Listen to him! Go on, go on, my boy! *>
THE SON. Fraternity brothers! I call on you in honor of our dear senior *"
brother to whom we owe so much, who has always been and always will ^
be an inspiration for us and an example of loyalty, earnestness, and sense a>
w
of duty, in honor of our dear senior brother, I call on you for a rousing
toast in our best tradition: Ad exercitium salamandris: Estisne parati?*
THE FATHER, with radiant face and booming voice. Sumus!
THE SON. One, two, three—
The FATHER rubs his glass on the table and gestures to the MOTHER and
SISTER to follow his example. They copy him halfheartedly.
One, two—bibite!
They drink.
Three . . . Salamander ex-est.
THE FATHER, embracing him, with tears in his eyes. That was a wonderful
thing you did, my boy! A wonderful thing—and now another toast. All of
us together, let's clink glasses. To the future!
They all raise their glasses; as the FATHER is about to clink his glass with
the SON'S, he says:
To Mars!
THE SON. Yes, to Mars!
THE FATHER, to the MOTHER and SISTER. That's our secret. The MOTHER and
SISTER have joined timidly, smiling reluctantly, to humor his gaiety.
THE FATHER turns to the SON. But I want to go on with my story—!
* The Son in this scene engages in a ritual of the German student fraternities—the so-called
Salamanderreiben, or stirring the Salamander, which constitutes one of the highlights of the frater­
nities' drinking feast. The ceremonial is described here; the formal language of the fraternities'
rituals is Latin.
 THE SON, to the MOTHER and SISTER. Wouldn't you like to go to bed? Father
and I might stay up a while yet. ..
THE FATHER. Yes, indeed, you must go to bed—good night, Mommy. See
how well-behaved I am, I'm not going with you. But just wait a while . . . a
week from now . . . oh, that will be nice . ..
THE MOTHER. Yes! Good night, little papa.
THE FATHER goes rapidly to her and kisses her. Good night, good night, my
wifey!
Kisses her more ardently.
Good night!
THE SON touches his arm gently. You meant to be well-behaved, didn't you,
Father?
THE FATHER, letting the MOTHER go. Tonight, yes, but in a week . ..
The SISTER extends her hand, wishing him good night.
iu Good night, Hedi.
oc Throws the MOTHER a kiss as she exits.
2 Good night, good night!
♦ The MOTHER and SISTER leave the room.
0 THE FATHER, looking after them. She is really getting more and more beauti­
es fill, our dear little Mommy!
He starts pacing up and down.
Just wait, just wait, my dear wifey! This week shall also pass. One, two,
three, one, two, three .. . bibite. .. oh, yes.
He sits down in a comer at the foot of the sofa.
THE SON. So tell me more of your plans, Father!
THE FATHER. Yes, I'll surely do that, my boy. What I've begun, I must also
finish. That's the way it should be, shouldn't it?
THE SON, in front of him. You'd been talking about the machines and how
you gradually were beginning to understand their construction, and how
in general...
THE FATHER, transformed; under the impact of his vision. Yes, the machines!
God, what advances compared to ours! Look here .. .
He bends down and draws shapes on the floor with his finger. His mind is
obviously throbbing with these visions and frequently interrupts the flow of
his speech. The SON stands in front of him.
. . . The great drilling machine, for instance, it hung suspended on
springs like this and like this—the frame looked like this, here, like this,
the two beams here diagonally, the center beams here, you see, cross­
wise, see—like this . . . There the upper beam divided, suspended wires
connected it with the lower part, four of them disappeared here under­
neath the center structure. Later on I could see that center structure in
cross-section; the ignition was installed there, a complicated construc­
tion, didn't become clear to me for a long time. Now there, below the
 ignition, were enormous hooks, and underneath these was the driller.
They had some kind of induction—Fm telling you, it took me ages to
find my way! But finally I found out everything, everything!—And then
there was a dredge, my God, you could have cried for joy . . . we have
absolutely nothing even remotely comparable!—This drill, now, had .. .
well, it's hard to describe, I have to show you the blueprints; then you'll
see it clearly.
Teeth clenched; he jumps up.
Yes, my boy, wasn't it an enormous good fortune to be privileged to see all
that!? And how I let it sink in! All of Mars burned itself, as it were, into my
brain. And my brain was like a gigantic spider, embracing Mars, and
inserting his proboscis into it, a sharp pointed sting, and sucking out all
its secrets... all.
Sits down again.
Pause.
THE SON. And now you wish to . . .
THE FATHER, ecstatic.... and now, and now—I wish to
Shower happiness upon this earth! You hear! Fm holding
Treasures—Miracles of Mars! Riches of the stars! World happiness!
I hold omnipotence in my hand! I can stamp
This whole great earth into dust! When I stamp the ground,
It bursts asunder. The solid rocks rip apart
In dead center! In dead center! Ah—they are bursting even now!
Mountains turn and wander far afield.
Whither I command. The chasms fill
With rocks or flames or flowers.
Because I wish it so! Or with fields! And green!
I make the craters! I beat out depths,
Most dreadful depths—here! with this fist!
I call the oceans from the poles
And all the seas! the seas to me,
To make them full. .. Fertile! Fruitful! Fruitful!
We sinks back.
The SON puts the FATHER to bed on the sofa. He rests his hand on the
FATHER'S forehead.
The FATHER tries to raise himself again; twitches with the effort.
Silence.
THE FATHER. The p l a n ! . . . the p l a n ! . . . the plan!
THE SON. Now be quiet, Father, and don't talk about it any more.
THE FATHER. The plan . . . you have to see the plan!
Wards off the SON'S hand.
Let me go—it's all right.
Half raised up.
 It's all right.—You must see the plan.
He reaches into the pocket of his robe and pulls out the folded and volu-
minous blueprint He quickly unfolds it, putting it on the floor. The blue-
print measures approximately three-fourths of the length of the sofa in both
dimensions.
THE FATHER. Here it is! my work! my work! This is it!

Yes, great! proud! glorious! blissful! marvelous!

Mars filled all my brain when I created it!
Mars rolled and glowed red-hot, and whirled thoughts round,
And raised my arms electrically,
And guided them! They carved these lines,
The cosmos carved and all the stars came to my aid!
Omnipotence created this through me! So proud . . . so
THE SON, pacifying. Father.
O THE FATHER. Let me glorify! You shall not stop me! Glorify! Away and on!
O Look here and marvel: this line here
Undercuts the Himalayas! What this signifies is but this:
♦ Away with Himalaya! I push it
^ Out of my way! Here this yellow bedbug—
02
Sahara is its name—will soon be in full flight from me,
God only knows where to! And Himalaya, this tiny bug,
Shall likewise run from me!
I shall drown both in oceans deep, with these
Two arms, sore with cosmic strength and radiance!
They burn! you hear! they're sore! .. . Here these lines,
All these black lines, will soon gleam silver-white
With broad canals! They will bring lasting happiness to earth
Through power that is mine alone! And will be fruitful! fruitful!
Many white sails are sailing to and fro,
They are the white doves of my love. Forward, forward,
On and on! . . .
And harbors! ports and havens! they will stretch
Many miles, black and strong and sooty
With bellies swollen of all these blessings! Blessings!
Yes, blessings! Bread and marrow floating through air,
And derricks will link them. Oh, blessings! Broadly flung
Brother bridges will join shore to shore!
Fraternal, yes! A clanking and clattering in the air,
And seeds are blown dustlike through the sky
In giant clouds. In swelling clouds. Fragrant
Clouds! All miracles! All miracles!
He leans back.
Ah! I am weary from all that splendor! What splendor! Creating makes
one weary! I want to build myself a house by the side of the road, and lie
 peacefully and view my happiness. From my windows. Lying there, look­
ing, I want nothing else . . . And I want to die! I am cold. Please cover
me . . . I am so cold! My cover . . .
The SON takes a red cover from the foot of the sofa and spreads it over his
FATHER.
T H E FATHER. T h i s is good . . .
Hear m e . . . I want to die . . . Fve longed for this
All my d a y s . . . My work is done!
Creating has been beautiful! Create further,
My son!
You will do it! T h a n k you! You! Now give m e your hand!
Love m e well and help m e die. R e m e m b e r . . .
Give m e poison! Give poison to your poor father!
r i l thank you for it! You see, F m shedding tears!
Yes, you'll give m e poison and help m e leave this life, S
W h i c h tortures m e so m u c h . . . I want my bed . . . Sf
The SON helps the FATHER raise himself up. J2
T H E FATHER. . . . W e l l . . . well 4

You have no inkling how I am tormented! Believe your father! ♦

It torments, torments, and no one knows the true extent! §j
CV2
One is alone . . . and black with anguish is the world
And one is mute. And turns insane! You too will suffer it, one day!
Give me the poison! Poison me! Redeem your father!
The others too will be relieved when I am gone;
Then you will need no more attendants! . . . Well, to bed!
The SON leads the FATHER away.

For a short while the stage is empty. Lights are out

The SON re-enters through the door at upstage-left, having released the holt
outside. He pulls the curtain aside, and in the window frame the sickle of
the waxing moon appears. A star sparkles above it
THE YOUTH, seating himself at the foot of the settee. His posture: leaning back,
supporting himself on his stiffened arms.
Night—profound—night so blue—how marvelous. Redemption.
Silver moon.

Now drops the stony oppression of the day;

Cooled, I can lie down in nearness to you,
Conversing in heavenly dialogue, silvery miracle—you!
The left half of the back wall and the adjoining half of the left side wall
recede and the view opens onto the deep-blue night sky; stars. Mars glows
in striking redness.
Silhouetted against the sky, on the threshold of the room, these three
figures become visible: two WOMEN, deeply veiled, kneeling. Behind them,
 erect, likewise veiled, the FIGURE OF A MAN. All have long, flowing, loose
dark garments. The YOUTH raises himself, gazing.
THE FIGURE OF THE MAN speaks. In the day's
Anguished toil and need,
Under death's
Brightly tinted lead,
Borne on wan
Poverty's r e e d -
Have you not your task forgotten?
That ironclad command,
Anchored with chains above you in the skies?
This
To ever-new signs
Choosing you,
In every pulse beat
y Using you,
Q No martyr's woe
w
Refusing you,
J In blackest pit not
^ Losing you,
CM With fires of stars
Fusing you—
Have you forgotten it?
Brief silence.
THE FIGURE OF THE FIRST WOMAN Speaks.
Onto your narrow path
Your loving mother's star
Threw many a burnt-out rock
Freighted with pain and woe,
Many a sterile stone,
Many a dry dead bone.
Has such disturbing confusion,
Such humdrum intrusion
Never embittered
Your glance when you gazed on
Maternal radiance
In the deep blue of night?!
Brief silence.
THE FIGURE OF THE MAN speaks. With reddish glow
Insane-creative,
Your father's meteor
With restless wandering,
Encircling M a r s -
Did you understand
 In flaming eruptions
Of tormented craters
Him who begot you?
Brief silence.
THE FIGURE OF THE SECOND WOMAN Speaks.
When despair was very near you
The great omnipotent Will
Brought the girl's love to your path.
When sorrow bestrides you,
Enmity chides you,
All power fights you,
Your song even spites you—
Ever constant will her love receive you,
Her hands caressing will relieve you.
Your frozen features she will thaw
And spread out, blooming, into smiles—
Under the gentle nearness of her gaze,
In the ever-constant warmth of her embrace.
Oh, you, let the breath of her kiss,
Let her chaste embrace
Be a sacred symbol of mystic might:
Let the force of her attachment
Symbolize mystic motherhood.
THE YOUTH.
I hear your every word. You are the stars and the voices
Among which I always live. Your signs
Have been carved into me deeply, those signs
Will speak to me always. When you speak,
All becomes eternity and healing consolation .. .
CHORUS OF THE THREE.
Thundering constellations
Set us above you
As your physical stars;
Behold us, you that are body and person!
Other stars,
Many, will still rise for you,
Kindly stars,
Many, will still set for you in blood-red glow;
Hark to our voices, body and person!
Hearken, hark
To us, your physical eternity-
Feel us deeply,
Us, Mothers of
Your future immortalities!
 As they disappear, the walls close again. The voice of the MAN can still be
heard growing fainter in the distance: Your father implored you. Hearken.
Do well.
Lights go up gradually.
THE YOUTH rises.
My father asked his death from me. I sympathize
With his request. Yet this one question still arises:
Did he create a fruitful work? He must not die
If he can still create. Has perhaps his brain,
In its deluded state, given birth to
Deeply thought-out wonders?—
An expert must decide on this.
The sound of a door is heard from downstairs.
The YOUTH, startled, listens, then goes quickly to the door at upstage-left
and opens it. Quick steps are heard mounting the staircase. The door stays
O open. The GIRL enters. She shuts the door behind her. Stepping close to
0 him, she lays her hands on his shoulders. The YOUTH kisses her on the
w
forehead and both eyes.
♦ THE GIRL, after a pause. I'm very late, beloved. We were so busy in the office.
5$ We didn't get through till nine.
THE YOUTH. Is this job more exacting than the ones you had before?
THE GIRL. Yes, it is, but that doesn't matter. I am so happy I got it and that I
can now live in the same town with you. And one has to get adjusted, you
know. Four days isn't a long time.
THE YOUTH, leading her to the settee. Yes, we were lucky that my friend could
get you the job so fast.
THE GIRL. How fast it's all happened.
She is about to sit down.
Ah, you know, let us sit down the way we did last night.
Shall we? It was so wonderful.
THE YOUTH. This way—
He moves the chair in front of the right-hand post of the door frame in the
back, seats himself in the chair, while the GIRL settles on the floor, nestling
her head on his knees. She does not withdraw her hand. Behind both are
the night sky, moon, and stars.
THE GIRL, after a brief silence. Tonight you begin to tell, beloved, because I'll
have so much to tell you later.
THE YOUTH. Is it something bad, my love?
THE GIRL. Please, you start.
THE YOUTH. I don't have much to tell. I did some writing this morning and
took a walk at noon . . . My love, you have no idea how you've changed
me! Remember, that evening in Berlin, when my last way out was
blocked, and I no longer knew where I should turn, and yet was driven
 on by aspiration, driven on? No, I did not know then how I could go on to
live my life! Then you came forward and confined the surge of my
longing, and my inner drive no longer pushed me onward, but upward,
my love! I was driven into gyres still unknown to me, and Fm still being
driven in them, higher and higher. I wonder how it will continue . . .
Silence.
THE YOUTH, bending down and kissing the GIRL. And now, you tell me of
yourself! Have you finally had some news about your baby?
THE GIRL. Yes, this morning I received a letter. The baby is fine.
She smiles painfully.
And is getting rounder every day, they write.
THE YOUTH, kissing the tears away from the GIRL'S lashes.
He's probably well taken care of in the Home.
THE GIRL. Yes, very well.
o
Brief silence. §J
And now read this letter. OQ
Hands him a letter. g
THE YOUTH, unfolding it. Who sent it? ♦
THE GIRL. From my uncle, the master builder. ^
THE YOUTH, skimming through the lines: What does he suggest? . . . what? . . . a*
You are to give your child away?
THE GIRL nods painfully. He wants me to offer it up for adoption.
Silence.
THE YOUTH. I still don't understand it—you know—it's so dreadfully un­
natural, so alien to me .. .
THE GIRL. I too couldn't understand it atfirst!And I never wanted to give my
child away. Never! But then reason began to speak up, and I had to agree
with my uncle: What am I, with my tiny salary, able to offer to the child,
and how he would be benefited by being brought up in a decent family.
THE YOUTH. But suppose he comes to people who can't offer the child
anything but their decency, who are not rich but with their prejudiced
views and miseducation will spoil the child's youth .. .
THE GIRL. At least he will have a respectable name! That's necessary for his
future! . . . And my uncle would inform himself very carefully before
about the family.
THE YOUTH. What are we talking about! We are talking as if a human destiny
could be predetermined and constructed with a little common sense.
And yet we know nothing of the possibilities which might perhaps lead
the child to his happiness if he remains with you, and perhaps to his
misery if you give him away. What do we know!
THE GIRL. Yes, everything is so difficult...
THE YOUTH. What will you decide, darling . . . ?
THE GIRL. I have already decided. One thing alone determined my decision.
 Softer. Lowering her voice.
If I give the child away, nothing will tie m e any more . . . and I can love
you exclusively . . . and I can serve you with my undivided self.. .
Profound silence.
THE YOUTH. My girl . . . mine . . . it is so strange . . . so m u c h . . . it is so
good . . . incomprehensibly good.
He stirs on his seat, rises, bends over backward, staring up toward the sky.
O miracle! This miracle! It rushes toward m e . . . it b e n d s . . .
M e into the Heavens . . . into the beyond . . . bends m e . . . rushes—
0 girl! O love! You are so good—so good
And wholly . . .
He bends down and passionately kisses the crown of her head, then sits
down again on the chair, leaning forward on her, pondering.
Yet there is something warning me—
1 a m afraid. I fear your matricide.
o Raising his head and trunk high, erect.
O . . . And that the screams of strangled motherhood
^ Will fill you and encircle your heart,
♦ Lay waste your being and shriek above the wasteland!
°j! Desist! Desist! Love your child and m e !
02
And do not kill!
THE GIRL. I bear you too m u c h love!
THE YOUTH.
Dearest, your sacrifice intoxicates my inmost depths!
Your goodness dazzles m e and gives a taste of Heaven!
For years I have been longing for such love!
It is u n n a m e a b l e ! It is unthinkable! It remains desire only and good!
D o n ' t do it! Don't! T h o u g h I do want you to so m u c h ! D o n ' t do it!
C o n c e r n advises well! . . .
THE GIRL. . . . Fear is past and gone . . .
THE YOUTH. It is too m u c h . Too quick. We have to w a i t . . .
Silence.
Until your uncle informs you of something definite, m u c h time may
pass, and we can meanwhile think it over many times. Try to understand
m e the right way, my darling girl!
The GIRL tenses her body and gazes steadily up at the YOUTH. The moon
has almost set; only the tip of the sickle peeks up in silvery gleam; more
stars have appeared.
THE GIRL speaks.
I cannot understand you,
I cannot well reflect,
I only can implore you,
And give to you—
All my heart
 Desires to be near you
And wants merely to give you. To give to you itself.
THE YOUTH, uttering the first verses bent down over the GIRL, the last ones
erect, while gazing to the sky.
The depths of Heaven
Shall surround us,
The beauty of stars
Shall be within us—
What do I care about understanding,
What do I care about comprehending—
Omnipotent power
Will lead me to my goal.
THE GIRL. All my heart
Shall always be with you;
I want your songs
Kept in my heart—
You can only give me, you can only bless me—
What can I give you, how fructify you—?
Faithful I shall be to you,
Faithfully depart with you into the heavenly beyond.
Curtain.

ACT III
Scene: Left, a garden. A partial view of a terrace jutting out from the middle of
the wall for a quarter of the stage. The terrace consists of stone and has stone
balustrades. On the far left, an ivy-grown segment of wall connects it with the
ground, otherwise it is freestanding, elevated. In front of the terrace and past it
leads a path into the garden; another path from right-front joins it A young
birch tree opposite the terrace; in front of it a backless bench. Upstage: a lawn
divided by the path curving to the left. A hedge shuts the garden off. Blue
spring sky. Morning.

The MOTHER, seated on the bench under the birch tree, her hands in her lap,
her eyes closed. Silence. After a while the SON approaches from the left.
THE SON. Good morning, Mother.
THE MOTHER. IS Father back again?
THE SON. No, not yet.
THE MOTHER. I sat down in the sun here, it's so nice—spring has come. The
sun feels so warm on me. And on my hands.
THE SON. The sun will do you good. You look tired. I guess you haven't slept
since then?
THE MOTHER. Why do you remind me of that again . . . I want to rest quietly
here and think of nothing, and you are bringing it up again.
 THE SON. You are very right. Let's not talk about it any more.
THE MOTHER. No, not any more . .. You were about to tell me how he stood
in front of the fire and threw the old blueprints in, singing and dancing
all the while? It's true, isn't it?
THE SON. Let's not talk about it any more.
THE MOTHER. No, tell me; it did happen . . . And he ran around, horrible,
with his head burning, and screaming so dreadfully? Did it really hap­
pen? Or is it all unreal?
THE SON. Mommy, rather enjoy the birch tree and spring all around you!
THE MOTHER. Yes, here is our lovely birch—I'm so afraid.
THE SON. Tell me: Of what are you afraid?
THE MOTHER, anxiously frowning. Tell me: All this has never happened, I
have only dreamed it. I know for sure I dreamed about something. But
many things did happen.
O THE SON. Whatever happened, dearest, is past now, and what you dreamed of
Q is also past. Don't think of either any more.
w
THE MOTHER. Do you see how I'm withering away . . .
♦ THE SON. Dear Mother! Spring will make you young.
*o THE MOTHER. Yes, you're a darling! Well, soon it will be cool around me;
soon I'll be allowed to lie in the earth. I ask God every day to take me
away to Him. Then all will be well.
THE SON, kissing her forehead. Soon all will be well; you'll see, Mother!
THE MOTHER. Yes, you're a darling! But my fear won't leave me, and neither
will my dream. And real life exists and stays. Oh, it's consuming me, but
never mind!
THE SON. YOU know that Susanne will come to dinner today?
THE MOTHER. What a darling you are—you've still kept your kind heart! Yes,
now I have to go in and see to the meal. Hedi isn't back yet, is she?
THE SON, helping her rise. I don't think so.
THE MOTHER. Ah. My knees are shaking again. Well! Thank you, thank you
so much.
Exits right.
THE SON, leaning on the birch tree; after a silence.
My friend has sent me now the poison. Ripe is
The moment too. The time is overripe!
My mother's infirm age accelerates its course downward toward the
grave;
And they have deemed my father's work—mad.
He ponders, plucking a birch twig, absorbed in thought.
Quickly the deed arose in me. It almost
Blotted out the torment of its genesis.
My beloved, too, laid her smile lovingly upon the wound,
 Yet under golden bridges, it bleeds on and on: this wound . . .
And if I delve far down, the root of this deed also
Shoots forth from out this bloody stream. Do not deceive yourself!
Your torment was its soil!
Father, Mother, Sister offered themselves up
To it as pillars. Am I then a soul towering
Strangely up above a single will—? For me this is
A symbol of spring which has become a need,
And rising sun and first sight of blue.
The GIRL and the SISTER enter from upstage-left. Hearing their steps, the
SON turns around.
THE SON. Good morning, you two!
THE TWO. Good morning!
THE SISTER. We met at the garden gate. t
o
THE GIRL. How wonderful this birch tree looks! 88
THE SON. Spring is everywhere. *
The SISTER throws a meaningful glance at the BROTHER. S
Silence. ♦
THE SISTER to the BROTHER. Could you still sleep last night after that? _
w
THE BROTHER. No, nor you either?
THE SISTER. No, no. All nights recently have been disturbed.
THE BROTHER. You look so pale. You too, Susanne.
THE SISTER. It comes without one's realizing it. Is Father back again?
THE BROTHER. Not yet, I think.
THE SISTER. Has Mother asked for me?
THE BROTHER. Yes, she is in the kitchen now.
THE SISTER. I'll go to her.
THE GIRL. Just look at the birch tree in the breeze! Like blond hair. How
beautiful it looks.
While the SISTER exits to the right, she gazes up at the birch tree.
THE YOUTH kisses the GIRL on her forehead and takes her hands in his. Good
morning, my love, did you sleep badly?
THE GIRL. N O , I had a good sleep, sound and deep . . .
THE YOUTH. But you look pale and youVe grown thin.
THE GIRL. I feel well, my love.
THE YOUTH kisses her hair, sits down on the bench and draws the GIRL down
next to him. I well know how you suffer.
Silence.
THE GIRL. Let it be spring!
THE YOUTH. Let spring enter into you!
THE GIRL. What can I do for it? It just comes over one; you understand .. . ?
 THE YOUTH, kissing her forehead. This is different.
THE GIRL. No! ...
Silence.
THE GIRL. I wonder... I have nursed renunciation in me and now I love i t . . .
I love myself in it. .. my better self. .. I wonder.
THE SISTER rushes in from the right and seizes the BROTHER'S arm. Father is
home! And he wants to come here.
THE BROTHER rises. He wants to come into the garden?
THE SISTER. Yes, he is coming with the attendant.
THE YOUTH. Then you two go! I wish to be alone with Father.
THE SISTER. Here he is already.
Leaves upstage with the GIRL, and they exit left.
The FATHER enters from the right, the ATTENDANT behind him. The FATHER
carries a large folio full of drawings under his arm; the ATTENDANT carries
UJ the drafting instruments—compass box, rulers, etc. The FATHER wears a
* green spring suit; the suit is too big and hangs on him. The top buttons of
<A his vest are open. His cravat has slipped over the very low coat collar.
1 THE SON. Good morning, Father.
<g THE FATHER. You here! But you must go away—I want to work here. In such
02
weather one has to work in the garden . . . Yes, what weather . . . !
He leans the folio against the birch tree. To the ATTENDANT.
Just put these things on the bench there.
The ATTENDANT obeys.
THE SON to the ATTENDANT. Please, ask Madam to give you the cellar keys,
and fetch us a bottle of wine and two glasses.
The ATTENDANT nods, exits right.
THE FATHER. Wine? So early in the morning? You're a fine fellow!
THE SON. Well, we want to drink a toast to your work.
THE FATHER. All right, we might as well drink a toast first.
He has meanwhile opened the folio and lifted out a drawing (on thin
cardboard). Now he is about to nail it to the birch tree with a hammer and
nail which the ATTENDANT had previously brought.
THE SON. What are you trying to do?
THE FATHER. None of your business, my boy.
Hammers the nail in.
I'm going to nail my blueprints up here, one next to the other—darn, I
missed it—I'm going to nail my blueprints up here, one next to the
other—and I want them—I want them all next to each other in a row.
Because—ah, this is the first out of the way—
Takes another drawing from the folio.
Now the second above it. ..
Climbs onto the bench and nails the second drawing above the first.
You remember—we don't have such a large table . . . at home. And this is
 important—it is important for the view of the whole; one can see better.
Ah. Now well get the bottom one .. .
Takes a third sheet and nails it beneath the first, bending while doing so.
How do you like my idea—this damn nail; don't we have some pliers
here . . . ?
THE SON hands them to him. There.
THE FATHER. Thank you . . . Now we can really drink a toast... Fve earned it,
now, really. Didn't shut an eye these past few nights. . . here, one more
nail—well, Fve made progress. Fine—now one more in the c e n t e r -
convenient, isn't it? . .. Fine.
The birch tree is now covered with three large pieces of cardboard; the
strangest crosswork of lines is fantastically drawn on these, curves and
loops, the weirdest ornaments, but having a most powerful, rhythmic qual-
ity. The drawings are all in India ink.
THE FATHER, looking at the birch. It looks fine, splendid, doesn't it? &
The ATTENDANT enters from the right with wine and glasses. gj
THE SON. Here is the wine. Thank you. You may go, I'll stay with Father. -c
ATTENDANT exits to the right. #
THE FATHER, laying out his instruments on the bench. All right, let's drink the *
toast now! And then to work! There isn't so much left to do—perhaps I'll ^
even get finished today. Ah, that would be something!
The SON is filling the two glasses that stand on the bench.
Yes, we'll have our toast right now! Just let me unpack first. Oh! I've run
out of red India ink. Hmm—the maid must get me some immediately.
THE SON. It's Sunday, the stores are closed.
THE FATHER. That's right, it's Sunday—uh, how maddening. What am I to do
now! I need red India ink desperately.
Pointing to the blueprint.
There . .. down here, all this will be filled in with red India ink.
THE SON. Can't you finish another area?
THE FATHER. Well, that would be possible.
Pointing again.
Here, for example—here I'd only need black and green. But that's soon
done, and without the red I can't finish today . . .
THE SON. So you'll finish tomorrow.
THE FATHER. Ah, tomorrow! tomorrow! Who knows what will be tomorrow. I
might be dead by then. Ha-ha . . . yes, really. What am I to do . . . It's
maddening.
Softly whistling in frustration, his head bent, his hands in his pockets, he
walks past the bench, turns to the right, and proceeds a short distance
upstage. In doing so, he catches sight of a fledgling bird on the ground,
which must have dropped out of a nest.
THE FATHER. Ah, look, what is this down here?
 Bends down.
A little birdie, sure enough! Now, look at that!
Picks it up.
Such a thing! How did it get down here! It probably fell out of a nest.
Why are you chirping so pathetically? Are you hungry? . . . Ha-ha-ha, so
am I!
Very brief pause. The FATHER is staring incessantly at the bird, then squeez-
ing its body.
Does this hurt?! does this hurt?! Ha-ha-ha . . . what do you think . ..
During this, the FATHER turns his back to the SON. The SON fills both glasses,
quickly pulls a paper out of his breast pocket, and pours the poison into one of
the glasses. Then he searches for something to stir the liquid with, rapidly
breaks a green twig off the birch and uses it to stir with.
The FATHER turns around now, the SON drops the twig.
THE FATHER, holding the fledgling. Ha, I've got an idea! Magnificent, really!
^ Do you know how Til get my red India ink? Do you know? Well, see if
£ anybody else can match this! Watch!
<* Very rapidly he takes one of the compasses and drives one of the points deep
t into the flesh of the bird.
^ There . ..
02 The SON automatically seizes the FATHER'S arm and tries to stop him.
THE FATHER. There, there, that's the way to do it. And now the drawing pen.
Takes a drawing pen and dips it into the bird.
There . . . go ahead and chirp now!
THE SON makes a motion to take the little bird. Leave it alone, Father!
THE FATHER. What?! What?! What do you want?! Watch out, watch out, I'm
warning you! What, I'm not to have my red India ink? Watch out! Don't
be presumptuous, my boy! I won't have that, once and for all!!
THE SON, pacifying. Don't get excited . . .
THE FATHER, nearly screaming. I need this red India ink, do you understand I
must have it! I have got to have it! Who cares about a bird? Who? I must
have my red ink. I'd stab a human being, I'm telling you. I must have it!
THE SON. YOU are quite right, Father. I didn't think far enough. What does
such a fledgling bird amount to? And you need your red ink .. .
THE FATHER. NOW you are sensible. That's good . . . Well, I've taught you a
lesson . .. sure . . .
Working.
You see how easily it's going, ha-ha . .. it's going magnificently!
THE SON. Shouldn't we have our toast first?
THE FATHER. Toast, y e s . . . we really must have it. We must drink to my clever
idea.
The SON has quickly taken his glass; the FATHER raises the poisoned drink.
Suddenly the MOTHER enters from the right. When the FATHER sees her, he
puts down his glass without having drunk.
THE FATHER. Look who is here? Our Mommy!
Advances toward her and leads her on.
Come along, little mommy, you too shall have a toast with us. Oh, I must
show you something-
He picks up the dead bird and shows it to the MOTHER.
Here, look, that's the way to get red India ink when youVe run out of it
and the stores are closed. How do you like t h a t . . . ? Ha-ha!... Well, don't
get so scared about this. Is a dead bird such a horrible thing? No, don't be
scared, I won't harm you.
Throws the bird away.
Well . . . satisfied now? What? . . . And now let's have our toast. Fetch
another glass, my boy, for our Mommy.
The SON quickly exits to right. During the subsequent scene, the SISTER
and the GIRL appear upstage from left, picking flowers.
THE FATHER. My God, you're still looking at me so frightened. Really, I won't
do anything to hurt you. And you look so pale—ah, really sick with worry.
And deep shadows under your e y e s . . .
<8
a>
The MOTHER tries to smile. *-
No, not this kind of smile; it is worse than tears. I know, I know: It's all my t
fault, your pallor and the circles under your eyes, and your wrinkles here &
and here . . . OJ
The M O T H E R shakes her head.
Yes! D o n ' t shake your head! It's been caused by the nights you have cried
for m e . I know it! I know you, after all!
T H E MOTHER smiles quite painfully, tears welling up in her eyes.
Don't cry! Don't cry!—All will turn out well now. I am healthy, you see,
and I can work again! The future lies before us blue and beautiful like this
day, doesn't it, Mommy? No, don't grieve any more! Don't make yourself
sick! . . . Mommy, you must stay well for me, what would I be without
you . . . ! Who has cared for me all this time so beautifully and fondly—? It
was you. You've always been loving. When I was nasty, you forgave me
right away. You have made a happy home for me and borne my children.
Tears glittering in his eyes.
THE MOTHER. My only one, what would my life be without you? You have
always been my staff; I am so fragile and feeble and I need support. You
have always been that. You made me a mother, you made me happy . . . I
can't exist without you . . .
THE FATHER, nodding slowly. The future will be bright! I swear to you. My
illness only cemented our love! You see, that was the good it worked.
He raises a glass and, gazing at the MOTHER with a very solemn expression,
drinks half. Now the MOTHER takes the other glass, nods smiling, and also
drinks, GIRL and SISTER continue to pick flowers upstage as before.
THE FATHER. Oh, that's good . . .
THE MOTHER. You like the wine?
 THE FATHER. Why shouldn't I like it? How well it warms! Ah! Spring is
here . . . !
He puts his arm around the MOTHER.
Ah, my dear sweet little wife! Can you guess what I am thinking now?
He begins whisperingly, then ever more loudly and intensely. Intonation
like a child's.
Once again I want to see you
In your bridal gown,
All wrapped in silk,
And stand before you, waiting.
Once more the night lamp
Shall glow in crimson hues of fairyland,
And all your splendor bring
Happy tears to my e y e s -
Then, shy and trembling,
You will let fall the silk,
o
* And humbly I shall lift your veil,
</> Absorbed in thoughts of joy to come .. .
♦ Then you will hold your hands
^ To hide your nakedness,
oj My power you will swell
To mighty size!
Then . . . all around u s . . .
Many stars will blink . . .
Soon it will be, this bliss-
Come! Let us drink!
He takes the glass from which the MOTHER has drunk before and empties it.
The MOTHER takes the other glass, but it drops from her trembling hands
and crashes to the ground.
THE FATHER. Well, Mommy, what do you think you're doing . . .
The SON enters from right carrying a third wineglass.
THE SON in front of his parents, his face turned upstage. You both have drunk?
THE FATHER. Yes, we'd already drunk one toast before. Now you must drink
your own toast by yourself, my boy, that can't be helped . ..
THE SON. Here are broken pieces—?
THE FATHER. Mother dropped her glass. Maybe this might mean good luck,
after all. Right, Mommy?
THE SON. SO you didn't drink . . .
THE MOTHER. Oh yes, yes! I did drink all right, but when I tried the second
time I dropped the glass.
THE SON, unwittingly eased. Ah—
THE FATHER. But don't stand around there now with your empty glass. Drink!
Takes the bottle.
 Come, let me pour it for you!
Pours into the SON'S glass.
And now say a toast to our health, my boy!
The SON drinks, posture unchanged.
THE FATHER. Well, well, don't you throw your glass down too! Your hands are
shaking pretty badly. Well, that's what you get from running so fast.
The SON places the empty glass upon the bench.
THE MOTHER. I am tired, my limbs feel so heavy. I'll go rest a little before
dinner.
Looks at her watch.
I still have some time.
The FATHER has meanwhile turned to his work again, and readies the
instruments.
THE SON. Your limbs are heavy . . . ?
o
THE MOTHER. Like lead. R e m e m b e r . . . §j
Softly. eg
T h e night— g
THE FATHER. Yes, M o m m y , go, go and rest! But have dinner ready on time. ♦
THE MOTHER. Yes, for half past o n e .
She exits to the left. Soon afterward she appears on the terrace, a collaps- CQ
ible armchair under her arm. She sets it up.
THE SON makes a half-turn, takes a few steps forward and up to his mother. Are
you feeling very i l l . . . ?
THE MOTHER. I'm only tired. Merely tired . . . First, I must have a good long
rest again and sleep, you know . . .
She leans back in the chair, closing her eyes.
Just for a little while!
Silence.
T H E SON watches the FATHER working busily; then he looks down at the pieces
of broken glass and gently touches them with the tip of his foot. Wipes his
forehead with his right hand. How is this to be understood—?
THE FATHER has wiped his forehead twice with his hand, now puts the instru-
ments aside. That's that. Now all that's left is a n insignificant little corner,
and then it'll be finished.
Steps in front of the bench, stands arms akimbo, gazing at the blueprints.
Here it's hanging now—my great p r o j e c t . . . yes, here it is, my work.
His eyes are gradually getting misty. He works himself up gradually into an
ever-intensifying state of rapture.
Yet, it is finished . . . at l a s t . . . Just look at it, my b o y . . . look at it! Ah, now
there is a moment's peace in m e . . . But it won't last long . . . I know
myself... Soon I'll have to go on . . . begin with another s t a r . . . I know it.
T h e r e is n o peace in this life . . . work! always work . . . when one star is
done, it's the next one's turn . . . U h - h u h . . . just look at it, my boy, it's
 finished. And you are to give it life, do you hear? I'm entrusting it to
you . . . With haste I want to help you too . . . You shall have it easy... like
t h i s . . . yes, like this!... My hands over my brain . . . and I reach into my
brain .. . you see . . . deep . . . and now, here . ..
He takes his hands from his own head and lays them on his SON'S.
Fm pouring it into you . . . I'm leaving it to you . . . pressing it into you . . .
pressing it—does it hurt?
He presses more violently.
Does it hurt? . . . It must hurt, ha-ha-ha . . . Ah.
Drops his hands breathlessly.
Now Fve become your father for a second time and you my son. Isn't it
so? Haven't I pressed my work into your brain?! Ha-ha-ha, that's the way
it is. Now you are to complete it. .. and carry it further! . . . carry further
this work! Do you hear? What do you have your mother for, if not for
that? That's the way it i s . . . that's the way it i s . . . Why did I marry... I did
£ not marry . . . ha! My work had sucked forth new blood . . . My work
ac wished you to continue it. . . ha-ha, it's the same with marriage! Shame
v) on you, if you don't create . . . Produce! produce! I am your father and
♦ keep my eye on you . . . Don't think you can do what you please! . . . I
QQ command you . . . you shall develop my work still further . . . I'm laying
02 this on you as your duty . . . I am your father and may command you . ..
You must obey me . . . And here you have my kisses too . ..
Kissing his head impetuously.
I love you . . . You are my son . . . and have to do what I wish . . . I love
you . . . and you m u s t . . . Kisses! Kisses! ah .. .
He falls back, the SON holds him, he sinks onto the bench, drops his head to
the side and leans it upon the birch, on one of the blueprints.
He is dead.
The SISTER and the GIRL approach together down center-stage. Each car-
ries a bunch of loose violets.
THE SISTER hands her flowers to the BROTHER. Take this for Father! . . . Is he
asleep?
THE GIRL hands her flowers. Take this for Mother.
Both exit together to the right.
The SON puts one bunch beside the FATHER on the bench where the two
wineglasses rest and the FATHER'S instruments are scattered about. He
keeps the second bouquet in his hand. Suddenly he drops to his knees and
presses his head impetuously into his FATHER'S lap. Silence. He rises and
exits left.
Stage empty for a short time.
Then the SON appears on the terrace where the MOTHER is resting; he walks
on tiptoe, peering at her to see if she is asleep.
THE MOTHER. YOU can come nearer, I'm not asleep.
THE SON steps up to her. But weren't you about to fall asleep?
THE MOTHER. Yes, Fm very tired .. . Oh, look, these beautiful violets! . . . are
they from the garden?
THE SON. Yes. Susanne sends them to you. And Hedi picked some for Father.
THE MOTHER, accepting the flowers and burying her face in them. Ah, this
makes me happy! He was so sweet to me just before, it was like a shaft of
joy into my heart. And he spoke so confidently about his health that I
myself began to believe at last that he would get well again someday. Oh,
perhaps he really will!
The SON kneels down by the MOTHER'S side and takes her hand.
Ah, y e s . . . take my hand, that is good. Yes. .. firmly . . . like t h i s . . .
THE SON. Are you feeling very ill?
THE MOTHER. Just tired—and so strange—so unlike myself—so very strange I
feel—my hands and my body and all—so unlike myself; I hope I won't get
sick— u
o
THE SON. Does your head ache? S3
THE MOTHER. No. All this results from these last few years—all these upsets, *
you know—and this constant anxiety—and then also this worry about »S
you—and last night—oh, for a long time already I have been wishing ♦
myself in the grave.
THE SON, his hand on her brow. Dear Mother, you mustn't feel this way, you w
know—if one wishes for death all the time, death will come at last. ..
THE MOTHER, smiling. If Father gets well, I don't want to die—I want to be
where he is—that's what I would like—
Silence.
THE MOTHER.
He spoke so fondly. It entered deep into my soul.
He spoke so sweetly of our second wedding feast.
It was to come soon now, for he was well.
I should then step in front of him in my bridal silk again,
Just as it had been long ago, he would kneel down before me . . .
Oh...
Perhaps it will be so. Perhaps I shall be his bride once more,
After so many tribulations he shall be mine once more.
That would be heaven. Even more beautiful than it was.
I know life now and its share of grief,
And he knows illness and imprisonment.
This then will be like resurrection from our anguished woes—
Not merely youthful pleasure, but marvelous through knowledge.
We shall be happier in a better way than we had been. All will be joy
sublime . ..
Oh then .. . how gladly would my breasts then nurse his child
again!
Her head falls back.
 T H E SON, kneeling and without looking up to her.
Loved one, sacred is the sleep slept at your breasts.
M a n y things I hear stream past. T h a t is your way, mothers.
He looks up.
Silence.
O Mother, how beautiful has b e e n your death . ..
Silence.
Mother, your death belonged to you.

The stage darkens. The SON'S voice is heard sonorously from the darkness.
You lived beyond, lonely, o n t h e height,
And knew of nothing . ..
T h e abyss gaped a n d darkness shrouded us,
You failed to see m e . ..
But every longing which arose in m e a n d grew,
You knew i t . ..
13
And every tear that rose in m e a n d flowed,
</> You saw it
♦ Invisibly one bond did bind us:
♦ It held a n d throbbed . . .
0
c§ A touching song without a word:
T w a s sung and sung . . .
Oft from your somber rock your grieving blood
Dripped down o n m e ,
W i t h gesture and with smile I often spilled
Maternal blood . . .
Yet from darkest woe it still conveyed
To m e its furtive gleam of love.
Now it ascends, becomes a star,
Radiant and sublime.

Curtain.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Only the first three acts of this play, which constitute about four-fifths of
the total length, are given here. The last two acts have been omitted because their inclusion would
have made this selection excessively long, and also because the substance of the play is contained in
the first three acts. No real development takes place in the remainder, which consists mostly of the
Poet's monologues. He takes a job with a newspaper, then quickly decides to give it up, rejects his
friend's request to change a passage in his play, and accepts the Girl's offer to give her first child away
after she tells him she is carrying his child. There is no real end, but a hymnic invocation of the vistas
of existence beckoning to them.
n-^—, ^ T g van Goll, poet, playwright, novelist, translator, and theoreti-
«^* ^f cian, was born on March 29, 1891, in St. Die, Alsace. After
O^^ ^J completing his doctorate at the University of Strasbourg, and
in order to avoid being drafted for World War I, he moved to Switzer-
W F * land, where he befriended members of the emerging Dada movement.
From 1919 to 1939, he and his wife, Claire, also a poet, lived in Paris. In 1924,
Goll founded Surrealisme, one of the first Surrealist publications. His plays are
distinguished by their rejection of realism and extensive use of cinematic devices
and have been categorized as Expressionist and Surrealist as well as Dadaist.
They include The Immortals (1918), the preface to which follows; his cinematic
tribute to Chaplin, Die Chaplinade (1920); and Methusalem, oder Der ewige Burger
(Methuselah, or The Eternal Bourgeois, 1922), the latter produced in collaboration
with the painter Georg Grosz. Goll died on February 27, 1950, in Paris, of
leukemia.
 T w o Superdramas

Yvan Goll

A difficult struggle has commenced for the new drama, the superdrama. The
first drama was that of the Greeks, in which gods contested with men. A great
thing it was that the gods then deemed men worthy of such a contest, some­
thing that has not since occurred. Drama meant enormous magnification of
reality, a most profound, most enigmatic Pythian immersion in measureless
passion, in corroding grief, and all of that colored in surreal tints.
Later followed the drama of man for man's sake. Inner conflict, psychol­
ogy, problems, reason. A single reality and a single realm are to be reckoned
with and, consequently, all measures are limited. All is concerned with a
particular man, not the man. The life of the community is sorely neglected:
no modern mass scene attains the power of the ancient chorus. The vast
extent of the gap can be seen in the ill-begotten plays of the past century,
which aimed at nothing more than being interesting, forensically pleading,
or simply descriptive, imitative of life, noncreative.
Now the new dramatist feels that the final struggle is imminent: man's
struggle with all that is thinglike and beastlike around him and within him.
He has penetrated into the realm of shadows, which cling to everything and
lurk behind all reality. Only after their conquest will liberation be possible.
The poet must learn again that there exist worlds quite different from the
world of the five senses—worlds comprising the Superworld. He must meet
this new situation head-on. This will by no means be a relapse into mysti­
cism or romanticism, or into the clowning of vaudeville, although all these
have one thing in common—the extrasensory.

Preface to The Immortals, 1918. Trans. Walter H. Sokel. Reprinted from An Anthology of
German Expressionist Drama: A Prelude to the Absurd, ed. Walter H. Sokel (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1963), 9-11.
 The first task will have to be the destruction of all external form—reason­
able attitudes, conventionality, morality, all the formalities of life. Man and
things will be shown as naked as possible, and always through a magnifying
glass for better effect.
We have forgotten entirely that the stage is nothing but a magnifying
glass. Great drama had always known this. The Greeks strode in buskins,
Shakespeare discoursed with the spirits of dead giants. We have forgotten
entirely that the primary symbol of the theater is the mask. The mask is rigid,
unique, and impressive. It is unchangeable, inescapable; it is Fate. Every
man wears his mask, wears what the ancients called his guilt. Children are
afraid of it and cry. Man, complacent and sober, should learn to cry again;
the stage serves that purpose. And do not the greatest works of art, a Negro
god or an Egyptian king, often appear to us as masks?
In the mask lies a law, and this is the law of drama. Nonreality becomes
fact. For a moment, proof is given that the most banal can be mysterious and
"divine," and that herein lies Sublime Truth. Truth is not contained in
reason. It is found by the poet, not the philosopher. Life, not the intellectual
abstract, is truth. Furthermore, we discover that every event, the most heart-
shaking as well as the most trivial, is of eminent significance to the total life
of this world. The stage must not limit itself to "real" life; it becomes "super-
real" when it knows about things behind things. Pure realism was the worst
error of all literature.
It is not the object of art to make life comfortable for the fat bourgeois so
that he may nod his head: "Yes, yes, that's the way it is! And now let's go for a
bite!" Art, insofar as it seeks to educate, to improve men, or to be in any way
effective, must slay workaday man; it must frighten him as the mask frightens
the child, as Euripides frightened the Athenians who staggered from the
theater. Art exists to change man back into the child he was. The simplest
means to accomplish this is by the use of the grotesque—a grotesque that
does not cause laughter. The dullness and stupidity of men are so enormous
that only enormities can counteract them. Let the new drama be enormous.
Therefore the new drama must have recourse to all technological props
which are contemporary equivalents of the ancient mask. Such props are, for
instance, the phonograph, which masks the voice, the denatured masks and
other accoutrements which proclaim the character in a crudely typifying
manner: oversized ears, white eyes, stilts. These physiological exaggerations,
which we, shapers of the new drama, do not consider exaggerations, have
their equivalents in the inner hyperboles of the plot: Let the situation stand
on its head; that a sentence be more effective, let it be produced as when one
stares steadily at a chess board until the black squares appear white and the
white squares black: when we approach the truth, concepts overlap.
We want theater. We seek the most fantastic truth. We search for the
Superdrama.
 cl
$
(/I

cd
Dada

t ristan Tzara (1896-1963), poet, playwright, editor, and theorist,

was born in Romania and moved to Zurich, Switzerland, at the
beginning of World War I. Tzara was one of the founders and the
chief theorist of Dada, which originated in 1916 at the Cabaret Voltaire
in Zurich and spread to several major European cities, including Berlin
and Cologne. From 1917 to 1920, Tzara wrote seven manifestos ex­
pressing the central tenets of Dada in his typically angry, mischievous,
and nonsensical writing style. In the 1918 Dada Manifesto, his best-
known theoretical text, Tzara affirms the famous declaration that
brought Dada to the notice of Andre Breton and his friends in Paris:
"Art is a private affair, the artist produces it for himself; an intelligible work is
the product of a journalist." Logic, meanwhile, is "a complication" and "always
wrong," drawing words and notions "toward illusory ends and centers."
Dada has been called "anti-art," as it seeks to destroy the staid conventions
of traditional art with its spontaneity and freedom from all logical constraints.
Unlike the Futurists, from whom the Dadaists appropriated several aesthetic
principles for the creation of drama, such as the use of simultaneous action and
of an antagonistic relationship to the audience, the Dadaists were pacifists; Dada
began as a reaction to what its members perceived as the madness of World
War I. In the face of such insane destruction, the logic of mainstream art forms
was futile. In 1920, Tzara moved to Paris, where his First Celestial Adventure of Mr.
Antipyrine was produced at the Theatre de TOeuvre, with sets designed by
Francis Picabia. In 1923, the production of Tzara's Gas Heart at the Theatre
Michel provoked fights between its supporters and detractors; but by 1924 the
introduction of Surrealism by Andre Breton, who had broken with Dada two
years earlier, signaled the death of Dada as an influential avant-garde movement.
Anarchy and Resistance in Tristan Tzara's Gas Heart

I.
To state here that Tristan Tzara's Gas Heart (Le coeur a gaz) is itself a form of
anarchy against art,1 and specifically the theater, would be simply restatement.
Tzara, a Romanian poet, found his artistic home in Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire.
Along with two co-Dadaists, Tzara unquestionably suggested the perfect form of
inaugural entertainment for the cabaret's opening debut in early 1916. Richard
Huelsenbeck, Marcel Janco, and Tzara all read poems from their collections;
there was a catch though, the effect of which aptly illuminates the spirit of Dada.
All three poets read simultaneously, each poet's words, inflections, and rhythms
competing with the others to create purely artistic babble.2 In this "experi­
ment," anarchy and art fused to annihilate "the language by which the war was
justified."3
A clue to understanding Tzara's Dada stage, and surely Dada's final demise,
comes from an Expressionist/Dada performance of a play by Oskar Kokoschka
titled Sphinx und Strohmann (Sphinx and Strawman). On its opening night, actors
performed the play to the mistimed special effects of thunder and lightning
controlled offstage by none other than Tzara himself. His control of these effects
was met with skepticism by fellow performers, as well as viewers and critics, yet
Tzara maintained that these dissonant backgrounds were "intended by the direc­
tor."4 Kokoschka, however, was also baffled by Tzara's handling of the controls
and claimed to have had nothing of the sort in mind. This is a fabulous example of
the natural contentions between staging an art form (theater) which so "neces­
sarily relies on constructive cooperation,"5 and Dada, which constantly solicited
a derailing of expectations—even those assumed relationships behind the cur­
tain. With anarchy pervading the communication and understanding between
playwright and performance, it is no wonder that Dada's link to the theater came
so quickly to an end.

2.
In Tzara's Gas Heart, there are a number of corroborating elements which
may be identified as anarchic. There is little stage direction to The Gas Heart
Occasionally, the character called Mouth must exit and re-enter; at one point,
Eye has to fall to the stage and walk on all fours, but little more. The play begins
with a few modest instructions: Neck must "[stand] downstage" with Nose
opposite [facing] the audience; the other characters can enter and "exit as they
please" unless otherwise indicated in the text; the Gas Heart, a character with
no lines to speak at all, walks the stage with aimless surrender.

Excerpted from Robert A. Varisco, "Anarchy and Resistance in Tristan Tzara's The Gas Heart,"
Modern Drama 40. I (Spring 1997): 139-48.
 Interestingly, these stage directions continue after the brief introductory
notes as a sort of authorial commentary. Tzara writes that the play is the
"greatest three-act hoax of the century: it will satisfy only industrialized im­
beciles who believe in the existence of men of genius. Actors are requested to
give this play the attention due a masterpiece such as Macbeth or Chanteder, but
to treat the author—who is not a genius—with no respect and to note the levity
of the script which brings no technical innovation to the theater."6
It does not take more than a second to realize that these are not stage
directions at all, but false exegeses (much in the spirit of Chaucer's part-earnest,
part-jest "Retraction"). With this commentary, Tzara countermands the play
before the first line has even been uttered. The text ceases to be art, as he insists
the text is fraudulent, a "hoax" whose joke is leveled at the vitality of the theater
itself—the audience and benefactors. In so doing, Tzara attacks and shakes the
ideological platform of the theater. If not for the benefit of its audiences and
supporters, what is the purpose of creating and acting out plays? Why bother
with theater hall and audience at all, and not simply text and readers? Tzara knew
the risk he took with such sanctimony. A play that had nothing new to offer, one
which explicitly declared its "levity" as a product of an author "who is not a ■§
genius," stood to receive little attention from audiences and critics who were Q
already wearied by the preposterous claims and babble of Dada manifestos and t
other fatuous, fustian productions. i>
Tzara's Dadaism is anarchy. The theater is not a hallowed ground, and rather GQ
than being rebuilt, it needed to be destroyed. Alienating audience, meaning, and
authority in this way was the first step in the overturning of traditional theater. It
was precisely this traditional theater, in fact, whose clearly delineated identities
permitted the action to proceed in an orderly fashion, which was Dada's bulls-
eye. A traditional character is usually introduced whose individuality gradually
takes shape, springing first and most strongly from the character's given name.
Over time, the names of characters from especially memorable texts (often
made popular by the biases and consensus that avant-garde playwrights resisted)
lodge in the minds of generations afterward—Jesus, Othello, Jane Eyre, Roquen-
tin. In The Gas Heart, however, identity is rejected as an ordering and controlling
tool.
Tzara uses general, undisguised body parts as names for the play's charac­
ters: Eye, Mouth, Nose, Ear, Neck, and Eyebrow; Tzara thus deconstitutes
customary dramaturgical organization and reconstitutes a spontaneous, revolu­
tion/riot-type (mob formation) anonymity. They are part of a whole naturally;
each body part cannot separate itself from the others, just as the nose for
instance, cannot be removed from an actual body. Onstage, the parts are unpre­
dictable in action and speech, yet they all blend together—few semiotic traits
distinguish them. They jockey for position above their squirming audience, anes­
thetizing the hall with ravings and gibbering. Finally, they attack their prey with
shouted monosyllables and a command of subordination in the end. As body
parts, the characters analogize the authorial point that all stage members con­
tribute to the dramatic performance, codependent on one another.
Tzara's stage "body" stews together in a way similar to the revolutionary
 "body" as described by Menenius in Shakespeare's Tragedy of Coriolanus. In Co-
riolanus ( I , i. 96-155) the revolutionary crowds that take up arms against the
despot are described in an analogy as "mutinous members" against a benevolent
"belly" the organ that "feeds" all in the kingdom. In Tzara's play, the revolution­
ary mob7 as "body" and stage performers as "body," stir and diffuse similarly.
Both "bodies," contingent in their varied grievances, move against their respec­
tive oppressive powers. In the case of the anarchist swarm, the oppressive
power is the tyranny of masters. The oppressive power in the case of Tzara's
stage is stale tradition and an audience that had long become too comfortable
with theater as entertainment. Tzara mocks the audience as the complementary
brain which finalizes the play's anatomy; the brain rests dormant in the faint and
numb collective awareness of the spectators, another bodily device, but one
which the other parts loathe.
Language and anonymity are the weapons leveled at the spectator-enemy.
When Tzara removed personalities and names, real characters, from the stage,
he undermined the expectations of every viewer; a veritable bomb was thrown
< into the seats from the theater wings. In the play itself, there are a few identifi-
^ able semiotic strategies that undermine the traditional dramatic text. The begin-
Q
ning lines, for instance, are two separate collocations of words that illustrate a
^ class structure of haves ("statues jewels roasts") and have-nots ("cigar pimple
oo nose"). The first assemblage is made of items which the cultured (and assuredly,
02 the uncultured) would recognize as things associated with the affluent bour­
geois, those who parade expensive jewelry while discussing high art over dinner.
An accompanying line to this first assemblage, "and the wind open to mathemati­
cal allusions," (133) is a reference to the sort of strategically dropped cocktail
chat that reinforces class convictions and apprehensions in western pedagogy—
the cultured are those educated who are chosen to lead and who prefer to let it
be known.
The second assemblage is just as revelatory. Here, the emblems of "cigar
pimple nose" are common, even dull, just as its attending statement, "he was in
love with a stenographer," points to the dullest of professions. However, an
analysis of class distinction with regard to the opening lines of the drama makes
little sense without the lines which follow the assemblages:

eyes replaced by motionless navels

mister mygod is an excellent journalist
inflexible yet acquatic [sic]
a good morning was drifting in the air
what a sad season.

Though at first glance it appears as if the lines are merely capricious, Tzara is
fighting the rationality of a world caught up in its own indifference and vanity,
"fragmentation and decomposition."8 It is "a sad season" indeed when "eyes"
are as sightless as "navels," people are satisfied with their gods and an "inflex­
ible," dank morning, spread over the region like a wet towel, is a "good morning."
This disillusionment translates into further ludicrousness when the other
body parts listening in on Eye's monologue comment upon the "lagging" quality
of such considerations. It would seem as if the pandemonium of words is blithely
overlooked by all present; the musical anarchy of Eye's compression of words
seems lost on the listeners (133-34).
Yet hidden in the habitual conversation between these parts to the whole is a
real politics of interference. Eyebrow notes that "Justice" becomes a "regular
functioning" monument likened to a "nervous tic or a religion" (136). In essence,
the concepts of fairness and equity in a world gone mad with domination and
battle-lust are taken for granted or totally overlooked and lose their power. The
point is well made by the character that "says" a lot without the use of words; an
Eyebrow's position on the face "speaks" volumes in context—a furrowed, wor­
ried brow has enormous power. A correctly positioned Eyebrow can even se­
duce or alarm or both. Eyebrow acidly grieves over capital J, "Justice," a monolith
encased in stone that passersby hardly notice.
But it is Eye who acutely reminds Eyebrow et al. that the passerby, in the
"regularity of his life," will experience "a little death, too" (136). No doubt a
double meaning here, but at least one meaning is that Eye warns an unconcerned
and listless audience to question its role as spectators of a greater, abominably
absurd drama, whose gunpowder special-FX hang all about them. "Have you felt "§
Q
the horrors of the war? [... ] Don't you speak the same language [as I do]? [... ]
What. . . prevents my words from penetrating the wax of your brain?" (140); *
"regularity . . . continuity" stuns the mind, but this most irregular play demands o>
of its watchers t o w a k e up and speak out. W e t h e spectators must practice giving ot
"abortive birth t o o u r obscurities" (regularity!) m o r e than just " o n c e a day," says
Eyebrow. Eye supports this call t o purge regulatory "obscurities" (regularity!) by
again reminding spectators t h a t " t i m e is lacking n o longer." T h e w a r has " c o m ­
pressed" t i m e , a little of it goes a long way, and though " t h e eye is weak," it is n o t
yet closed ( 1 3 7 ) . Something must be done: counteraction!
Love is both the key to unlocking one problem and the revelation of another
for the characters. Ear declares, "It's spring it's spring," the traditional season of
love, and a quarrel between Nose and Neck begins. "I tell you it's two yards,"
says Nose, while Neck counters, "I tell you it's three yards," and on they argue
for several turns. Eye cuts off the pair and informs the audience as to what "it" is
in their race. "Love," like "Justice," is a crisis whose regular evocation, "accumu­
lated by centuries," reduces its sovereignty and quality to "a nervous tic of
shifting sand dunes." Love is a "hair-do [ . . . ] on the flail," something which
appears "outwardly new" but whose erratic, fickle treatment changes its face
with the hour. In the end, it is little more than an "error" (141 -42).
Neck and Nose once more pick up the quarrel, with love being "seventeen
yards [... ] eighteen yards [... ] nineteen yards," and so on. Soon the race ends
at twenty-nine yards, mired down by the greater and greater distance from
where it began running from "Love." The second act ends and soon the final act
begins. In the third act, love is revived long enough to show how explicitly vacu­
ous it is through the Mouth. After declaring its love for a modest list of inane
items ("cats, birds, animals and vegetables [... ] bedding, vases and meadows"),
none of which are capable of equaling and returning such love, Mouth concludes
that these things are only "dreams" which "dampen the evening," dreams which
 are more oppressive than inspiring] because of their pedestrian tangibility. More
frustrated than ever, Mouth exits the stage area once more (143).
The other characters then mock Mouth's sentimentality by alluding that love
is an "illusion" and a "prize horse" that "has lost its energy," a revving chatter to
prepare the way for the coming denouement. It is Eye that speaks again and
unveils the true power in which love erroneously wraps itself—lust. With Eye's
brief monologue, love is mutated: for Clytemnestra, Eye's "blood trembles [... ]
cells awaiting" her, "the violence of [his] breath" imparts his anticipation of the
"sweet childish possibilities"—what "further sensational revelations" does she
need? If love is the docile, grown up form of expressive communication between
sexual creatures, then Eye demands a return to the "childish possibilities" of lust
(144). This is an anarchy against both adulthood's unfair tempering of youthful
exploration and curiosity and bourgeois Romanticism, an uptight paper tiger of
robotic, social persecution attempting to disguise natural, promiscuous, animal
lust. Tzara as playwright strikes soundly, with steady punches, at false, cramped
propriety.
< Throughout the play and right up to the end, The Gas Heart elevates the
^ realm of pointless verbiage. The body parts who are our characters take turns at
° resistance in highly stylized and antisymbolic philosophizing which always leads
^ back to the prevalent feeling of "lag" that they all share. The exception to this
o rule is the case of Mouth. Throughout the text, it is Mouth who constantly exits,
02 each time following a particularly senseless speech by another. During an early
exchange with Eye, both Mouth and Eye take turns repeating a question: "The
conversation is lagging, isn't it? [... ] Yes, isn't it? [... ] Obviously, isn't it?" (133-
34). This very blunt, barren repartee fixes the limits of lingual/linguistic opera­
tion for Mouth. Anything outside of vacant chitchat, Mouth considers too alien
and complex.
Language, perhaps, is extremely important to Mouth; Mouth is "too sensi­
tive" to language's use, dislikes the diffuse anarchy of others, and thus constantly
"shuts off" and exits. The disorder of catcalls and clamor does not affect this
character. Intense, hard-boiled babble, the undoing of language, does. Each time
Mouth speaks, the audience's attention is drawn to the striking difference be­
tween its thoughts and those of the others. "It gets warm in the summer" (135),
"let's not forget the camera" (138), "I've made a great deal of money" (139), and
"I'll be on my ship by next Monday" (139) are all examples of simple, complete
thoughts and sentences Mouth uses to counteract and combat the convoluted,
surrounding inanity.
In reality, a mouth (Mouth) is the mechanism of language; communication is
the mouth's function: "Thought is made in the mouth," as Tzara ruminates.9
From the mouth, language distinguishes the authentic self and separates the
speaker in the minds of those around us, people we know and meet.
In the play, Mouth resists the others in hopes of grounding, controlling, and
restraining language. The others can feel the difference between themselves and
Mouth; "Everybody knows you," they take turns jeering at Mouth (143). The
question then arises, Is Mouth the anarchist of the play in opposition to the
babbling concord of Eye, Ear, Nose, Neck, and Eyebrow? Or is Mouth the Simon
Legree bad guy skeptically calling into question the neological experiments of the
accompanying black pennies? Again, it doesn't matter, as Mouth concedes, "I
don't mean to say anything," sporadically slipping into its own brief, unintelligible
drivel before finally alienating itself, "alone" and "blank" with its simple thoughts:
"I love birds [ . . . ] I love cats [ . . . ] I love hay." The lawlessness of empty and
jumbled chatter reigns in the end. "[A] lovely marriage" of repudiatory, cynical
absurdity marks and terminates the previous disorder in the final commands of
the remaining rebel characters: "Go lie down" (146).

Notes
1. Martin Esslin states this a little differently: "the destruction of art," 364 in The Theatre of the
Absurd, 3rd ed. (London, 1980).
2. Esslin, 365-66.
3. Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History ofthe Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 1984), 195.
4. Hugo Ball, quoted in Esslin, Theatre of the Absurd, 365.
5. Esslin, 366.
6. Tristan Tzara, The Gas Heart, in Modem French Theatre: An Anthology of Plays, trans, and ed.
Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth (New York, 1964), 133. Subsequent page references
appear parenthetically in the text.
7. O r perhaps, disgruntled masses, or even Leo Tolstoy's "freely flying swarm," quoted in
Michael Ossar, Anarchism in the Dramas of Ernst Toller (Albany, N.Y.: 1980), 24.
8. Gordon Frederick Browning, Tristan Tzara: The Genesis of the Dada Poem, or from Dada to Aa,
56 (Stuttgart, 1979), I I .
9. Richard Huelsenbeck, Memoirs of a Dada Drummer, ed. H. Kleinschmidt (New York,
1969), 35.

Select Bibliography on Tzara

See Benedikt and Wellwarth, Modern French Theatre; Berghaus, "Dada Theatre"; Bigsby;
Erickson; Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd; Gordon, Dada Performance; Hedges;
Matthews, Theatre in Dada and Surrealism; Melzer; and Pronko, Avant-Garde, in the
General Bibliography.
 T h e Gas Heart

Tristan Tzara

CHARACTERS

EYE
MOUTH
NOSE
EAR
NECK
EYEBROW

ACT I
Neck stands downstage, Nose opposite, confronting the audience. All the other
characters enter and leave as they please. The gas heart walks slowly around,
circulating widely; it is the only and greatest three-act hoax of the century; it
will satisfy only industrialized imbeciles who believe in the existence of men of
genius. Actors are requested to give this play the attention due a masterpiece
such as Macbeth or Chantecler, but to treat the author—who is not a genius—
with no respect and to note the levity of the script, which brings no technical
innovation to the theater.
EYE: Statues jewels roasts
statues jewels roasts
statues jewels roasts
statues jewels roasts
Reprinted from Modern French Theatre: The Ayant-Garde, Dada, and Surrealism; An Anthology
of Flays, ed. Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth; trans. Michael Benedikt (New York:
Dutton, 1964), 131-46.
 statues jewels roasts
and the wind open to mathematical allusions
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
cigar pimple nose
he was in love with a stenographer
eyes replaced by motionless navels
mister mygod is an excellent journalist
inflexible yet aquatic a good-morning was drifting in the air
what a sad season £
MOUTH: The conversation is lagging isn't it? *>
EYE: Yes, isn't it. 8
MOUTH: Very lagging, isn't it? a>
EYE: Yes, isn't it? ^
M O U T H : Naturally, isn't it? ♦
EYE: Obviously, isn't it? c3
MOUTH: Lagging, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
MOUTH: Obviously, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
MOUTH: Very lagging, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
M O U T H : Naturally, isn't it?
EYE: Obviously, isn't it?
MOUTH: Lagging, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
MOUTH: Obviously, isn't it?
EYE: Yes, isn't it?
NOSE: You over there, m a n with starred scars, where are you running?
EAR: I'm running toward happiness
I'm burning in the eyes of passing days
I swallow jewels
I sing in courtyards
love has not court nor hunting horn to fish u p
hard-boiled-egg hearts with
Mouth exits.
NOSE: You over there, man with a scream like a fat pearl, what are you eating?
 EAR: Over two years have passed, alas, since I set out on this hunt. But do you
see how one can get used to fatigue and how death would be tempted to
live, the magnificent emperor's death proves it, the importance of every­
thing diminishes—every day—a little . ..
NOSE: You over there, man with wounds of chained wool mollusks, man with
various pains and pockets full, pieman of all maps and places, where do
you come from?
EYE: The bark of apotheosized trees shadows wormy verse but the rain makes
organized poetry's clock tick. The banks filled with medicated cotton­
wool. String man supported by blisters like you and like all others. To the
porcelain flower play us chastity on your violin, O cherry tree, death is so
quick and cooks over the bituminous coal of the trombone capital.
NOSE: Hey you over there, sir . ..
EAR: Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey
< NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
< I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
I- EAR: The eye tells the mouth: open your mouth for the candy of the eye.
t NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
^ I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
02
EYE: Upon the ear the vaccine of serious pearl flattened to mimosa.
EAR: Don't you think it's getting rather warm?
MOUTH: (who has just come in again): It gets warm in the summer.
EYE: The beauty of your face is a precision chronometer.
NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
EAR: The watch hand indicates the left ear the right eye the forehead the
eyebrow the forehead the eyebrow the left eye the left ear the lips the
chin the neck.
EYE: Clytemnestra, the diplomat's wife, was looking out the window. The
cellists go by in a carriage of Chinese tea, biting the air and open-
hearted caresses. You are beautiful, Clytemnestra, the crystal of your skin
awakens our sexual curiosity. You are as tender and as calm as two yards
of white silk. Clytemnestra, my teeth chatter. I'm cold, I'm afraid. I'm
green I'm flower I'm gasometer I'm afraid. You are married. My teeth
chatter. When will you have the pleasure of looking at the lower jaw of
the revolver closing in my chalk lung. Hopeless, and without any family.
NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
MOUTH: Too sensitive to approval by your good taste I have decided to shut
off the faucet. The hot and cold water of my charm will no longer be able
to divert the sweet results of your sweat, true love or new love. (Exits.)
EAR (entering): His neck is narrow but his foot is quite large. He can easily
 drum with his fingers or toes on his oval belly which has already served as
a ball several times during rugby. He is not a being because he consists of
pieces. Simple men manifest their existences by houses, important men
by monuments.
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true . . .
EYEBROW: "Where," "how much," "why" are monuments. Like, for example,
Justice. What beautifully regular functioning, practically a nervous tic or
a religion.
NOSE (decrescendo): How true how true how true how true how true . . .
EYEBROW: In the lake dipped twice in the sky—the bearded sky—a pretty
morning was found. The object fleeting between the nostrils. Acidulous
taste of weak electric current, this taste which at the entrances to salt
mines switches to zinc, to rubber, to cloth—weightless and grimy. One ^
evening—while out walking in the evening—someone found, deep down, 2
a tiny little evening. And it's name was good evening. „
D
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true . . . ^
EYE: Look out! cried the hero, the two paths of smoke from those enemy iS
houses were knotting a necktie—and it rose overhead to the navel of the ♦
light. !
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true . . . 02
EAR: Carelessly the robber changed himself into a valise, the physicist might
therefore state that the valise stole the robber. The waltz went on con­
tinuously—it is continuously which was not going on—it was waltzing—
and the lovers were tearing off pieces of it as it passed—on old walls
posters are worthless.
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true .. .
EYE: They kept catching colds with great regularity. For the regularity of his
life a little death, too. Its name was continuity.
NOSE: How true how true how true how true how true . . .
EYE: Never had a fisherman made more assassinating shadows under the
bridges of the city. But suddenly midnight sounded beneath the stamp of
a blink and tears mingled in telegrams undecoded and obscure.
EYEBROW: He flattened out like a bit of tin foil and several drops several
memories several leaves testified to the cruelty of an impassioned and
actual fauna. Wind the curtain of nothingness shakes—his stomach is
full of foreign money. Nothingness drinks nothingness: the air has ar­
rived with its blue eyes, and that is why he goes on taking aspirin all the
time. Once a day we give abortive birth to our obscurities.
EYE: We have the time, alas, time is lacking no longer. Time wears a mus­
tache now like everyone, even women and clean-shaven Americans.
Time is compressed—the eye is weak—but it isn't yet in the miser's
wrinkled purse.
 MOUTH: Isn't it?
EYE: The conversation is lagging, isn't it?
MOUTH: Yes, isn't it?
EYE: Very lagging, isn't it?
MOUTH: Yes, isn't it?
EYE: Naturally, isn't it?
MOUTH: Obviously, isn't it?
EYE: Lagging, isn't it?
MOUTH: Yes, isn't it?
EYE: Very lagging, isn't it?
MOUTH: Yes, isn't it?
EYE: Naturally, isn't it?
MOUTH: Lagging, isn't it?
^ EYE: Obviously, mygod.
f* CURTAIN
H
♦
♦ ACT II
CD
01
EYEBROW: We're going to the races today.
MOUTH: Let's not forget the camera.
EYE: Well, hello.
EAR: The mechanical battalion of the wrists of shriveled handshakes.
Mouth exits.
NOSE (shouts): Clytemnestra is winning!
EAR: What do you mean you didn't know that Clytemnestra was a racehorse?
EYE: Amorous jostlings lead everywhere. But the season is propitious. Take
care, dear friends, the season is satisfactory. It chews up words. It distends
silences in accordions. Snakes line up everywhere in their polished eye­
glasses. And what do you do with the bells of eyes, asked the entrepreneur.
EAR: "Seekers and curious people," answered Ear. She finishes the nerves of
others in the white porcelain shell. She inflates.
NOSE: Fan having a seizure of wood,
light body with enormous laugh.
EYEBROW: The driving-belts of the mills of dreams brush against the woolen
lower jaws of our carnivorous plants.
EAR: Yes, I know, the dreams with hair.
EYE: Dreams of angels.
EAR: Dreams of cloth, paper watches.
EYE: The enormous and solemn dreams of inaugurations.
EAR: Of angels in helicopters.
NOSE: Yes, I know.
EYE: The angels of conversation.
NECK: Yes, I know.
EAR: Angels in cushions.
NOSE: Yes, I know.
EYE: Angels in ice.
NOSE: Yes, I know.
EAR: Angels in local neighborhoods.
NOSE: Yes, I know.
EAR: The ice is broken, said our fathers to our mothers, in the first springtime
of their life, which was both honorable and gracious.
EYE: This is how the hour understands the hour, the admiral his fleet of
words. Winter child the palm of my hand. t
o
Mouth enters. I
MOUTH: I've made a great deal of money. ^8
NOSE: Thank you, not bad. iS
MOUTH: I swim in the fountain I have necklaces of goldfish. t
NECK: Thank you, not bad.
02
MOUTH: I'm wearing the latest French coiffure.
NOSE: Thank you, not bad.
EYE: I've already seen it in Paris.
NECK: Thank you, not bad.
MOUTH: I don't understand anything about the rumblings of the next war.
NECK: Thank you, not bad.
MOUTH: And I'm getting thinner every day.
NOSE: Thank you, not bad.
MOUTH: A young man followed me in the street on his bicycle.
NECK: Thank you, not bad.
MOUTH: I'll be on my ship next Monday.
NOSE: Thank you, not bad.
EYE: Clytemnestra, the wind is blowing. The wind is blowing. On the quays
of decorated bells. Turn your back cut off the wind. Your eyes are stones
because they only see the wind and rain. Clytemnestra. Have you felt the
horrors of the war? Do you know how to slide on the sweetness of my
speech? Don't you breathe the same air as I do? Don't you speak the
same language? With what limitless metal are your fingers of misery in­
laid? What music filtered by what mysterious curtain prevents my words
from penetrating the wax of your brain? Certainly, stone grinds you and
bones strike against your muscles, but language chopped into chance
slices will never release in you the stream which employs white methods.
 Mouth exits.
EAR: Doubtless you know the calendars of birds?
EYE: What?
EAR: Three hundred and sixty-five birds—every day a bird flies away—every
hour a feather falls—every two hours somebody writes a poem—some­
body cuts it apart with scissors.
NOSE: IVe already seen it in Paris.
EYE: What a philosophy. What a poet. I don't like poetry.
EAR: Then you must love cold drinks? Or a countryside that rolls like a
dancer's permanent waves? Or ancient cities? Or the black arts?
EYE: I know all about that.
NOSE: A little more life on the stage.
EYEBROW: Gray drum for the flower of your lung.
^ EAR: My lung is made out of lung and is not a mere cardboard front, if you
J* really want to know.
JJ EYE: But, Miss.
♦ EAR: Please, Sir.
QQ EYE: Bony sacraments in military prisons painting doesn't m u c h interest m e .
c3 I like a quiet countryside with considerable galloping.
NOSE: Your piece is quite charming b u t you really don't c o m e away enriched.
EYEBROW: There's nothing to be enriched by in it everything is easy to follow
and even c o m e away with. An outlet of thought from which a whip will
emerge. T h e whip will be a forget-me-not. T h e forget-me-not a living
inkwell. T h e inkwell will dress a doll.
EAR: Your daughter is quite charming.
EYE: You're very considerate.
EAR: D o you care for sports?
EYE: Yes, this m e t h o d of communication is very practical.
EAR: You know of course that I own a garage.
EYE: T h a n k you very m u c h .
EAR: It's spring it's spring . . .
NOSE: I tell you it's two yards.
NECK: I tell you it's three yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's four yards.
NECK: I tell you it's five yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's six yards.
NECK: I tell you it's seven yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's eight yards.
NECK: I tell you it's nine yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's ten yards.
NECK: I tell you it's eleven yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's twelve yards.
NECK: I tell you it's thirteen yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's fourteen yards.
NECK: I tell you it's fifteen yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's sixteen yards.
EAR: Thank you thank you very good.
EYE: Love—sport or indictment
summary of the directories of love—love
accumulated by centuries of weights and numbers
with its breasts of copper and crystal
god is a nervous tic of shifting sand dunes o
nervous and agile leafs through countrysides and the pockets of I
onlookers £
the hair-do of death thrown on the flail g
K
outwardly new
friendship with error delicately juxtaposed. ^
NOSE: I tell you love's seventeen yards. ^
NECK: I tell you it's eighteen yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's nineteen yards.
NECK: I tell you it's twenty yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's twenty-one yards.
NECK: I tell you it's twenty-two yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's twenty-three yards.
NECK: I tell you it's twenty-four yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's twenty-five yards.
NECK: I tell you it's twenty-six yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's twenty-seven yards.
NECK: I tell you it's twenty-eight yards.
NOSE: I tell you it's twenty-nine yards.
EAR: You have a very pretty head
you ought to have it sculpted
you ought to give the grandest of parties
to know nature better and to love nature
and sink forks into your sculpture
the grasses of the ventilators flatter the lovely days.
EYEBROW: Fire! Fire
I think Clytemnestra's ablaze.
CURTAIN
 ACT III

NECK: The sky is clouded

my finger is opened
sewing-machine these staring examinations
the river is opened
the brain clouded
sewing-machine these staring examinations.
MOUTH: We will make fine material for the crystal dress with it.
NOSE: You mean to say: "Despair gives you its explanations regarding its rates
of exchange."
MOUTH: I don't mean to say anything. A long time ago I put everything I had
to say into a hatbox.
NECK: Everybody knows you, installation of conjugal bliss.
NOSE: Everybody knows you, tapestry of forgotten ideas, crystallization.
5 NECK: Everybody knows you, formula for a song, running board of algebra,
N insomnia number, triple-skinned machine.
♦ MOUTH: Everybody does not know me. I am alone here in my wardrobe and
4
the mirror is blank when I look at myself. Also I love the birds at the ends
go of lit cigarettes. Cats, all animals and all vegetables. I love cats, birds,
animals, and vegetables which are the projection of Clytemnestra in the
courtyard, bedding, vases, and meadows. I love hay. I love the young man
who makes such tender declarations to me and whose spine is ripped
asunder in the sun.
Dance of the gentleman fallen from a funnel in the ceiling onto the
table.
MOUTH: Dreams dampen the evening of stretched hide. (Exits.)
EYE: Imagine that my dear friend I no longer love him.
EAR: Which one do you mean?
EYE: I mean the one Fve loved too long.
EAR: Me too, Fve lost an illusion. The prize horse in my stable has lost his
energy.
EYE: Well then, my dear, his life must be renewed.
EAR: You're just bitter. (Exits.)
Enter Mouth.
EYE: Clytemnestra you are beautiful. I love you with the intensity of a
diver . . . his seaweeds. My blood trembles. Your eyes are blue. Why can't
you hear, Clytemnestra, the quiet laughter of my cells awaiting you, the
violence of my breath and the sweet childish possibilities fate has in store
for us? Are you perhaps awaiting further sensational revelations regarding
my temperament?
Exit Mouth.
Eye falls to the stage.
NOSE: Huge.
NECK: Fixed.
NOSE: Cruel.
NECK: Broad.
NOSE: Small.
NECK: Short.
NOSE: Shrill.
NECK: Feeble.
NOSE: Magnificent.
NECK: Long.
NOSE: Narrow.
NECK: Strong. E
NOSE: Sensitive. ^
NECK: Fat. 8
NOSE: High. _g
NECK: Slim.
NOSE: Trembling. ♦
NECK: Fine. go
NOSE: Clear.
NECK: Courageous.
NOSE: Thin.
NECK: Obscure.
NOSE: Timid.
NECK: Pretty.
NOSE: White.
NECK: Flexible.
NOSE: Deep.
NECK: Nasty.
NOSE: Ugly.
NECK: Heavy.
NOSE: Low.
NECK: Black.
NOSE: Superficial.
NECK: Scentless.
NOSE: Harmonious.
NECK: Smooth.
NOSE: Rigid.
NECK: Tangerine and white from Spain
I'm killing myself Madeleine Madeleine.
 EAR (entering with Mouth, who crawls on all fours, and shouting): Clytem-
nestra, racehorse:
3,000 francs
Going once!
Going twice!!
Going thrice!!!
« * Gone!
Eye goes up to Mouth, on all fours.
EAR: This will end with a lovely marriage.
EYE: This will end with a lovely marriage.
EYEBROW: This will end with a lovely marriage.
MOUTH: This will end with a lovely marriage.
NECK: This will end with a lovely marriage.
NOSE: This will end with a lovely marriage.
^ EAR: Go lie down.
J5 EYE: Go lie down.
*" EYEBROW: Go lie down.
♦ MOUTH: Go lie down.
a? NECK: Go lie down.
NOSE: Go lie down.
FINIS
 D a d a Manifesto, 1918

Tristan Tzara

The magic of a word—Dada—which has brought journalists to the gates of a

world unforeseen, is of no importance to us.

To put out a manifesto you must want: ABC

to fulminate against 1, 2, 3,
to fly into a rage and sharpen your wings to conquer and disseminate little
abcs and big abcs, to sign, shout, swear, to organize prose into a form of
absolute and irrefutable evidence, to prove your non plus ultra and maintain
that novelty resembles life just as the latest appearance of some whore proves
the essence of God. His existence was previously proved by the accordion,
the landscape, the wheedling word. To impose your ABC is a natural thing—
hence deplorable. Everybody does it in the form of crystalbluffmadonna,
monetary system, pharmaceutical product, or a bare leg advertising the
ardent sterile spring. The love of novelty is the cross of sympathy, demon­
strates a naive je m'enfoutisme; it is a transitory, positive sign without a cause.
But this need itself is obsolete. In documenting art on the basis of the
supreme simplicity: novelty, we are human and true for the sake of amuse­
ment, impulsive, vibrant to crucify boredom. At the crossroads of the lights,
alert, attentively awaiting the years, in the forest. I write a manifesto and I
want nothing, yet I say certain things, and in principle I am against man­
ifestos, as I am also against principles (half-pints to measure the moral value
of every phrase too too convenient; approximation was invented by the Im­
pressionists). I write this manifesto to show that people can perform contrary

Reprinted from The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, ed. Robert Motherwell; trans.
Ralph Manheim (New York: George Wittenbom, 1951; reissued 1967), 76-82.
 actions together while taking one fresh gulp of air; I am against action; for
continuous contradiction, for affirmation too, I am neither for nor against
and I do not explain because I hate common sense.
Dada—there you have a word that leads ideas to the hunt: every bour­
geois is a little dramatist, he invents all sorts of speeches instead of putting the
characters suitable to the quality of his intelligence, chrysalises, on chairs,
seeks causes or aims (according to the psychoanalytic method he practices)
to cement his plot, a story that speaks and defines itself. Every spectator is a
plotter if he tries to explain a word: (to know!) Safe in the cottony refuge of
serpentine complications, he manipulates his instincts. Hence the mishaps
of conjugal life.
To explain: the amusement of redbellies in the mills of empty skulls.

Dada Means Nothing

^ If you find it futile and don't want to waste your time on a word that
Jj means nothing . . . The first thought that comes to these people is bac-
•" teriological in character: to find its etymological, or at least its historical or
t psychological origin. We see by the papers that the Km Negroes call the tail
^ of a holy cow Dada. The cube and the mother in a certain district of Italy are
02 called: Dada. A hobbyhorse, a nurse both in Russian and Rumanian: Dada.
Some learned journalists regard it as an art for babies, other holy jesus-
escallingthelittlechildren of our day, as a relapse into a dry and noisy, noisy
and monotonous primitivism. Sensibility is not constructed on the basis of a
word; all constructions converge on perfection which is boring, the stagnant
idea of a gilded swamp, a relative human product. A work of art should not
be beauty in itself, for beauty is dead; it should be neither gay nor sad, neither
light nor dark to rejoice or torture the individual by serving him the cakes of
sacred aureoles or the sweets of a vaulted race through the atmospheres.
A work of art is never beautiful by decree, objectively and for all. Hence,
criticism is useless, it exists only subjectively, for each man separately, with­
out the slightest character of universality. Does anyone think he has found a
psychic base common to all mankind? The attempt of Jesus and the Bible
covers with their broad benevolent wings: shit, animals, days. How can one
expect to put order into the chaos that constitutes that infinite and shapeless
variation: man? The principle: "Love thy neighbor" is a hypocrisy. "Know
thyself" is Utopian but more acceptable, for it embraces wickedness. No pity.
After the carnage we still retain the hope of a purified mankind. I speak only
of myself, since I do not wish to convince, I have no right to drag others into
my river, I oblige no one to follow me, and everybody practices his art in his
own way, if he knows the joy that rises like arrows to the astral layers, or that
other joy that goes down into the mines of corpse-flowers and fertile spasms.
Stalactites: seek them everywhere, in mangers magnified by pain, eyes white
as the hares of the angels.
 And so Dada 1 was born of a need for independence, of a distrust toward
unity. Those who are with us preserve their freedom. We recognize no
theory. We have enough Cubist and Futurist academies: laboratories of
formal ideas. Is the aim of art to make money and cajole the nice nice
bourgeois? Rhymes ring with the assonance of the currencies, and the inflex­
ion slips along the line of the belly in profile. All groups of artists have arrived
at this trust company after riding their steeds on various comets. While the
door remains open to the possibility of wallowing in cushions and good
things to eat.
Here we cast anchor in rich ground. Here we have a right to do some
proclaiming, for we have known cold shudders and awakenings. Ghosts
drunk on energy, we dig the trident into unsuspecting flesh. We are a down­
pour of maledictions as tropically abundant as vertiginous vegetation, resin
and rain are our sweat, we bleed and burn with thirst, our blood is vigor.
Cubism was born out of the simple way of looking at an object: Cezanne
painted a cup twenty centimeters below his eyes, the Cubists look at it from
above, others complicate appearance by making a perpendicular section Jg
and arranging it conscientiously on the side. (I do not forget the creative H
artists and the profound laws of matter which they established once and for ♦
all.) The Futurist sees the same cup in movement, a succession of objects ^
one beside the other, and maliciously adds a few force lines. This does not §§
prevent the canvas from being a good or bad painting suitable for the invest­
ment of intellectual capital.
The new painter creates a world, the elements of which are also its im­
plements, a sober, definite work without argument. The new artist protests:
he no longer paints (symbolic and illusionist reproduction) but creates—
directly in stone, wood, iron, tin, boulders—locomotive organisms capable
of being turned in all directions by the limpid wind of monetary sensation.
All pictorial or plastic work is useless: let it then be a monstrosity that
frightens servile minds, and not sweetening to decorate the refectories of
animals in human costume, illustrating the sad fable of mankind.
Painting is the art of making two lines geometrically established as paral­
lel meet on a canvas before our eyes in a reality which transposes other
conditions and possibilities into a world. This world is not specified or de­
fined in the work, it belongs in its innumerable variations to the specta­
tor. For its creator it is without cause and without theory. Order=disorder;
ego=non-ego; affirmation-negation: the supreme radiations of an absolute
art. Absolute in the purity of a cosmic, ordered chaos, eternal in the globule
of a second without duration, without breath without control. I love an
ancient work for its novelty. It is only contrast that connects us with the past.
The writers who teach morality and discuss or improve psychological foun­
dations have, aside from a hidden desire to make money, an absurd view of

1. In 1916 in the Cabaret Voltaire, in Zurich.

 life, which they have classified, cut into sections, channeled: they insist on
waving the baton as the categories dance. Their readers snicker and go on:
What for?
There is a literature that does not reach the voracious masses. It is the work
of creators, issued from a real necessity in the author, produced for himself. It
expresses the knowledge of a supreme egoism, in which laws wither away. Every
page must explode, either from profound heavy seriousness, the whirlwind,
poetic frenzy, the new, the eternal, the crushing joke, enthusiasm for principles
or from the way in which it is printed. On the one hand a tottering world in
flight, betrothed to the glockenspiel of hell, on the other hand: new men.
Rough, bouncing, riding on hiccups. Behind them a crippled world and liter-
ary quacks with a mania for improvement.
I say unto you: there is no beginning and we do not tremble, we are not
sentimental. We are a furious wind, tearing the dirty linen of clouds and
prayers, preparing the great spectacle of disaster, fire, decomposition. We will
< put an end to mourning and replace tears by sirens screeching from one
< continent to another. Pavilions of intense joy and widowers with the sadness
K of poison. Dada is the signboard of abstraction; advertising and business are
♦ also elements of poetry.
^ I destroy the drawers of the brain and of social organization: spread
<§ demoralization wherever I go and cast my hand from heaven to hell, my eyes
from hell to heaven, restore the fecund wheel of a universal circus to objec­
tive forces and the imagination of every individual.
Philosophy is the question: From which side shall we look at life, God,
the idea or other phenomena? Everything one looks at is false. I do not
consider the relative result more important than the choice between cake
and cherries after dinner.
The system of quickly looking at the other side of a thing in order to
impose your opinion indirectly is called dialectics, in other words, haggling
over the spirit of fried potatoes while dancing method around it.
If I cry out:
Ideal, ideal, ideal,
Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge,
Boomboom, boomboom, boomboom,
I have given a pretty faithful version of progress, law, morality and all
other fine qualities that various highly intellectual men have discussed in so
many books, only to conclude that after all everyone dances to his own
personal boomboom, and that the writer is entitled to his boomboom: the
satisfaction of pathological curiosity; a private bell for inexplicable needs; a
bath; pecuniary difficulties; a stomach with repercussions in life; the author­
ity of the mystic wand formulated as the bouquet of a phantom orchestra
made up of silent fiddle bows greased with philters made of chicken manure.
With the blue eyeglasses of an angel they have excavated the inner life for a
dime's worth of unanimous gratitude. If all of them are right and if all pills
are Pink Pills, let us try for once not to be right. Some people think they can
explain rationally, by thought, what they think. But that is extremely relative.
Psychoanalysis is a dangerous disease; it puts to sleep the antiobjective im­
pulses of man and systematizes the bourgeoisie. There is no ultimate Truth.
Dialectic is an amusing mechanism which guides us / in a banal kind of
way / to the opinions we had in the first place. Does anyone think that, by a
minute refinement of logic, he has demonstrated the truth and established
the correctness of these opinions? Logic imprisoned by the senses is an
organic disease. To this element philosophers always like to add: the power of
observation. But actually this magnificent quality of the mind is the proof of
its impotence. We observe, we regard from one or more points of view, we
choose them among the millions that exist. Experience is also a product of
chance and individual faculties. Science disgusts me as soon as it becomes a
speculative system, loses its character of utility—that is so useless but is at
least individual. I detest greasy objectivity, and harmony, the science that
finds everything in order. Carry on, my children, humanity . . . Science says fc
we are the servants of nature: everything is in order, make love and bash your H
brains in. Carry on, my children, humanity, kind bourgeois and journalist ♦
virgins... I am against systems, the most acceptable system is on principle to ^
have none. To complete oneself, to perfect oneself in one's own littleness, to §S
fill the vessel with one's individuality, to have the courage to fight for and
against thought, the mystery of bread, the sudden burst of an infernal pro­
peller into economic lillies:

Dadaist Spontaneity
I call je m'enfoutisme the kind of life in which everyone retains his own
conditions, though respecting other individualisms, except when the need
arises to defend oneself, in which the two-step becomes national anthem,
curiosity shop, a radio [broadcasting] Bach fugues, electric signs and posters
for whorehouses, an organ broadcasting carnations for God, all this together
physically replacing photography and the universal catechism.

ACTIVE SIMPLICITY

Inability to distinguish between degrees of clarity: to lick the penumbra

and float in the big mouth filled with honey and excrement. Measured by
the scale of eternity, all activity is vain—(if we allow thought to engage in an
adventure the result of which would be infinitely grotesque and add signifi­
cantly to our knowledge of human impotence). But supposing life to be a
poor farce, without aim or initial parturition, and because we think it our
duty to extricate ourselves as fresh and clean as washed chrysanthemums, we
have proclaimed as the sole basis for agreement: art. It is not as important as
 we, mercenaries of the spirit, have been proclaiming for centuries. Art af­
flicts no one, and those who manage to take an interest in it will harvest
caresses and a fine opportunity to populate the country with their conversa­
tion. Art is a private affair, the artist produces it for himself; an intelligible
work is the product of a journalist, and because at this moment it strikes my
fancy to combine this monstrosity with oil paints: a paper tube simulating
the metal that is automatically pressed and poured hatred cowardice villainy.
The artist, the poet rejoice at the venom of the masses condensed into a
section chief of this industry, he is happy to be insulted: it is a proof of his
immutability. When a writer or artist is praised by the newspapers, it is proof
of the intelligibility of his work: wretched lining of a coat for public use;
tatters covering brutality, piss contributing to the warmth of an animal [har­
boring] vile instincts. Flabby, insipid flesh reproducing with the help of
typographical microbes.
We have thrown out the crybaby in us. Any infiltration of this kind is
< candied diarrhea. To encourage this act is to digest it. What we need is works
< that are strong straight precise and forever beyond understanding. Logic is a
H complication. Logic is always wrong. It draws the threads of notions, words,
♦ in their formal exterior, toward illusory ends and centers. Its chains kill, it is
QQ an enormous centipede stifling independence. Married to logic, art would
c§ live in incest, swallowing, engulfing its own tail, still part of its own body,
fornicating within itself, and passion would become a nightmare tarred with
protestantism, a monument, a heap of ponderous gray entrails. But the
suppleness, enthusiasm, even the joy of injustice, this little truth which we
practice innocently and which makes us beautiful: we are subtle and our
fingers are malleable and slippery as the branches of that sinuous, almost
liquid plant; it defines our soul, say the cynics. That too is a point of view; but
all flowers are not sacred, fortunately, and the divine thing in us is our call to
antihuman action. I am speaking of a paper flower for the buttonholes of the
gentlemen who frequent the ball of masked life, the [cuisine] of grace, white
cousins lithe or fat. They traffic with whatever we have selected. The contra­
diction and unity of poles in a single toss can be the truth. If one absolutely
insists on uttering this platitude, the appendix of a libidinous, malodorous
morality. Morality creates atrophy like every plague produced by intelli­
gence. The control of morality and logic has afflicted us with impassivity in
the presence of policemen—who are the cause of slavery, putrid rats infect­
ing the bowels of the bourgeoisie which have infected the only luminous
clean corridors of glass that remained open to artists.
Let each man proclaim: There is a great negative work of destruction to
be accomplished. We must sweep and clean. Affirm the cleanliness of the
individual after the state of madness, aggressive complete madness of a world
abandoned to the hands of bandits, who rend one another and destroy the
centuries. Without aim or design, without organization: indomitable mad­
ness, decomposition. Those who are strong in words or force will survive, for
they are quick in defense, the agility of limbs and sentiments flames on their
faceted flanks.
Morality has determined charity and pity, two balls of fat that have grown
like elephants, like planets, and are called good. There is nothing good
about them. Goodness is lucid, clear and decided, pitiless toward compro­
mise and politics. Morality is an injection of chocolate into the veins of all
men. This task is not ordered by a supernatural force but by the trust of idea
brokers and grasping academicians. Sentimentality: at the sight of a group of
men quarreling and bored, they invented the calendar and the medicament
wisdom. With a sticking of labels the battle of the philosophers was set off
(mercantilism, scales, meticulous and petty measures), and for the second
time it was understood that pity is a sentiment like diarrhea in relation to the
disgust that destroys health, a foul attempt by carrion corpses to compromise
the sun. I proclaim the opposition of all cosmic faculties to this gonorrhea of
a putrid sun issued from the factories of philosophical thought, I proclaim
bitter struggle with all the weapons of
2
N
Dadaist Disgust 4
•
Every product of disgust capable of becoming a negation of the family is ^
Dada; a protest with the fists of its whole being engaged in destructive action: 02
Dada; knowledge of all the means rejected up until now by the shamefaced sex
of comfortable compromise and good manners: Dada; abolition oflogic, which
is the dance of those impotent to create: Dada; of every social hierarchy and
equation set up for the sake of values by our values: Dada; every object, all
objects, sentiments, obscurities, apparitions, and the precise clash of parallel
lines are weapons for the fight: Dada; abolition of memory: Dada; abolition of
archaeology: Dada: abolition of prophets: Dada; abolition of the future:
Dada; absolute and unquestionable faith in every god that is the immediate
product of spontaneity: Dada; elegant and unprejudiced leap from a har­
mony to the other sphere; trajectory of a word tossed like a screeching
phonograph record; to respect all individuals in their folly of the moment:
whether it be serious, fearful, timid, ardent, vigorous, determined, enthusias­
tic; to divest one's church of every useless cumbersome accessory; to spit out
disagreeable or amorous ideas like a luminous waterfall, or coddle them—
with the extreme satisfaction that it doesn't matter in the least—with the
same intensity in the thicket of one's soul—pure of insects for blood well­
born, and gilded with bodies of archangels. Freedom: Dada Dada Dada, a
roaring of tense colors, and interlacing of opposites and of all contradictions,
grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE
 DO

The Theater of Pure Form

tanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, playwright, painter, photographer,

S theorist, novelist, and philosopher, was born on February 24,

1885, in Warsaw, Poland. The son of a famous painter and
writer of the same name, Witkiewicz coined the name Witkacy to
carve out his own artistic identity. Between 1918 and 1939, he wrote
more than thirty plays, all based to some extent on his theory of "pure
form," in which he proposed the replacement of the causal logic of
psychological realism with a theater dominated by form, movement,
music, and scenic elements, in which "meaning would be defined only
by its purely scenic internal construction." The purpose of such theater,
argued Witkacy, would be to re-create mankind's primordial feeling of wonder at
human existence, his metaphysical sense of the mystery of life. His plays thus
stood in direct opposition to what he saw as the dehumanizing influence of
technology, science, and mechanization—a theme he explored in The Crazy Loco-
motive (1923) and Janulka, Daughter ofFizdejko (1923).
Although Witkacy aimed to achieve a theater of pure form with such plays as
The Cuttlefish (1922) and The Water Hen (1922), in his work he appropriated
traditional dramatic forms, then parodied, distorted, and disrupted them by
means of fantastically grotesque characters, bizarrely nonlinear action, and rapid
reversals, from mock-philosophical dialogue, for example, to melodramatic ac­
tion. In dramaturgical method, he rejects the old science, the Euclidean ge­
ometry and Newtonian mechanics, in favor of the complementarity, uncertainty,
and indeterminacy of modern physics. Entropy is a central principle within the
Witkacian dramatic universe: old systems and psyches disintegrate as accelerat­
ing disorder moves the universe toward inertia and extinction. The distinctive
qualities of Witkacy's work, accordingly, are an acute sense of the absurd, a
deeply felt philosophy of the tragic isolation of human beings in an alien, acciden­
tal universe, and a powerful visual imagination that in its obsession with colors
 and shapes evokes dream states and drug-induced hallucinations—all of this
constantly undercut by a subversive self-mockery that produces jarring disso­
nances and unresolved discrepancies in tone.
Immediately following the Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland, Witkacy
committed suicide on September 18, 1939, in Jezvory, Poland. Though not
appreciated during his lifetime, Witkacy became an important figure in Polish
experimental theater, as well as retrospectively in the dramatic avant-garde,
z following Tadeusz Kantor's 1956 production of The Cuttlefish, which heralded the
2 end of the dominance of socialist realism in Poland. Kantor's theater company,
UJ Cricot II, explored and expanded on Witkacy's texts in its seminal productions
3 of his work. Witkacy's affinities with Expressionism and Surrealism, as well as
£ with the dramatists of the Theater of the Absurd, particularly lonesco and
0 Beckett, confirm his significance as a writer and theorist of the avant-garde.
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The Cuttlefish (1922)
ir^v* ^ P W V ritten in 1922 and published the following year in magazine
lu^* ^ l ^ f c r form, The Cuttlefish, or The Hyrcanian Worldview, "A Play in
[\^F* w ▼ One Act," was first performed in Cracow at the avant-
garde artists' Theater Cricot in 1933, when its prophetic forecast of the
O^F rise of totalitarianism had already come true in Germany, Italy, and
Russia. In this interpretation, created largely by painters and musicians, the
dictator Hyrcan IV was made up and costumed to look like Hitler in order to
stress the timeliness of the work.
The Cricot's Cuttlefish proved to be the last professional production of any of
Witkacy's works during the playwright's life, which was cut short by rise of Hitler
and totalitarianism in 1939. A generation later, however, the same play, presented
at a revised version of the same theater, marked the beginning of Witkacy's
triumphal return to the Polish stage. The Cuttlefish was the first of Witkacy's plays
to be performed after World War II. In 1956, at the start of the liberation of the
arts from Stalinist controls, the painter Tadeusz Kantor chose the work to open
his Cricot II, an experimental theater designed to reestablish the avant-garde in
Cracow. This staging of The Cuttlefish helped bring Witkacy to the attention of
new generations of playgoers and critics—now receptive to the playwright's style
and vision after dreary years of enforced socialist realism—and became an impor­
tant step in the rediscovery of the forgotten playwright, who would soon exert a
major influence in the formation of the new Polish theater.
As a drama about a twentieth-century painter face to face with dictatorship
and the tyranny of the body politic, The Cuttlefish has remained perennially fresh
and contemporary, equally applicable to conditions under Hitler, Stalin, or any
oppressive regime of whatever ideology, country, or historical period. Because
its system of allusions is not topical and realistic, but subjective and universal, The
Cuttlefish successfully depicts the plight of any artist in the modern world who is
buffeted between the conflicting demands of his art and the state, in neither of
which he can wholeheartedly believe, because he has lost faith in himself.
Written by a nonrealistic painter about a nonrealistic painter, The Cuttlefish is
pre-eminently a drama of modern art, conceived in a painterly style. Witkacy
composes his play out of shapes and colors, with maximum attention to the
pictorial values of his material. The dilemma of the contemporary creator is
formulated in the language of images as well as of concepts; form and substance
in The Cuttlefish become fused. Witkacy's portrait of the artist as a casualty of the
twentieth century resembles a modern canvas, Cubist or Surrealist, in its shifting
perspectives, dream vistas, and hard, impenetrable surfaces.
The cast includes a mere ten characters—five major, two minor, and three
purely incidental—and there is only one simple setting. The entire drama takes
place in the studio where the painter-hero practices his craft and carries on his

Excerpted from Daniel Gerould, "The Cuttlefish (1922)," In Witkacy: Stanishw Ignacy Witkiewicz
as an Imaginative Writer (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981), 185-98. Reprinted by
permission of the University of Washington Press.
 argument about existence: it is a mysterious, black-walled room, ornamented
with emerald-green designs, which may be viewed as the interior of the artist's
mind. Containing no spectacular stage effects and devoid of violent social up­
heavals, The Cuttlefish is a dramatic exploration of the cerebral in the process
of becoming sensuously tangible. The conceptual finds precise visual equiva­
lents. No play better illustrates Witkacy's ability to theatricalize the activity of
thought—not through the use of personified abstractions and generic types, as
£ in the German Expressionist drama, but rather by means of highly personal and
2 idiosyncratic individual portraits drawn from the playwright's imagination.
w The animation of these dramatic portraits in an artist's studio is done with
D masterly skill. In The Cuttlefish Witkacy shows new ease and authority in forging
£ anachronistic simultaneity out of three juxtaposed historical epochs—past, pres-
0 ent, and future—a difficult dramaturgical feat which he had first attempted,
2 somewhat more schematically, in The New Deliverance. Now the playwright has
5 subtly erased all rigid demarcations between disparate areas of experience,
|{! thereby creating a fluid bend or Witkacian "mishmash," in which the dead come
I- back to life and the inanimate becomes animate. In the enchanted chamber that
1 serves as the setting for The Cuttlefish, a Renaissance pope, a modern artist, and a
•" prospective dictator (of an as yet nonexistent fascist state) join a shapely statue
^ to debate Einstein's theory and argue the possible relativity of all values in art,
TP politics, and religion. By bringing together such a wildly improbable group in an
oi inexplicable encounter beyond time and space, the playwright is free to develop
a preposterous yet exciting exchange of ideas among richly comic disputants in
what could be called a Witkacian discussion play.
The essential drama in The Cuttlefish unfolds as a dialectical battle, then,
between the champions of three different worldviews. Like Richard III in The
New Deliverance, Pope Julius II is a visitor from the past, representing the extinct
race of mighty aristocrats. Warrior, consolidator of papal power, and patron of
such artists as Raphael and Michelangelo, Giuliano della Rovere (1443-1513) is
an exemplar of Renaissance greatness. In his combination of strength, cunning,
and exquisite taste, the pope is the very opposite of the gray mediocrity now
reigning in society. Quite dissimilar is the visitor from the future, Hyrcan IV, who
hopes through sheer aggression to become the new strongman. Entirely syn­
thetic and self-fabricated, he is the creator and ruler of the imaginary kingdom of
Hyrcania, which takes its name from an ancient legendary domain in Asia Minor,
famous for its fierce tigers. Without a name or heritage of his own, the would-be
dictator must invent both a country and a worldview to justify his existence. A
modern barbarian and vulgar "slob," Hyrcan totally lacks the cultivated manners
and refined intelligence of his Renaissance predecessor.
Caught between these two heroes, ancient and modern, is the rootless man
of the present, the painter Paul Rockoffer, whose only claim to greatness is that
he is an artist. But, as his name indicates, Paul has gone "off his rocker" and
become profoundly disturbed because of the crisis in contemporary values that
has made art no longer viable as a way of life. The central figure in The Cuttlefish,
the half-mad artist must at all costs find a new Weltanschauung, since for him life
is possible only as the direct expression of a philosophy. It is his fiancee, Ella, who
is the play's cuttlefish, although at first glance it may be difficult to see what she
has in common with a ten-armed sea mollusk of the squid family. Like his con­
temporaries the Dadaists and Surrealists, Witkacy enjoyed giving his plays enig­
matic titles, but those the Polish playwright chooses are never arbitrary or
without hidden significance. In Witkacy's lexicon a cuttlefish is any soft and
insidious predator that, once having attached itself with sucking tentacles, will
not let go; as used by the playwright, then, the term can be applied to capitalism,
a demonic woman, or an ordinary overpossessive housewife like Ella.
As the drama opens, Paul Rockoffer is first seen from the perspective of
eternity, against the black walls of his studio containing a single blood-red win­
dow, which becomes mysteriously lighted at irregular intervals. Isolated in the
dark void of the soul, the despairing artist can voice his anguish only to a
nonexistent deity or to a nonhuman companion, the beautiful statue Alice d'Or,
his former love and now a monument of fossilized desire. At the mercy of a
world without religious faith or philosophic belief, Rockoffer has been forced to
recognize the futility of his art in a mass society that sanctions only the most
banal art and ignores or suppresses genuine creativity. In fact, his own works
have recently been burned by the government, and his ideas on art are scorned
and reviled. At the age of forty-six, Rockoffer has reached a total impasse in his
work; he must either commit suicide or make a new life for himself. In a brilliant
opening soliloquy, Witkacy establishes the hero's character as a metaphysical
quester racked by self-doubts and ironic afterthoughts, and lays bare the work­
ings of his mind.
Rockoffer does not, however, remain alone for long. With the arrival of Ella's
mother to attend her daughter's wedding, accompanied by another matron, the
progressive, nearly mathematical orchestration of The Cuttlefish reaches its full
complement and highest point of complexity. Two sudden acts of violence bring
the drama to a swift climax and general exodus. Acting out his Hyrcanian desires,
the dictator brutally kills Ella with one blow of his sword in response to her
hysterical pleas for death at the thought of losing the reluctant Rockoffer. The
second matron—a blowsy aging tart—then discloses that she is Hyrcan's mother.
Deeply humiliated at being the son of a whore and—perhaps worse in his fascis-
tic view—of a Jewish father, the ridiculous strongman leaves the stage abruptly,
muttering threats. Murder and usurpation result as Rockoffer, too, puts the
absolute into effect in life. On the pretext that he did not like the way that
Hyrcan talked to his mother, the artist shoots the inept dictator—decorously
committing the violence offstage—and returns to proclaim that he is now
Hyrcan V. Following his Hyrcanian desires, Rockoffer will prove that the artist
alone is qualified to rule.
In assuming power in the artificial kingdom of Hyrcania, Rockoffer hopes to
create in life what he has failed to create in art. By imparting entirely new
meaning to the concept of Hyrcanian desires, he feels that he can succeed where
Hyrcan went astray. His Hyrcania will be a creative synthesis of man's aspirations
and knowledge, not the repressive tyranny that his predecessor had envisaged.
Rockoffer's reign as Hyrcan V will be one of enlarged consciousness. His promise
to his friends, "Together, we'll create pure nonsense in life, not in Art," antici-
 pates the Surrealists' liberating creed, as expressed by their call for a moment of
intense meaninglessness which would reflect and concentrate the absurdity of
the world about us, and thus serve to make us more aware of our precarious
human condition.
Yet there are other, more sinister undercurrents that can be detected in
Rockoffer-Hyrcan's final resolve. In succumbing to the temptation of power and
in following [his] Hyrcanian desires, the artist may become a fanatical mono-
K maniac and grow to be an even more dangerous dictator than Hyrcan IV. Thus,
2 on the one hand, Witkacy prophetically senses that in actual practice the role of
iu superman is a fraudulent pose on the part of frustrated weaklings which will be
3 used to justify the worst crimes and lead directly to totalitarian oppression and
* the destruction of all human values, rather than to any freedom of the spirit. The
0 playwright doubts the possibility of greatness in the modern world and ques-
JJj tions the superiority of the self-appointed strongman. Above all, the author of
Jj The Cuttlefish finds these Nietzschean delusions of grandeur comic and theatri-
|Ji cal. Witkacy's longings for the absolute are constantly undercut by his own ironic
H self-doubts and deep feeling for the imperfection and failure inherent in human
£ life.
•" On the other hand, Witkacy adopts wholeheartedly Nietzsche's hatred of
t complacent mediocrity, herd instincts, and anthill happiness for all, and he shares
(X) the German philosopher's scorn for liberal mercantile democracy, British em-
02 piricism, and egalitarian society so homogenized that absolute values become
eroded. Moreover, Witkacy deliberately chooses Zarathustra's lonely, heroic
search for intensity of life over bourgeois practicality and pragmatic calculation
of profit and loss, and he experiences a Nietzschean imperative for greatness in
an age of boredom and conformity. The playwright sees himself in the role of
exceptional individual and artist-aristocrat at odds with the masses and their
drudgery and slave mentality. The author of The Cuttlefish regards the artist as
the sole champion of metaphysical values, driven to the point of insanity by the
uncomprehending mob in his defense of mystery. For Nietzsche, as for Witkacy,
madness is the distinguishing mark of genius.

Select Bibliography on Witkiewicz

Degler, Janusz. "Witkacy's Theory of Theatre." Russian Literature 22.2 (1987): 139-56.
Dorczak, Anita. "S. I. Witkiewicz as an Avant-Garde Writer." Australian Slavonic and East
European Studies 4.1 - 2 (1990): 69-89.
Dukore, Bernard. "Spherical Tragedies and Comedies with Corpses: Witkacian Tragi­
comedy." Modern Drama 18(1975): 291 -315.
Folcjewski, Zbigniew. "The Cubist Factor in Witkacy's Theater of Pure Form." Etudes sur
le Futurisme et les Avant-Gardes I.I (Jan. 1990): 3-13.
Polish Review 18 (1973): "Witkiewicz Issue."

See also Gerould, Twentieth-Century Polish Avant-Garde Drama; Kiebuzinska; and Kott, in
the General Bibliography.
 T h e Cuttlefish, or
The Hyrcanian Worldview

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz

Motto: Don't give in even to yourself.

CHARACTERS

PAUL ROCKOFFER, forty-six years old, but looks younger (his age becomes clear
during the course of the action). Fair-haired. In deep mourning.
THE STATUE ALICE D'OR, twenty-eight years old. A blonde. Dressed in a tight-
fitting sheath resembling alligator skin.
THE KING OF HYRCANIA,1 Hyrcan IV. Tall, thin. Vandyke beard, large mus-
tache. A bit snub-nosed. Large eyebrows and longish hair. Purple cloak
and helmet with a red plume. A sword in his hand. Under his cloak a
golden garment. (What he has on under that will be revealed later on.)
ELLA, eighteen years old. Chestnut hair. Pretty.
TWO OLD GENTLEMEN, in frock coats and top hats. They can be dressed in the
style of the thirties.2
TWO MATRONS, dressed in violet One of them is Ellas mother.
GRUMPUS, the footman. Gray livery coat with large silver buttons and gray top
hat.
JULIUS II, 3 sixteenth-century Pope. Dressed as in the portrait by Titian.

Reprinted from A Treasury of the Theatre, 4th ed., vol. 2, ed. John Gassner and Bernard F.
Dukore; trans. Daniel C. and Eleanor S. Gerould (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), 626-37.
1. Hyrcania, on the Caspian Sea, was a province of the ancient Persian empire. The Hyrcanian
tiger, noted for its ferocity, is mentioned by Pliny, Vergil, and Shakespeare.
2. Sic. The Cuttlefish was written in 1922!
3. Giuliano della Rovera (1445-1513) was elected Pope in 1503. A patron of the arts, he
commissioned Michaelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
 The stage represents a room with black walls with narrow emerald green
designs. A little to the right on the wall in the center of the stage is a window
covered with a red curtain. In places marked (X) a light behind the curtain
goes on with a bloody glow, in places marked (+) it goes out. A little to the left,
a black rectangular pedestal without ornamentation. Alice d'Or lies on her
stomach on the pedestal, leaning on her arms. Paul Rockoffer paces back and
forth, clutching his head in his hands. An armchair to the left of the pedestal.
Another one closer to the center of the stage. Doors to the right and to the left.
ROCKOFFER: Oh, God, God—in vain I call Your name, since I really don't
believe in You. But Fve got to call someone. Fve wasted my life. Two
wives, working like a madman—who knows why—after all, my ideas
aren't officially recognized, and the remains of my paintings were de-
N stroyed yesterday, by order of the head of the Council for the Production
ii of Handmade Crap. Fm all alone.
^ STATUE: [Without moving; her head in her hands] You have me.
* ROCKOFFER: So what? Fd rather I didn't. All you do is remind me that there's
r something else. But in yourself you're just a poor substitute for what's
really important.
♦ STATUE: I remind you of the further road which opens before you in the
<§ wilderness. All the fortune-tellers have predicted that you'll devote your­
self to Occult Knowledge in your old age.
ROCKOFFER: [With a contemptuous wave of his hand] Oh! Fm absolutely
incorrigible in maintaining a perpetual grudge against poor humanity,
and I can't find a single drop of healing medicine. Fm like a useless,
barren pang of conscience, from which not even the meagerest bud of
hope for improvement can blossom.
STATUE: You're a far cry from real tragedy!
ROCKOFFER: That's because my passions aren't too strong. The life Fve
wasted escapes hopelessly into the gray distance of my past. Is there
anything more horrible than the gray past which we still have to keep on
digesting over and over again?
STATUE: Think how many women you could still have, how many nameless
mornings, softly gliding through the mysteries of noontime, then finally
how many evenings you could spend in strange conversations with
women marveling at your downfall.
ROCKOFFER: Don't talk to me about that. Don't rip open the innermost core
of strangeness. All that is closed—forever closed, because of boredom:
galloping, raging boredom.
STATUE: [With pity] How trite you are . ..
ROCKOFFER: Show me someone who isn't trite, and Fll let my throat be cut as
a sacrifice on that person's altar.
STATUE: M e .
ROCKOFFER: A woman—or rather the personification of everything impossi­
ble about women. Life's unrealizable promises.
STATUE: At least be glad you exist at all. Just think—even prisoners serving life
sentences are glad of the gift of life.
ROCKOFFER: What's that got to do with me? Should I be happy just because
right now Fm not impaled on a lonely mound in the middle of the steppes
or because Fm not a sewer cleaner? Don't you really know who I am?
STATUE: I know you're funny. You wouldn't be, if you could fall in love with
me. Then you'd grasp your mission right here on this planet, you'd be a
unique personality, itself and only itself—just that one, and no one else...
ROCKOFFER: [Uneasily] So you recognize that there's an absolute, I repeat,
an absolute hierarchy of Beings,4 do you?
STATUE: [Laughing] Yes and no—it depends. ^
ROCKOFFER: Tell me what your criteria are, I humbly beseech you. *§■
STATUE: You've given yourself away. You're neither a philosopher nor an §
artist. v
ROCKOFFER: Oh, so you've had your doubts about that anyhow. No, Fm not. *"*
STATUE: [Laughing] Then you're just an ambitious nobody, aren't you? De- i
spite everything, for them you're a genius at creating new metaphysical §
shocks. *
ROCKOFFER: Fm pretending— just pretending because Fm bored. I know it's
not even decent—it's not decent to pretend.
STATUE: Still, you've got something in you that goes way beyond anything my
other lovers had. But unless you love me, you won't get one step further.
ROCKOFFER: Stop talking about those eternal lovers of yours that you're
always bragging about. I know you have influence in real life and that
through you I could become who the hell knows what. But somebody
real, not just somebody in my own e y e s . . .
STATUE: You're exaggerating: greatness is relative.
ROCKOFFER: Now Fm going to tell you something: you're trite; worse—you're
thoughtful; still a hundred times worse—you're basically good.
STATUE: [Upset] You're wrong . . . Fm not good at all. [Suddenly in another
tone] But I love you! [She stretches out toward him.]
ROCKOFFER: [Staring at her] What? [Pause] That's true, and that's why it
doesn't matter to me. The light of the Sole Mystery has been extin­
guished for me . . . [X] [A knock at the right; the Statue assumes her
former pose.] and its unfathomableness. ..
STATUE: [Impatiently] Quiet—the Pope's coming.

4. The "hierarchy of Beings" probably comes from the work of the German philosopher and
biologist Ernest Haeckel (1834-1919), who popularized Darwinism and traced the chain of being
from one-celled creatures to man.
 ROCKOFFER: [In another tone] I beg you, introduce me to the Pope. He's the
only ghost I still feel like talking to . .. [Enter the Pope.]
JULIUS ii: Greetings, daughter, and you, my unknown son . . . [Paul kneels.
The Pope gives him his slipper to kiss.] Only let's not talk about Heaven.
Alighieri was 100 percent right. Even a child knows that, but I still have
to say that the human imagination cannot conceive such happiness.
That's why it was hell that our son Dante portrayed with so much talent.5
I'll even go so far as to say that Dore's illustrations6 express quite well the
inadequacy of human concepts and the human imagination to portray
this kind of, as it were .. .
STATUE: Boredom . . .
JULIUS ii: Quiet, daughter. You don't know what you're talking about. [Em-
N phatically] This kind of happiness. [Jokingly] Well, my son: get up and
r come over here and tell me who you are . ..
w STATUE: Holy Father, he's the great artist and philosopher, Paul Rockoffer.
I- JULIUS ii: [Raising both hands up in horror] So it's you, is it? You, wretched
£ infidel, who dared reach out for the fruit of the Highest Mysteries?
♦ ROCKOFFER: [Proudly, getting up] It is I!
o JULIUS II: [With humility, his hands on his stomach] I'm not talking about
co you as an artist. You're great. O h , I was a fierce patron of the arts. [+] Now
that's all over, all over! Yes, I've learned to appreciate decadence in art.
T h e y don't understand it, a n d yet that's the only way they live them­
selves. I'm talking about t h e people of your time. [Indignantly] W h a t a
terrible thing—all your paintings burned. M y son, eternal reward awaits
you in Heaven.
STATUE: In Heaven? Ha, ha, ha.
JULIUS II: [Good-naturedly] D o n ' t laugh, daughter. Heaven has its good sides
too. Nobody suffers there, a n d that counts for something.
ROCKOFFER: I'm a philosopher, Holy Father, b u t I've continued to be a good
Catholic, too. I can't stand that lie any more.
JULIUS ii: Yes—you're a Catholic, maitre Paul, but not a Christian. There's a
great difference, a very great difference. And what lies can't you stand
anymore, my son?
ROCKOFFER: That I'm pretending as an artist, that is, that I've been pretend­
ing up to now. All my art is a hoax, a deliberate, carefully planned hoax.
JULIUS ii: I'm disregarding the fact that there can be no question of Truth
once we start discussing Beauty in the abstract. But that's what's so awful,
that your art and the art of people like you is the sole Truth. You've
discovered the last possible consolation, but I've got to take it away from
5. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), in The Divine Comedy.
6. Gustave Dore (18327-1883), French illustrator and painter.
 you. [Solemnly] Your art is the sole Truth on earth. I didn't know you
personally, but I do know your paintings very well in marvelous divine
reproductions. [Gloomily] That's the sole Truth.
STATUE: And what about the dogmas of faith?
JULIUS II: [Hurriedly] They're Truth too, but in another dimension. In earthly
terms they're Truth for our poor understanding. Only there [he points to
the ceiling with his finger] their mystery blazes forth in all its fullness
before the dazzled intellect of the liberated.
ROCKOFFER: [Impatiently] Holy Father, theology isn't my specialty, and I'd
prefer not to talk about philosophy. With Your Holiness's kind permis­
sion, let's talk about Art. I know I lie, and that's good enough for me. No
one will make me believe that my Art is genuine, not even you, a guest
from a genuine Heaven.
JULIUS ii: [With his finger pointing toward the ceiling] Up there, where I
come from, they know about that better than you do, you miserable
speck of dust. But after all, an artist's worth comes from either rebellion
or success. What would Michelangelo have been if it weren't for me or
other patrons of the arts (may God punish them for it). A few madmen
eager for new poisons raise up the man who concocts them to the apex of
humanity, and then a crowd of nonentities adore him, gaping at the
agony and ecstasy of the ones who've been poisoned. Isn't the fact that
the Council of the Production of Handmade Crap burned your works a
proof of your greatness?
STATUE: You're beaten, Paul, baby. Bow down before His Holiness's connois-
seurship. [Rockoffer kneels.]
ROCKOFFER: Something terrible's happened. I don't know any more whether
I'm lying or not. And I was the one who knew everything about myself.
Holy Father, you've taken away my last hope. I'd finally found one thing I
was absolutely sure of, and you, you cruel old man, you've destroyed
even that.
JULIUS ii: [To the Statue, pointing at Rockoffer] That's what comes from
pursuing the absolute in life. [To Rockoffer] My son, in life as in philoso­
phy, relativity is the only wisdom. I was a believer in the absolute myself.
My God, what respectable person hasn't been! But those times are over.
Now, what all of you fail to realize is that not every biped who's read Marx
or Sorel7 is highest in the earthly hierarchy of Beings, nor do you realize
that I, for example, and the rest of you are two different kinds of Beings,
and not just varieties of the human species. Only Art, despite decadence,
has remained on a high plane.
ROCKOFFER: [Getting up, in despair] She tells me the same thing. I'm sur­
rounded by treachery on all sides. I don't have any enemies. I look for

7. Georges Sorel (1847-1922), French sociologist and theorist of revolution.

 them night and day in all the back alleys and only find some sickening
jellyish mess, but no opponents worthy of me. Can Your Holiness under­
stand that?
JULIUS ii: [Puts his hand on Rockoffer's head] Who could understand you bet­
ter, my son? Do you think that history has given me full satisfaction in that
respect? Whom do you take me for? Can you suppose that I, Julius della
Rovere, was content having as my chief foe that mediocrity Louis XII?
[With deep emotion] Oh! Like God without Satan and Satan without God
is he who has not acquired an enemy worthy of him.
STATUE: It's dangerous to base one's greatness on the negative value of one's
friends. It's worse than admitting the relativity of Truth.
JULIUS ii: [Drawing near her and stroking her under the chin] Oh, you, you
N cute little dialectician! Who educated you so well, my nice little woman?
v STATUE: [Sadly] Unhappy love, Holy Father, and not only that, but for some-
"J body I despise. Nothing can teach us women dialectics so well as the
* combination I just mentioned.
£ JULIUS ii: [To Rockoffer] Poor maitre Paul, how you must have suffered with
* that precieuse. In my day that type of woman was a little different. They
* were real titanesses. I myself, my God, even I . . .
o [Ella runs in from the left. Dressed in a sky blue dress. A mans straw hat
with sky blue ribbons. She has gray gloves and a whole pile of different
colored packages in her arms. Grumpus follows after her in a gray servant's
coat and a gray top hat, carrying twice as many packages as she is. Both of
them pay absolutely no attention to Alice d'Or.]
ROCKOFFER: Help! I forgot, I have a fiancee.
ELLA: [Throwing the packages on top of Grumpus and running up to Rock­
offer] My dearest! But you're happy you have one, now that you've re­
membered she exists. My one and only: look at me. [She cuddles up to
him. Grumpus, laden down, stays where he is. Julius II goes over to the left
and stands leaning on the base of the Statue.]
ROCKOFFER: [Embraces her gently with his right arm and looks straight ahead
madly] Wait, I have the impression that I've fallen from the fourth floor. I
don't understand myself very well. You know, Mr. della Rovere has just
proved that my Art is Truth. I've lost the prop for my carefully planned
hoax.
ELLA: [Chattering away] I'll do everything for you. Just rely on me. I've fixed
up our little apartment divinely. The small sofas have already been
covered—you know, the golden material with the tiny rose stripes. And
the sideboard is just the most beautiful thing. All the furniture for the
dining room is really pretty, but there's something strange about the
sideboard. There's some sort of dreadful mystery in those faces made out
of iron-gray wood. They were done by Zamoyski8 himself. You can keep

8. Jan Zamoyski, a Polish artist and friend of Witkiewicz.

 all your drugs in there. I won't bother you, Til let you do everything you
want, only in moderation. [Rockoffer smiles vacantly.] Aren't you happy?
[Ella suddenly grows sad] Mother furnished my boudoir for me herself.
Everything's covered in pink silk with sky blue flowers.
ROCKOFFER: [Embraces her with sudden tenderness] But of course—I am
happy. My poor little thing . .. [He kisses her on the head.]
JULIUS II: [To the Statue] Look, daughter, how this little bird's chattering lulls
our good docile snake to sleep.
ELLA: [Looking around] Who's that old man?
ROCKOFFER: Don't you know? It's Pope Julius II: he's come straight from
Heaven to bless us.
ELLA: [Turning to Julius II] Holy Father . . . [Kneels and kisses his slipper.
Grumpus puts the packages on the ground, kneels down too, and kisses the
Pope's other slipper.] Oh, how happy I am!
JULIUS ii: [To the Statue] Well, what can you do with such innocence and
goodness? [To all those present] I bless you, my children. I wish you a
swift and unexpected death, my little daughter. You'll be the most beau­
tiful of all the angels whose garlands twine about the throne of the
Almighty.
ROCKOFFER: [Falling on his knees] Oh, how beautiful this is! I feel that from
now on I could start painting like Fra Angelico. All decadence has van­
ished without a trace. Thank you, Holy Father.
JULIUS ii: [To the Statue] See how it's possible to be a sower of good in this
world without even meaning to be. Look at the blissful faces on those two
children. Maitre Paul has grown at least ten years younger.
STATUE: Not for long, Your Holiness. You don't realize how quickly time
passes for us. Time is relative. You know Einstein's theory, Holy Father.
Transferring the concept of psychological time to physics produced a
wonderful flowering of knowledge about the world, an indestructible
creation of absolute Truth.
[Ella gets up and goes over to Paul, who also gets up. They kiss in ecstasy.
Grumpus gets up likewise and looks at them, deeply moved.]
JULIUS ii: My, my, my! In Heaven, where we live, no one believes in physics,
my child. It's only a simplified system for all of you to understand phe­
nomena since your brains stopped short at the frontier beyond which the
creation of metaphysics is possible. Every step in the hierarchy of Beings
has its own boundary. Human philosophy has got itself all bottled up.
The coefficient of all knowledge is infinite only within each boundary.
But what about what's happening on the planets of Aldebaran! Ho, ho!
They know their "Einstein" there too, but they've known how to place
him in his proper sphere.
STATUE: [Anxiously] And so the world really has no bounds?
JULIUS II: Of course not, my child.
 STATUE: Then even you, Holy Father, won't live eternally? And what about
Heaven?
JULIUS II: Heaven is only a symbol. You people must accept the theory of
diverse bodies united in a single individual. But the number of these
bodies is limited. Eventually we'll all die for good. The sole mystery is
God. [He points to the ceiling. (X)]
STATUE: Ah! [She falls down on the pedestal. Julius II sits on the chair on the
leftside.]
ELLA: [Drawing away from Rockoffer] What's that? I heard a voice inside me
saying something about eternal death. [+]
ROCKOFFER: [Pointing to the prone Alice d'Or] That statue said it. It just
passed out. It's a symbol of the past which I sacrificed for you.
u ELLA: [Astounded] But there's nobody there!
£ ROCKOFFER: Didn't you hear how His Holiness was philosophizing with it?
5 ELLA: Paul, stop joking. The Holy Father was talking to himself. Don't stare
t so blankly: I'm afraid. Tell me the truth.
^ ROCKOFFER: You wouldn't understand anyhow, my child. Let's not talk
^ about it.
g JULIUS ii: Yes, daughter, mattre Paul is right. A good wife shouldn't know too
00
much about her husband. Within certain limits, a husband should be a
mystery.
ELLA: I have to know everything. You're torturing me, Paul. Our little apart­
ment, which made me so happy, is beginning to terrify me in this vision
of the future you and the Pope have created together. A kind of shadow
has fallen on my heart. I want my mother.
ROCKOFFER: [Embracing her] Quiet, little girl. I've begun to believe in my
future. I'm returning to Art and I'll be happy. We'll both be happy. I'll
start painting again calmly, without any orgies with form, and I'll end my
life as a good Catholic.
JULIUS ii: [Bursts out laughing.] Ha, ha, ha!
ELLA: End your life? I'm just beginning it with you.
ROCKOFFER: I'm old—you must understand that once and for all.
ELLA: You're forty-six—I know. But why does your face say something dif­
ferent? Can the soul be so different from the face?
ROCKOFFER: [Impatiently] Oh, quit bothering me about my soul. It's an
essence so complicated that I've never been able to see myself as a whole.
It was only an illusion. Stop thinking about me and accept me as I am.
ELLA: Paul, tell me who you really are. I want to know you.
ROCKOFFER: I'm unknowable even to myself. Look at the paintings I've
already done and you'll see who I used to be. But if you look at what I'm
going to do now, you'll see what I want to be. The rest is a delusion.
ELLA: And is that what love is?
ROCKOFFER: Love? Shall I tell you what love is? In the morning Fll wake you
with a kiss. After a morning bath, we'll drink coffee. T h e n Fll go paint,
and you'll read books, which Fll suggest for you. T h e n dinner. After
dinner, we'll go for a walk. T h e n work again. Tea, supper, a little serious
discussion, and finally you'll fall asleep, not too fatigued by sensual plea­
sures, to conserve strength for the next day.
ELLA: And so, on and on, without end?
ROCKOFFER: You mean: to the very e n d . Such is life for those devoid of
absolute desires. We are limited, and Infinity surrounds us. It's too trite
even to talk about.
ELLA: But I want to live! W i t h that hope in mind I've fixed u p our dear little
apartment, I've looked after everything. I've got to really live.
ROCKOFFER: Tell m e , please, what is life "really"?
ELLA: Now I don't know anything any more and that terrifies me.
ROCKOFFER: D o n ' t force m e to make speeches. I could tell you things, §
beautiful a n d horrible, deep a n d infinitely remote, b u t it would be just *jj
one more lie. |S
STATUE: [Waking up (X)] A little drama is beginning. Our little Paul has t
decided to become sincere. ^
o
ELLA: I'm hearing that evil voice of a strange being inside me again. [Looking &
around] That's funny—I feel that there's somebody here, but I don't see
anyone except you and the Pope.[+]
STATUE: I am the lady Pope for fallen titans. I teach them the gray wisdom of
daily existence.
ELLA: [In fear] Paul—stop hypnotizing me. I'm afraid.
ROCKOFFER: Don't say anything more. I'm beginning to be afraid myself. I
don't even know myself how I know that person.
ELLA: What person? Oh, my God, my God—I'll die of fright. I'm afraid of
you. Holy Father—save me. You've come from Heaven.
JULIUS II: [Getting up, speaking with cruelty] How do you know that Heaven
isn't a symbol for the most awful renunciation?—renouncing one's real
personality. I'm a shadow, just as she is. [He points to the Statue.]
ELLA: But there isn't anyone there, is there? Take pity on me, Holy Father. All
this affects me like a bad dream.
JULIUS ii: Dream on, my child. Maybe this moment of terror is the most
beautiful in your whole life. Oh, how I envy all of you. [Ella covers her
face with her hands.]
ROCKOFFER: A strange force is entering me again. Ella—I can't conquer
decadence with you.
ELLA: [Without uncovering her face] Now I understand you at last. I've either
got to die for you or stop loving you. [Uncovers her face.] I love you now
that I see how you're descending into the abyss. This is my real life.
 STATUE: That little virgin's making progress like crazy. Now I'll never get you
back again, Paul, honey.
ELLA: That voice again. But I'm not afraid of anything now. It's already
happened. My fate's already sealed somewhere. And the sooner the bet­
ter, Paul. Now I won't go back to mother. I'll stay with you now.
JULIUS ii: Don't be in such a hurry, daughter. You've already entered on the
right path. But it doesn't mean you've got to be in quite such a hurry.
ROCKOFFER: Holy Father, the speed of my transformations terrifies me too.
In a moment I may become a statesman, an inventor, who the hell knows
what. Whole new layers have shifted in my head like an avalanche.
JULIUS ii: Wait—I hear footsteps in the hallway downstairs. I have a ren­
dezvous with King Hyrcan today.
V ROCKOFFER: What? Hyrcan IV? Is he still alive? You know, he was a class-
£ mate of mine at school. He was always dreaming about an artificial
5 kingdom in the old style.
h JULIUS ii: And he created it. I guess you don't ever read the newspapers. [He
£ listens.] That's him—I recognize his powerful, commanding footsteps.
♦ [Suspense]
6 ELLA: But is he real or is he something like Your Highness?
o00
JULIUS ii: [Outraged] Something like! You're taking too many liberties, my
daughter.
ELLA: I'm not afraid of anything now.
JULIUS ii: You've already died—you have nothing to fear.
ELLA: Nonsense. I'm alive and I'll create a completely normal life for Paul.
He'll fall slowly, creating wonderful things. I'm not at all as innocent and
stupid as all of you think. I've got a little venom in me too . . . [X]
[From the right, enter Hyrcan IV in a purple coat which comes down to the
ground. He has a helmet on his head with a red plume. A huge sword in his
hand.]
HYRCAN IV: Good evening. How are you, Rockoffer? You weren't expecting
me today. I've heard you're getting married.—It'll never work. [Kneels
quickly in front of the Pope and kisses his slipper; getting up] I'm glad to
see His Holiness is in good health. Heaven agrees with him very well.
[Approaches the Statue.] How are you doing, Alice—Alice d'Or, isn't it?
Remember our orgies in that marvelous dive—what was it called? [He
squeezes the Statue's hand.]
STATUE: Perdition Gardens.
[Ella turns around at the sound of her voice.]
HYRCAN iv: Exactly.
ELLA: [Pointing at the Statue] She was the one who was here! It was her voice
I kept hearing as though it was in me. It's not nice to eavesdrop on our
conversation that way!
STATUE: It's not my fault that you didn't see me, Ella . ..
ELLA: Please don't call me by my first name. I'm asking you to leave this
house. I'm staying here with Paul now. [To Rockoffer] Who is that
woman?
ROCKOFFER: My former mistress. I'm letting her live in this room. I was a
little afraid in this huge house and that's why . . .
ELLA: You don't have to justify yourself. From now on I'm going to be here
and I'm asking you to get rid of that lady immediately.
JULIUS II: Not so fast, my daughter. You may overreach yourself.
ELLA: I don't want her here and that's all there is to it. Paul, did you hear me?
[She sits down in the armchair to the left.]
ROCKOFFER: Certainly, my dear. That's no problem. [Goes toward the
Statue.] My Alice, we must part. Get down off that pedestal and clear
out. This is the end. You'll get money from my bank. [He pulls out a
check book and begins to write. (+)]
HYRCAN iv: [To Rockoffer] If I may be permitted to ask—who's that broad?
[He indicates Ella.] Is she your new mistress, or is she the fiancee I've
been hearing about?
ROCKOFFER: [He stops writing and remains indecisive.] My fiancee.
HYRCAN iv: [To Ella] Oh—in that case perhaps you'll allow me to introduce
myself: I'm Hyrcan IV, king of the artificial kingdom of Hyrcania. You'll
be so kind as not to order my friend about, or you'll find I make short
work of things.
STATUE: You talk marvelously, Hyrcan.
HYRCAN iv: I don't need your advice either, Alice. I'll settle things with you
too at the proper time. The situation—apart from my kingdom, which is
the only really unusual thing—is the tritest in the world: a friend decided
to free his friend from women—the ordinary bags, masculettes, and
battle-axes who've infested him.
ROCKOFFER: To prove what? Isn't your kingdom only a badly disguised form
of insanity, my friend?
HYRCAN iv: You'll find out soon enough. You're already suffering from a
prison psychosis, living in freedom. Overintellectualized sex combined
with fluctuation between decadence and classicism in art. First of all, to
hell with art! There's no such thing as art.
JULIUS ii: Excuse me, sire. I won't allow maitre Paul to be made an ordinary
pawn in the hands of Your Royal Highness. He's got to go to pieces in a
creative way.
ELLA: I've been saying the same thing . . .
HYRCAN iv: [Speaks to the Pope without paying any attention to what she has
said.] He doesn't have to go to pieces at all. That's just the way perverse
young girls jabber when they sniff for carrion or the way depraved patrons
 of the arts think. Paul won't go to pieces: he'll make himself into some­
one new and different. None of you have any idea what conditions are
like in my country. It's the sole oasis left in the whole world.
JULIUS ii: The world is by no means limited to our planet.. .
HYRCAN IV: Holy Father, I don't have time to plumb the depths of Your Holi-
ness's posthumous knowledge. I am a real man, or rather a real super­
man. I create a reality which is the incarnation of Hyrcanian desires.
STATUE: There's no such thing as Hyrcanian desires. ..
JULIUS ii: [Politely to the Statue] That's just what I wanted to say. [To Hyrcan]
That word doesn't even exist, it's just an empty sound without meaning.
HYRCAN IV: Once I give it a definition, this empty sound will become a con­
cept, and from then on it will exist in the world of ideas for all eternity.
u JULIUS ii: [Laughing] But only ahead in time, not backward, sire.
£ HYRCAN IV: That's just the point. No behinds for me. I reverse events, and life
2 too only goes ahead, and not backward.
t ROCKOFFER: You know, Hyrcan, you're beginning to interest me.
HYRCAN IV: Experience it—it's wonderful. Once you experience it, you'll be
i so thrilled and have such a sense of power, you'll go out of your mind. [To
§ the Pope] You see—I call Hyrcanian desire the desire for putting the
00
absolute into effect in life. Only by believing in the absolute and in its
realization can we create something in life.
JULIUS II: And what good will that be to anyone? What will come of it?
HYRCAN IV: That's senile skepticism, or rather senile doddering. Oh, that's
right—I forgot that Your Holiness is practically six hundred years old.
What'll come of it is that we'll experience our life on the heights of what's
possible on this damned small globe of ours, and not waste away in a
continual compromise with the ever-growing strength of social sticking-
togetherness and regimentation. Some consider me an anarchist. I spit
on their rancid opinions. I'm creating supermen. Two, or three—that's
enough. The rest is a pulpy mass—cheese for worms. "Our society is as
rotten as a cheese." Who said our society is as rotten as a cheese?
JULIUS ii: Never mind about that, sire. I came here for a serious discussion on
saving art from a total decline and fall. The fight against so-called pure-
blaguism.9 It's finally got to be proved that Pure Blague is impossible.
Even God, although he's all-powerful, wouldn't really be able to blague
anything perfectly and completely.
HYRCAN IV: Humbug. As I was coming here, I gave some thought to the
problem of Art. Art has come to an end and nothing will ever revive it.
There isn't any sense to our discussion.

9. Pure humbug, or pure hoax, was itself a hoax by Witkiewicz. In the early twenties he
announced a new theory of art called "Pur-blaguism" and anonymously published a small pamphlet
which purported to contain works by various authors in the new pure-blague style.
JULIUS II: But, sire, as I see it, Your Royal Highness is a follower of Nietzsche,
at least in social questions. Nietzsche himself recognized Art as the most
important stimulus for personal power.
HYRCAN iv: [Threateningly] What? Me a follower of Nietzsche? Please don't
insult me. He was the life philosophy for a bunch of dunderheads willing
to drug themselves with absolutely anything. I don't accept any drugs,
and therefore I don't accept art either. My ideas arose completely inde­
pendently. I didn't read any of that trash until after I'd created my coun­
try. That's enough. Our conversation is over.
JULIUS II: All right. But just one more thing: such a formulation of the
question, with your goal already in mind, isn't that Pure Pragmatism?
You can believe in the absolute in life or not, but to believe in it as a
preconceived theory for experiencing on the heights, as Your Royal High­
ness put it, this wretched life of ours on our small globe—likewise your
expression, my son—is a self-contradiction and a devaluation of Hyrca-
nian—yes, I repeat Hyrcanian—desires themselves! Ha, ha!
HYRCAN IV: That's pure dialectics. Maybe in Heaven it's worth something.
I'm a creator of re-al-i-ty. Understand, Holy Father. And now that's
enough—don't get me upset.
JULIUS II: Sire, I beg you, just one more question.
HYRCAN IV: Well?
JULIUS II: How's religion doing over there in your country?
HYRCAN iv: Everyone believes whatever he wants. Religion has come to an
end too.
JULIUS ii: Ho, ho! That's rich. And he wants to create old-time power without
religion. Really, sire, that strikes me as a stupid farce. Look at the most
savage tribes, at the aboriginal Arunta or whoever they are. Even they
have religion. Without religion there are no countries in the old sense of
the word. There can only be an anthill.
HYRCAN iv: No, no—not an organized anthill, only a great herd of straggling
cattle, over which I and my friends hold power.
JULIUS ii: But what do you believe in, my son?
HYRCAN IV: In myself, and that's good enough for me. But if I ever need to, I'll
believe in anything at all, in any old fetish, in a crocodile, in the Unity of
Being, in you, Holy Father, in my own navel, what difference does it
make?! Is that clear?
JULIUS ii: You, sir, are a combination of a very clever but ordinary bandit
and the worst kind of pragmatist. You're not a king at all, at least not
for me. From now on we won't have anything more to do with each
other.
[He goes to the left and sinks exhausted into his armchair. Hyrcan stands
there looking angry, leaning on his swore/.]
 STATUE: Well, they demolished you, my petty chieftain. The Holy Father is
really a first-class dialectician.
ROCKOFFER: You know, Hyrcan, actually His Holiness is partly right in all
this. Besides, I must point out that the tone of our group deteriorated as
soon as you came in. The conversation became downright crude.
JULIUS ii: You're quite right, my son; to talk to slobs you've got to talk like a
slob.
ROCKOFFER: [To Hyrcan] I don't entirely agree with you in the matter of
fundamental principles either.
ELLA: Oh, Paul, then all's not lost yet.
HYRCAN iv: [Waking up from his meditation] Yes—I'm a slob, but I'm what I
am and there's no one else like me. Listen to me. I'm talking to all of you
y as an equal with equals for the last time. Paul—make up your mind.
£ Alexander the Great was a slob too. And anyhow, we have a ruler here
!S with us. You can read about Mr. della Rovere and his doings in any
l- outline of history.
£ JULIUS ii: [Getting up] Shut up! Shut up!
t ROCKOFFER: [Quietly to Hyrcan] Leave him alone. [Aloud] I won't allow
0 anyone to insult the Holy Father in my house, not even the King of
co Hyrcania.
JULIUS ii: T h a n k you, my son. [Sitting down] A pragmatist on the throne!
No—this is absolutely u n h e a r d of. It's actually funny. Ha-ha-ha!
HYRCAN iv: Well, Paul, go ahead. Maybe your objections will be somewhat
more to the point. Believe m e , I only want your happiness. If you don't
leave with m e now for Hyrcania on the eleven o'clock express, you're
through. I won't c o m e back here again. I'll break off diplomatic relations
and start a series of wars. Digging u p and burning down anthills and
moronhills. A lovely business.
ROCKOFFER: You've already done one thing for m e . All the little problems I
used to be concerned with seem completely insignificant to m e now.
ELLA: [Sits in the armchair to the left; suddenly wakes up from her stupefied
condition.] And the problem of love, too?
ROCKOFFER: Wait a minute, Ella, I'm in a different dimension right now. [To
Hyrcan] But I must confess I don't see greatness on your side either.
HYRCAN iv: What do you mean?
ROCKOFFER: His Holiness used a word that I can't get out of my head—but
you won't be offended, will you, Hyrcan?
HYRCAN iv: At you—never. Go ahead. What word?
ROCKOFFER: Bandit. You're actually a petty robber baron, not an important
ruler. You're only great given the extremely low level of civilization in
your country. Nowadays, Nietzsche's superman can't be anything more
than a small-time thug. And those who would have been rulers in the
 past are the artists of our own times. Breeding the superman is the biggest
joke I've ever heard of.
HYRCAN IV: You're talking like a moron. You don't understand the first thing
about my concept of Hyrcanian desires. You're living your life as an
absolutist—that's a fact. You're too much either for yourself or for so-
called society. You're a perfect specimen of "moral insanity," but you've
got the strength of at least four normal people, according to the standards
of our time.
ROCKOFFER: Yes, that's a fact. That's why I've decided to end it all right now
by committing suicide.
ELLA: [Getting up] Paul, what's happening to you? Am I dreaming?
STATUE: He's right. I never dared tell him that, but it's the only, really ob­
vious, trite solution.
HYRCAN IV: Shut up, you broads! One's worse than the other. [ To Rockoffer]
You fool, did I come here from my Hyrcania to see the downfall of my
only friend? I've already got two strong types. I've absolutely got to have a
third. You're the only one who can do it.
ROCKOFFER: But what's a regular work day like in this Hyrcania of yours?
What do you really occupy yourselves with there?
HYRCAN IV: Power—we get drunk on power in all its forms from morning till
night. And then we feast in an absolutely devastatingly glorious fashion,
discussing everything and viewing everything from the unattainable
heights of our reign.
ROCKOFFER: A reign over a heap of idiots incapable of organizing them­
selves. An ordinary military dictatorship. Under favorable conditions a
really radical state socialism can do the same thing.
HYRCAN IV: But what was humanity in the past but a heap of beings, a
formless pulpy mass without any organization? In order to hold on to
their power, the pseudo-Titans evolved by socialism have to lie. We don't.
Our life is Truth.
ROCKOFFER: So it's a question of Truth. Is Truth also an integral part of the
Hyrcanian worldview?
HYRCAN IV: Of course. But if all humanity wears a mask, the problem of
Truth will disappear all by itself. I and my two friends, Count de Plignac
and Rupprecht von Blasen, are creating just such a mask. Society masked
and we alone who know everything.
ROCKOFFER: But isn't there something of a comedy in it all? You know what's
chiefly discouraged me? Your costume.
HYRCAN IV: But that's nothing. I thought you were more impressed by "scen­
ery," and that's why I dressed up this way. I can take this fancy stuff off.
[He goes on talking as he takes his clothes off. Under his coat he reveals a
golden garment He throws it off and stands in a well-tailored, normal
 cutaway. He takes off his helmet as well He puts the clothes in the middle
of the stage. He continues to hold his sword in his hand.] But you know
what greatness consists of? Attaining isolation. To create such an island
of brutalized, bestial spirits amid the sea of regimentation engulfing
everything—now, that takes a little more strength than Mr. della Rovere
had in the sixteenth century. Not to speak of the Borgias—they were just
common clowns.
GRUMPUS: Most gracious lord—I'll go to Hyrcania too. If you're going to
serve, you might as well serve real masters.
HYRCAN iv: [To Rockoffer] See? That dolt's recognized my true worth, but
you won't even try to understand me.
ROCKOFFER: Wait; my daimon has split in two. It's an unheard-of event in the
N history of mankind. I hear two secret voices telling me two parallel truths
r which will never meet. The contradiction between them is of an infinite
m order.
10
* HYRCAN IV: I keep a certain philosopher in my court, one Chwistek by
^ name. On the basis of his concept of "the plurality of realities" he's
4 establishing the systematic relativization of all Truth. He'll explain the
♦ rest to you. He's a great sage. I'm telling you, Rockoffer, come with me.
55 ROCKOFFER: My conscience as a former artist is growing to the dimensions of
an all-encompassing tumor. A new monster feeds on itself. Monsters, till
now tormented in cages, have conquered unknown areas of my disin­
tegrating brain.
ELLA: [Getting up] He's simply gone mad. Most gracious lord, ask whatever
you will, but don't take him away from me. Now that he's a madman,
he'll create wonderful things as long as he's with me.
ROCKOFFER: You're mistaken, little girl. I'm clear-headed as never before.
Long ago I recognized my madness—for me it was much less interesting
than my extremely cold, clear consciousness.
[Ella sits down, stunned.]
STATUE: That's the Truth. Once, when I was with him, he overcame a fit of
madness. It was metaphysical madness, of course, but my life was also
hanging by a thread. He's a psychic athlete, and a physical one, too—
sometimes.
HYRCAN IV. Alice, believe me, for him you were only a sort of vinegar in
which he preserved himself until my arrival. I'm grateful to you for that.
You can come with me to Hyrcania.
STATUE: [Climbing down from the pedestal] All right—you can make me into
the priestess of whatever cult you want. I'm ready for anything.

10. Leon Chwistek (1884-1944), Polish logician, esthetician, mathematician, essayist, painter,
and close friend of Witkiewicz. In The Plurality of Realities (1921) he postulated four different kinds
of reality which give rise to four different kinds of art.
JULIUS II: So youVe also become a pragmatist, my daughter. I didn't expect
that.
STATUE: But Holy Father, in the depths of your soul aren't you really a
pragmatist, too?
JULIUS ii: [Getting up] Perhaps, perhaps. Who's to say? My worldview is
subject to constant transformations.
HYRCAN IV: To have my concept recognized, I'm even willing to let art
disappear from my realm for good. I appoint you patron of the dying arts,
Holy Father, on condition that you won't tempt Paul Rockoffer. He can
be an absolutist only in life, not in art.
JULIUS II: All right, all right. I give in. In any case, you've opened up new
perspectives for me. Just between you and me, you have no idea how
madly, hopelessly bored I've been in Heaven. Starting today I'm extend­
ing my leave for at least three hundred years. [Hyrcan and Rockoffer
whisper.]
STATUE: Julius della Rovere, you can count on me: With my dialectics, I'll
make twenty of those three hundred years a delight for you. In the eve­
ning, after a tiring day's work, you'll tell me all about it and have a really
serious talk with a woman who's both wise and moderately perverse.
JULIUS II: Thanks, daughter. I'm going to Hyrcania.
ELLA: [Getting up] I can't take any more! This is some ghastly nightmare, all
these discussions of yours. I'm not at all good and noble, and I feel as
though I've been asphyxiated by some hideous poison gas. And besides,
all this is boring. You're tearing my heart apart just as a game, a stupid,
boring game. I want to go to Hyrcania, too. When Paul feels unhappy, at
least he'll have me, and I'll save him. Sire, will Your Royal Highness take
me with him?
HYRCAN IV: Out of the question. Paul must forget his former life. You'll start
tempting him right away to make artistic excuses for why he fell or who
the hell knows what. All creative impulses must be stifled in embryo.
ELLA: And how's it all finally going to end? What then?
HYRCAN IV: Then, as usual, death takes over, but along with it the feeling that
life has been experienced on the heights, and not in the filthy cesspool of
society, where there's art instead of morphine.
ROCKOFFER: So you're opposed to drugs? I can't get along without them.
HYRCAN IV: I still approve of the alkaloids, but I have the greatest contempt
for all psychic drugs. Aside from the fact that you won't create anything,
you can do whatever you want.
[Ella approaches Paul and they whisper.]
JULIUS II: Your Hyrcania, Sire, strikes me as a kind of sanitorium for people
sick of society. The way you describe it, of course. Actually it's the lowest
kind of whorehouse for the playboys in life . . .
 HYRCAN IV: But they're absolutists, every one of them—if they don't manage
to get through the wall, at least they leave the bloody marks of a smashed
skull on it. That's where my greatness lies.
JULIUS ii: But after all, you could have been a pickpocket, Sire, like the duke
in Marion Lescaut
HYRCAN iv: I could have been, but I'm not. I'm the king of the last real
kingdom on earth. Greatness lies only in what succeeds. If I'd been
completely unsuccessful, I'd have only been ridiculous from the very
start.
JULIUS ii: You still can fall. And then what?
HYRCAN IV: I'll fall from a certain height. After all, there's never been a tyrant
who didn't fall.
u JULIUS ii: That's just where the pettiness lies: in the idea of a certain height.
£ HYRCAN iv: I can't fall through Infinity. Even in the world of physics we have
3 finite speed, since there's nothing beyond the speed of light. Practically
H speaking, it's infinite.
> JULIUS ii: [Ironically] Practically speaking! Pragmatism's at the bottom of
t everything. But it doesn't matter. For the time being, I prefer that to
^ Heaven.
00
HYRCAN IV: Rockoffer, did you hear that? No one has ever received a greater
compliment. The Holy Father is with us.
ELLA: [Clinging to Paul] Answer me, at least make up your mind.
ROCKOFFER: I'm going. It's always worth abandoning the foreseeable for the
unknown. Besides, it's the basis for the New Art, the art of vile surprises.
HYRCAN iv: Thanks, but don't even compare Hyrcanianness and art. Hyr-
cania must be experienced.
ROCKOFFER: The Dadaists said the same thing about Dadaism, until they
were all hanged. No—that's enough. I'm yours. Everything's so disgust­
ing that there isn't any stupidity great enough not to be worth sacrificing
everything in our lives for it. Let me die, but not in all this petty shabbi-
ness. I had intended to die in Borneo or Sumatra. But I prefer the mystery
of becoming to the mystery of staying the same. I'm coming.
ELLA: Paul, I beg you. I won't bother you. Take me with you.
ROCKOFFER: No, child. Let's not even talk about it. I know your spiritual
traps. As a woman, you don't exist for me at all.
ELLA: Paul, Paul—how cruelly you're tearing me apart inside! I'll die. Think
of our poor, lonely little apartment, and my unhappy mother.
ROCKOFFER: I'm terribly sorry for you. Now I really love you for the first
time . ..
ELLA: Paul! Wake up from this hallucination. If you can't stay, at least let me
go to my death and destruction!
HYRCAN IV: [Pushing her away from Rockoffer] Lay off him. She's a cuttlefish,
not a woman. Did you hear me? This is the last time I'm telling you this.
ELLA: [Flaring up] Then kill me—I won't leave him myself.
[From the right enter two matrons and two old men elegantly dressed in
black.]
MOTHER: Ellie, let me introduce you to two of your uncles you don't know.
They're the ones who are financing your marriage with Paul. Mr. Ropner
and Mr. Stolz—my daughter—my daughter's fiance, the well-known
painter Mr. Paul Rockoffer.
[The two old men greet Ella.]
ROCKOFFER: First of all, I'm no longer her fiance, and secondly, in introduc­
tions a person's first name and occupation should never be mentioned,
particularly since I've changed my occupation. You'll have to pardon me,
Maria, but unknown perspectives are opening up before me. I'll be
something along the line of a cabinet minister in Hyrcania. Hyrcanian
desires gratified at last! It would take too much time to try to explain it all
at once now. I hardly understand it myself.
MOTHER: I can see that. You must be drunk, Paul. Ella, what does this mean?
ELLA: Mama, it's all come to nothing. He's not drunk, and he hasn't gone
mad. It's the most obvious, cold, cruel truth. The king of Hyrcania is
taking him with him. He's stopped being an artist. [The Mother is dumb-
founded.]
HYRCAN IV: Yes, ma'am, and we'll settle things amicably. I don't like big
scenes in the grand manner when I'm not on my own home ground. I'll
pay you whatever damages you ask.
MOTHER: I'm not concerned about money, but about my daughter's heart.
HYRCAN IV: Don't be trite, please. And besides, I'm not just any lord or
master, I'm a king.
MOTHER: I've read about that Hyrcania of yours in the newspapers. It's the
theater critics who write about it. Not one decent politician even wants
to hear it mentioned. It's an ordinary theatrical hoax, that Hyrcania of
yours. A depraved and degenerate band of madmen and drunkards took
it into their heads to simulate a regime in the old style! You ought to be
ashamed, Mister! Hyrcania! It's simply a disgrace, "bezobrazia" a la ma-
niere russe.11
HYRCAN IV: [Throwing his sword on the pile of clothes] The old lady's gone
crazy. Be quiet. Rockoffer's agreed and I'm not going to let any mum­
mified battle-axes get him in their clutches. Let's go.
[Paul remains undecided.]
ELLA: Mama, I won't live through this. I want to go too.

11. Bezobrazia, which is Russian for "disgrace," is a common expression of indignation and
outrage.
 MOTHER: What? So you're against me too? Aren't you ashamed in front of
your uncles you've just met? If you keep behaving this way, we won't get a
single cent. Ella, come to your senses.
ELLA: [Clutching her head] I don't want to live! I can't! Only I don't have the
courage to die. [To the king] Hyrcan, most poisonous of civilized reptiles,
crowned slob, kill me. I want pain and death—I've already suffered too
much today.
MOTHER: Ella, what a way to talk! Who taught you such dreadful expressions?
ELLA: I don't even know myself. I'm playing a role—I know that—but I'm
suffering terribly. [To the king] I beg you—kill me.
HYRCAN IV: You want me to? That won't cost me anything. In Hyrcania
everything is possible. The absolute in life—can you understand that,
£| you vile dishwashers of plates others licked long ago?
£ ROCKOFFER: Wait—maybe it can all still be settled by a compromise. I can't
Sf stand scenes a n d rows. Ella will go quietly back to h e r mother, a n d I'll at
I- least leave with a clear conscience.
£ ELLA: N o , n o , no—I want to die.
t M O T H E R : D o you want to poison the last days of my old age? And what about
^ o u r little apartment, a n d o u r nice evenings together, just the three of us,
co a n d later surrounded by children: yours a n d Paul's, m y darling grand­
children.
ELLA: Mama, don't torture me. I'll poison your life worse if I stay with you
than if I die right now at the hands of the king.
MOTHER: [In despair] What difference does it make who kills you. You die
only once, but my old age will be poisoned to the very end.
ELLA: No—I must die right away. Every minute of life is unbearable anguish.
HYRCAN iv: Do you mean that seriously, Miss Ella? [X]
ELLA: Yes. I was never so serious.
HYRCAN iv: All right, then. [He picks up his sword, which is lying on the pile of
royal robes, and strikes Ella on the head with it Ella falls without a groan. ]
MOTHER: Oh!!! [She falls on Ella's corpse and remains there until almost the
end of the play. Hyrcan stands leaning on his sword. The old men whisper
vehemently among themselves. Matron II remains calm. (+)]
ROCKOFFER: I'm just beginning to understand what the Hyrcanianness of
Hyrcanian desires actually is. Now at last I know what it means to put
absolutism into practice in real life. [He clasps Hyrcan's hands in his.]
JULIUS II: I've committed many atrocities, but this pragmatic crime has
moved me deeply. I bless you, poor mother, and you, spirit of a maiden
pure and lofty beyond all earthly conception. [He blesses the group on
Hyrcan's left.] Well, sire, she lived her life as an absolutist, too—you've
got to admit that.
HYRCAN IV: Her death has moved me too. Fve come to recognize a new kind
of beauty. I didn't know that there could be anything quite so unexpected
outside of Hyrcania.
ONE OF THE OLD MEN: [Drawing near] Well, all right, gentlemen, but what
now? How are we going to settle all this? We understand, or rather we can
guess what it's all about. Actually it's a trite story, but how can it all be
explained and justified?
JULIUS II: Well, gentlemen. I'm a tolerant person, but I can't stand your
company any longer. You understand—I was the Pope. Kiss me quickly
on the slipper and clear out, while you're still in one piece. I can't stand
dull, commonplace thinking masquerading as phony good nature. [The
old men kiss his slipper and, crumpling their hats in their hands, go out to
the right with astonished faces. Meanwhile, the others continue talking.]
HYRCAN IV: Paul—go with this flunkey right now and get ready for the trip.
The Hyrcania Express leaves in an hour. I'm here incognito and don't
have my special train with me.
ROCKOFFER: All right—Grumpus, leave these ladies here and come along.
[He and Grumpus pass to the right. Matron II comes up to Hyrcan.
Rockoffer and Grumpus stop on the threshold.]
MATRON II: Hyrcan—don't you recognize me? I'm your mother.
HYRCAN IV: I recognized you instantly, Mama, but you're the one hidden
shame in my life. I'd prefer not to apply the Hyrcanian worldview to my
own mother. My mother, mother to a king—an ordinary whore! How
ghastly!
JULIUS II: And so even you have sacred treasures hidden in the depths of your
pragmatic-criminal heart? I didn't expect that.
HYRCAN IV: Holy Father—don't meddle in what's none of your business. [To
Matron II] Mama, I advise you, get out of here and don't cross my path
ever again. You know, I inherited a bloody and violent disposition from
my father.
MATRON II: But couldn't I be a priestess of love in your country? In olden
times the daughters of Syrian princes deliberately offered up their vir­
ginity to an unknown stranger for a couple of copper pieces.
HYRCAN IV: That was in olden times and that made it beautiful. You didn't get
started that way. You were the mistress of our idiotic aristocrats and obese
Semitic bankers. I don't even know whose son I am—me, a king. What a
nasty mess.
MATRON II: Why should you care? All the more credit to you that starting
from nothing you've raised yourself up to the height of a throne. A
ridiculous one, but still a throne.
HYRCAN IV: Still, I'd prefer to know my genealogy and not get lost in guess­
work.
 MATRON ir. You're funny. What difference does it make whether you're Aryan
or Semitic or Mongolian? Prince Tseng, ambassador of the Celestial
Empire, was one of my lovers, too. Nowadays . . .
HYRCAN IV: Shut up—don't get me in a rage!
JULIUS II: Common pragmatic snobism. So even in Hyrcania there are irrele­
vant issues. Yes—Napoleon was right: recherche de paternite interdite.
STATUE: Ha, ha, ha! Hyrcan and the mother problem, that's a good one!
HYRCAN IV: I'm leaving. I don't want to have a new row. If I weren't here
incognito, you'd see it would all end quite differently.
[He goes to the door and leaves at the same time as Rockoffer and
Grumpus.]
MATRON ii: [Running toward the door] Hyrcan, Hyrcan! My son!
u [She runs out]
£ JULIUS H: [To the Statue] That's a fine kettle offish! And what do you say to
- that, my daughter!
t STATUE: I knew we couldn't get off without a few discordant notes.
> [Behind the scenes, a shot is heard, and then a dreadful roar from
t Hyrcan IV.]
oo JULIUS ii: What's that now? Some fiendish surprise. My stay in Heaven has
03
made my one time nerves-of-steel too sensitive. I've grown unaccus­
tomed to shots.
[Ella's mother doesrit even hat an eyelash.]
STATUE: Quiet. With Paul, anything is possible. Let's wait: this is a really
strange moment. I feel an extraordinary, non-Euclidean tension through­
out all space. The whole world has shrunk to the dimensions of an
orange.
JULIUS ii: Quiet—they're coming.
[Rockoffer runs in with a revolver in his hand, followed by Matron II.]
ROCKOFFER: I've killed him. I've avenged the death of poor Ella.
JULIUS: Who? Hyrcan?
ROCKOFFER: [Embracing Matron II] Yes. And you know what alienated me
from him most? That scene with his mother. I don't remember my
mother, but I feel sure I wouldn't have treated her that way. If you want
absolutism in life, there's absolutism in life for you. He drove me to it
himself, the dog.
JULIUS II: Well, fine—that's very nice of you, my son. But what's going to
come of it?
ROCKOFFER: [To Matron II] Just a minute. First of all, I ask you, in memory of
your son and my friend, to consider me as your second son. He was un­
worthy of you. A matron—a whore—where could I find a better mother?
MATRON ii: [Kissing him on the head] Thank you, Paul—my son, my true,
dear son!
ROCKOFFER: That's enough. Let's go.
JULIUS II: But where? What' 11 we do without that thug Hyrcan? Worse still—
what'll we do without Hyrcania? Now that our Hyrcanian desires have
reached their peak and, so to speak, run absolutely wild?
ROCKOFFER: Oh—I see Your Holiness has really lost all his wits. Is there
anyone who deserves to be king of Hyrcania more than I do? Is there any
absolutist who's carrying out his ideas in real life more than I am? Give
me the whole world and I'll smother it with kisses. Now we'll create
something diabolical. I feel the strength of a hundred Hyrcans in me. I,
Paul Hyrcan V. I won't be a joker the way he was. Out with this junk. [He
kicks the royal robes and sword on the floor.] I'll create a really cozy little
nook in the Infinity of the world. Art, philosophy, love, science, society-
one huge mishmash. And not like groveling worms, but like whales
spouting with sheer delight, we'll swim in it all up to our ears. The world
is not a rotten cheese. Existence is always beautiful if you can only grasp
the uniqueness of everything in the universe. Down with the relativity of
truth! Chwistek's the first one I'll knock off! We'll forge on in the raging
gale, in the very guts of absolute Nothingness. We'll go on burning like
new stars in the bottomless void. Long live finiteness and limitations.
God isn't tragic; He doesn't become—He is. Only we are tragic, we,
limited Beings. [In a different tone] I'm saying this as a good Catholic,
and I hope I won't offend Your Holiness's feelings by doing it. [In his
former tone] Together, we'll create pure nonsense in life, not in Art.
[Again in a different tone] Hmm—it's revolting! They're all different
names for the same gigantic, disgusting weakness. Completely new—
everything new. [Clutches his breast] I'm getting tired. Poor Ella! Why
couldn't she have lived till now? [He falls into deep thought]
STATUE: Didn't I say that with good old Paul you can expect anything?
JULIUS II: But you won't leave me for him, my daughter?
STATUE: Never. Paul is too intense for me—and too young. [She kisses
Julius IPs hand.]
JULIUS H: I'm only afraid that the actual results may not live up to such a
promise. I'm afraid of humbug.
STATUE: I am, too—a little. But it's always worth trying.
ROCKOFFER: [Waking up from his meditation] And you, Holy Father, will you
go with us? In Heaven, will they grant you an extension of your leave?
JULIUS H: To tell the truth—in Heaven they think I really belong in Hell. But
you see, as a Pope they can't decently do . . . that to me . . . you know?
That's why I can get a leave to any planet I want without any difficulties
whatever.
ROCKOFFER: That's great. Without you, infernal old man, I wouldn't be able
to take any more. You appealed to me because your inner transforma­
tions were sincere. But poor Ella—if it were only possible to bring her
 back from the dead! What wouldn't I give for that right now! He was the
one who made me do it: that damned Hyrcan. [Ella springs up suddenly,
pushing her Mother aside.]
ELLA: Fm alive! I was only knocked out. Fm going with you! Fll be queen of
Hyrcania!
ROCKOFFER: [Embracing her] What happiness, what endless happiness! My
most dearly beloved, forgive me. [He kisses her.] Without you, even
Hyrcania would be only a ghastly dream.
MOTHER: [Getting up in tears] You're a good man, Paul. I knew you wouldn't
abandon poor Ella.
[Paul goes over to her and kisses her hand.]
ROCKOFFER: Adopted mother and mother-in-law, Fll take both of you with us
y to Hyrcania. I know how to value the advice of older women who've
Z experienced a great deal. Even the uncles—those two old idiots, we'll
"J take them with us too. Let's go—whatever he's done, Hyrcan opened a
* new way for us. May his memory be sacred to us.
£ JULIUS II: What generosity, what generosity! This is one of the most beautiful
* days of my life beyond the grave. In any case, God is an inscrutable
* mystery. [X] Come, my daughter.
co ROCKOFFER: Matrons, let's get a move on—the Hyrcania Express leaves in
ten minutes—we've got to hurry.
[The Matrons leave, passing by Grumpus]
GRUMPUS: His Royal Highness just breathed his last in my arms.
ROCKOFFER: [Offering his arm to Ella] Well, may he rest in peace. Now I am
king of Hyrcania. And even if I have to stand on my head and turn my
own and other people's guts upside down, Fll carry out my mission on
this planet. Understand?
GRUMPUS: Yes, Your Royal Highness.
[Rockoffer goes out with Ella. Julius II goes out after them with the
Statue. (+)]
JULIUS II: [As he leaves] Even the worst fraud that scoundrel perpetrates on
society has the strange charm of a finished work of art. I wonder if I'll be
able to create a new artistic center in this infernal Hyrcania.
STATUE: In artistic matters, you're the almighty power, Holy Father . . .
[They go out, followed by Grumpus. The packages and the clothing of the
king remain in the middle of the stage.]
 O n a New Type of Play

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz

"On a New Type of Play" is the last section ofAn Introduction to the Theory
of Pure Form in the Theater, which first appeared in 1920 in numbers 1, 2,
and 3 of Skamander, a leading Polish avant-garde literary magazine of the
1920s and 30s. Coming to the theater from painting, and strongly influenced
by nonrepresentational modern art, Witkiewicz was able to develop a complete
aesthetic theory of nonrealistic drama early in his own career as a playwright.
His quest for "pure form77 in the theater makes Witkiewicz part of the avant-
garde European reaction against the realistic, psychological drama and social
problem play which had dominated the stage since the 1890s.
Before the First World War, Jacques Copeau, the guiding force behind
modern French drama, attacked the socially constructive theater based on
observation of real life as philistine and bourgeois, an adjunct of journalism,
not art. The aim of the theater, Copeau argued, is not to make the spectator
think, but to " 'make him dream,7 by evoking and suggesting the multiplicity
and mystery of life.771 By the middle twenties, Gabriel Marcel suggested that
"the future belongs to the theater of pure fantasy,772 and Benjamin Cremieux
talked of the idea of "pure theater,77 which like pure poetry would have a
technique of its own that would free it of the social content of realistic drama

Reprinted from "The Madman and the Nun' and Other Plays by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz,
ed. Daniel C. Gerould and C. S. Durer; trans. Daniel C. Gerould and C. S. Durer (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1968), 291-97. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wash­
ington Press.
1. Jacques Copeau, Critiques d'un autre temps (Paris: Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Franchise,
1923), p. 230.
2. Gabriel Marcel, "La crise de la production dramatique," L'Europe Nouvelle 39 (Septem­
ber 29, 1923), p. 1255.
 and give it independent life as pure movement3. In the 1930s, Antonin Artaud,
in the manifestoes collected in The Theater and Its Double, formulated his
theory of the theater of cruelty which rejects psychology and logic for violence,
dreams, and the internal world of uman considered metaphysically!^
Witkiewicz anticipated many of these ideas and quite independently came
to conclusions similar to those of his Western European contemporaries. It is
important to note that Witkiewicz's idea of pure theater is inclusive; he wishes
not to rid the theater of reality, but to transpose it into a new dimension. Pure
Form can absorb all kinds of material; the internal arrangement is simply freed
from traditional discursive and didactic demands. [Translators' note]

Theater, like poetry, is a composite art, but it is made up of even more

elements not intrinsic to it; therefore, it is much more difficult to imagine
u Pure Form on the stage, essentially independent, in its final result, of the
£ content of human action.
- Yet it is not perhaps entirely impossible.
£ Just as there was an epoch in sculpture and painting when Pure Form
£ was identical with metaphysical content derived from religious concepts, so
♦ there was an epoch when performance on stage was identical with myth.
oj Nowadays form alone is the only content of our painting and sculpture, and
co subject matter, whether concerned with the real world or the fantastic, is
only the necessary pretext for the creation of form and has no direct connec­
tion with it, except as the "stimulus" for the whole artistic machine, driving it
on to creative intensity. Similarly, we maintain that it is possible to write a
play in which the performance itself, existing independently in its own right
and not as a heightened picture of life, would be able to put the spectator in a
position to experience metaphysical feeling, regardless of whether the fond
of the play is realistic or fantastic, or whether it is a synthesis of both, combin­
ing each of their individual parts, provided of course that the play as a whole
results from a sincere need on the part of the author to create a theatrical
idiom capable of expressing metaphysical feelings within purely formal di­
mensions. What is essential is only that the meaning of the play should not
necessarily be limited by its realistic or fantastic content, as far as the totality
of the work is concerned, but that the realistic element should simply exist
for the sake of the purely formal goals—that is, for the sake of a synthesis of all
the elements of the theater: sound, decor, movement on the stage, dialogue,
in sum, performance through time, as an uninterrupted whole—so trans­
formed, when viewed realistically, that the performance seems utter non­
sense. The idea is to make it possible to deform either life or the world of
fantasy with complete freedom so as to create a whole whose meaning would be

3. Benjamin Cremieux, "Chronique dramatique," Nouvelle Revue Frangaise 27 (August 1,

1926), 233-37.
4. Antonin Artaud, The Theater and Its Double, trans. M. C. Richards (New York: Grove Press,
1958), p. 92.
defined only by its purely scenic internal construction, and not by the demands
of consistent psychology and action according to assumptions from real life.
Such assumptions can be applied as criteria only to plays which are height-
ened reproductions of life. Our contention is not that a play should neces­
sarily be nonsensical, but only that from now on the drama should no longer
be tied down to pre-existing patterns based solely on life's meaning or on
fantastic assumptions. The actor, in his own right, should not exist; he
should be the same kind of part within a whole as the color red in a particular
painting or the note C-sharp in a particular musical composition. The kind
of play under discussion may well be characterized by absolute freedom in
the handling of reality, but what is essential is that this freedom, like "non-
sensicality" in painting, should be adequately justified and should become
valid for the new dimension of thought and feeling into which such a play
transports the spectator. At present we are not in a position to give an exam­
ple of such a play, we are only pointing out that it is possible if only foolish .8
prejudices can be overcome. But let us assume that someone writes such a |
play: the public will have to get used to it, as well as to that deformed leg in "3
the painting by Picasso. Although we can imagine a painting composed of >
entirely abstract forms, which will not evoke any associations with the ob- ♦
jects of the external world unless such associations are self-induced, yet it is
not even possible for us to imagine such a play, because pure performance in <$
time is possible only in the world of sounds, and a theater without characters
who act, no matter how outrageously and improbably, is inconceivable,
simply because theater is a composite art, and does not have its own intrinsic,
homogeneous elements, like the pure arts: Painting and Music.
The theater of today impresses us as being something hopelessly bottled
up which can only be released by introducing what we have called fantastic
psychology and action. The psychology of the characters and their actions
should only be the pretext for a pure progression of events: therefore, what is
essential is that the need for a psychology of the characters and their actions
to be consistent and lifelike should not become a bugbear imposing its
particular construction on the play. We have had enough wretched logic
about characters and enough psychological "truth"—already it seems to be
coming out of our ears. Who cares what goes on at 38 Wspolna Street,
Apartment 10, or in the castle in the fairy tale, or in past times? In the theater
we want to be in an entirely new world in which the fantastic psychology of
characters who are completely implausible in real life, not only in their
positive actions but also in their errors, and who are perhaps completely
unlike people in real life, produces events which by their bizarre interrela­
tionships create a performance in time not limited by any logic except the
logic of the form itself of that performance. What is required is that we
accept as inevitable a particular movement of a character, a particular
phrase having a realistic or only a formal meaning, a particular change of
lighting or decor, a particular musical accompaniment, just as we accept as
 inevitable a particular part of a composition on a canvas or a sequence of
chords in a musical work. We must also take into account the fact that such
characters7 thoughts and feelings are completely unfettered and that they
react with complete freedom to any and all events, even though there is no
justification for any of this. Still, these elements would have to be suggested
on the same level of formal necessity as all the other elements of perfor­
mance on the stage mentioned above. Of course, the public would have to
be won over to this fantastic psychology, as with the square leg in the paint­
ing by Picasso. The public has already laughed at the deformed shapes on
the canvases of contemporary masters; now they will also have to laugh at the
thoughts and actions of characters on the stage, since for the time being
these cannot be completely explained. We believe that this problem can be
resolved in exactly the same way as it has been in contemporary painting and
u music: by understanding the essence of art in general and by growing ac-
£ customed to it. Just as those who have finally understood Pure Form in
3 painting can no longer even look at other kinds of painting and cannot help
£ understanding correctly paintings which they laughed at before as incom-
£ prehensible, so those who become used to the theater we are proposing will
t not be able to stand any of the productions of today, whether realistic or
^ heavily symbolic. As far as painting is concerned, we have tested this matter
co more than once on people who were apparently incapable of understanding
Pure Form at the beginning, but who after receiving systematic "injections"
over a certain period of time reached a remarkably high level of perfection in
making truly expert judgments. There may be a certain amount of perversity
in all this, but why should we be afraid of purely artistic perversity? Of
course, perverseness in life is often a sad affair, but why should we apply
judgments which are reasonable in real life to the realm of art, with which
life has essentially so little in common. Artistic perversity (for example,
unbalanced masses in a pictorial composition, perversely tense movements
or clashing colors in a painting) is only a means, and not an end; therefore, it
cannot be immoral, because the goal which it enables us to attain—unity
within diversity in Pure Form—cannot be subjected to the criteria of good
and evil. It is somewhat different with the theater, because its elements are
beings who act; but we believe that in those new dimensions which we are
discussing even the most monstrous situations will be no less moral than
what is seen in the theater today.
Of course, even assuming that a certain segment of the public interested
in serious artistic experiences will come to demand plays written in the style
described above, such plays would still have to result from a genuine creative
necessity felt by an author writing for the stage. If such a work were only a
kind of schematic nonsense, devised in cold blood, artificially, without real
need, it would probably arouse nothing but laughter, like those paintings
with a bizarre form of subject matter which are created by those who do not
suffer from a real "insatiable pursuit of new forms," but who manufacture
them for commercial reasons or pour epater les bourgeois. Just as the birth of
a new form, pure and abstract, without a direct religious basis, took place
only through deforming our vision of the external world, so the birth of Pure
Form in the theater is also possible only through deforming human psychol­
ogy and action.
We can imagine such a play as having complete freedom with respect to
absolutely everything from the point of view of real life, and yet being extra­
ordinarily closely knit and highly wrought in the way the action is tied
together. The task would be to fill several hours on the stage with a perfor­
mance possessing its own internal, formal logic, independent of anything in
"real life." An invented, not created, example of such a work can only make
our theory appear ridiculous, and, from a certain point of view, even absurd
(for some, even infuriating or, to put it bluntly, idiotic), but let us try.
Three characters dressed in red come onstage and bow to no one in
particular. One of them recites a poem (it should create a feeling of urgent .8
necessity at this very moment). A kindly old man enters leading a cat on a %
string. So far everything has taken place against a background of a black j£
screen. The screen draws apart, and an Italian landscape becomes visible. ^
Organ music is heard. The old man talks with the other characters, and what ♦
they say should be in keeping with what has gone before. A glass falls off the
table. All of them fall on their knees and weep. The old man changes from a <fo
kindly man into a ferocious "butcher" and murders a little girl who has just
crawled in from the left. At this very moment a handsome young man runs in
and thanks the old man for murdering the girl, at which point the characters
in red sing and dance. Then the young man weeps over the body of the little
girl and says very amusing things, whereupon the old man becomes once
again kindly and good-natured and laughs to himself in a corner, uttering
sublime and limpid phrases. The choice of costumes is completely open:
period or fantastic—there may be music during some parts of the perfor­
mance. In other words, an insane asylum? Or rather a madman's brain on
the stage? Perhaps so, but we maintain that, if the play is seriously written and
appropriately produced, this method can create works of previously unsus-
pected beauty; whether it be drama, tragedy, farce, or the grotesque, all in a
uniform style and unlike anything which previously existed.
On leaving the theater, the spectator ought to have the feeling that he has
just awakened from some strange dream, in which even the most ordinary
things had a strange, unfathomable charm, characteristic of dream reveries,
and unlike anything else in the world. Nowadays the spectator leaves the
theater with a bad taste in his mouth, or he is shaken by the purely biological
horror or sublimity of life, or he is furious that he has been fooled by a whole
series of tricks. For all its variety, the contemporary theater almost never gives
us the other world, other not in the sense of being fantastic, but truly that
other world which brings to us an understanding of purely formal beauty.
Occasionally something like this happens in the plays of writers of previous
 ages, plays which after all have their significance and greatness that we
certainly do not want to deny them with any fanatical fury. This element
which we are discussing can be found in some of the plays of Shakespeare
and Slowacki, for example, but never in its purest form, and, therefore,
despite their greatness, these plays do not create the desired effect.
The climax and the conclusion of the kind of play which we are propos­
ing may be created in a complete abstraction from what might be called that
debasing feeling of pure curiosity about real life, that tension in the pit of the
stomach, with which we watch a drama of real life, and which constitutes
precisely the one and only appeal of plays today. Of course we would have to
break this bad habit, so that in a world with which, on the realistic level, we
have no contact, we could experience a metaphysical drama similar to the
one which takes place among the notes of a symphony or sonata and only
u among them, so that the denouement would not be an event of concern to
£ us as part of real life, but only as something comprehensible as the inevitable
- conclusion of the purely formal complications of sound patterns, decorative or
£ psychological, free from the causality found in real life.
£ The criticism of absolute freedom made against contemporary artists and
♦ their works by people who do not understand art can also be applied here.
^ For example, why three characters, not five? Why dressed in red, not green?
co Of course, we cannot prove the necessity for that number and color, but it
should appear inevitable insofar as each element is a necessary part of the
work of art once it has been created; while we are watching the play unfold,
we ought not to be able to think of any other possible internal interrelation­
ships. And we maintain that, if the work is to be created with complete
artistic sincerity, it will have to compel the spectators to accept it as inevita­
ble. It is certainly much more difficult with the theater than with other arts,
because, as a certain expert on the theater has asserted, the crowd as it
watches and listens is an essential part of the performance itself, and more­
over the play has to be a box-office success. But we believe that sooner or
later the theater must embark upon the "insatiable pursuit of new forms,"
which it has avoided up until now, and it is to be hoped that extraordinary
works, within the dimensions of Pure Form, still remain to be created, and
that there will not simply be more "renaissance" and "purification" or repeti­
tion ad nauseam of the old repertoire which really has nothing at all to say to
anybody.
We must unleash the slumbering Beast and see what it can do. And if it
runs mad, there will always be time enough to shoot it before it is too late.
 0>l
q
d
I French Surrealism

r i oger Vitrac, poet and playwright, was born on November 17,

1899, in Pinsac, France. He was one of the original signers of the
First Surrealist Manifesto (1924), but along with Antonin Artaud
he was later expelled from official Surrealist circles because of his
pursuit of commercial theater opportunities for his work. In 1926, he
founded the Theatre Alfred-Jarry with Artaud and Robert Aron, and
there he produced his first two full-length plays, The Mysteries of Love
(written in 1924 and first produced in 1927) and Victor, or The Children
Take Over (1928), which combine farce and fantasy with the darker
sensibility of tragedy. Antonin Artaud directed the original productions
of both dramas. The Mysteries of Love was one of the first plays to use the
Surrealist technique of automatic writing, as a pair of lovers continually change
their relationship and interact with other characters whose identities shift fre­
quently; as in Vitrac's later plays, greater emphasis is placed here on the sugges­
tive sounds of words than on their literal meaning. Victor created a scandal and
ran for only three performances, although it was successfully revived in 1962 by
Jean Anouilh. In this work Vitrac satirizes the follies of society through a world of
fantasy in which a seven-foot-tall, nine-year-old child speaks and acts like an adult
and dies of a heart attack. Vitrac's absurdist vision and flights of imagination make
him an important predecessor to the Theater of the Absurd, his influence being
particularly evident in the works of Eugene lonesco. The only person associated
with Surrealism who ever sought to make a career for himself as a dramatist-
seeking consolation in absinthe meanwhile—Vitrac died on January 22, 1952,
in Paris.
Roger Vitrac and The Mysteries of Love
n
r ^ ^ M ' ^30 appeared a brochure called Le theatre Alfred Jarry et I'hos-
Is^J | tilite publique. It is almost certain that this document, generally
n^v» i ^ k attributed to Antonin Artaud, was written by Roger Vitrac. For
this reason, the statement it contains on Les mysteres de I'amour is
D^^ especially interesting to us, particularly since—despite Vitrac's recent
quarrel with Breton's group—it reflects no inclination to uproot the play from
the context to which it belongs: "An ironical work which renders concrete on
stage the disquiet, double solitude, dissembled criminal thoughts, and eroticism
of lovers. For the first time, a real dream was realized in the theater."
The operative words here are "real dream," "renders concrete," and "real­
ized in the theater." Les mysteres de I'amour illustrates its author's viewpoint
on life by making audible human responses usually not articulated, and by act­
ing out subconscious relationships not always of necessity rationally explicable.
In putting his characters' fantasies on stage, without troubling to distinguish
dream from reality and nightmare from diurnal activity, Vitrac proceeds much
further than in his one-act Entree libre (1922). He now locates drama in con­
frontations precipitated by desire or fear, longing or revulsion, where dialogue
delivers words normally unvoiced, so that his characters can "live as we dream"
and "dream as we live," as Vitrac put it in his note to the 1948 Gallimard edi­
tion of his plays. Les mysteres de I'amour invites us into the realm where Sur­
realism reigns and where we come to understand what Breton meant
when he spoke in his Nadja of "descending truly into the lowest depths of the
mind, where it is no longer a matter of night falling or rising again (is this then
daylight?)."
Like the ready-made phrases conventionally employed to transmit the condi­
tioned reflex of familiar emotional response, the banalities of polite conversa­
tion go by the board. They succumb in Vitrac's play to explosive language and
gesture that revitalize human attitudes by releasing them from habit and stereo­
typed courtesy. In Les mysteres de I'amour the playwright wants to revitalize the
conventions of courtship, love, and marriage, to undermine the mythology of
romance—through language and action, by dream and by vision—so that it is no
longer possible to take it or them for granted. To achieve this aim, Vitrac jux­
taposes unlike elements throughout the play: reality against dream, chaos against
order, the mundane against the fantastic, the modes of Surrealism against those
of traditional or well-made drama.
The very structure of Les mysteres de I'amour exemplifies these juxtaposi­
tions: although it consists of a clearly defined prologue and three acts, with a
prosaic story—the courtship, marriage, unhappiness, separation, and reconcilia­
tion of a young couple—continuing through the first scene of each act, oneiric
elements insistently intervene in the form of Lea's dreams and Patrice's visions.
To confound reality and dream still further, and to convey a sense of disjunction

Excerpted from J. H. Matthews, Theatre in Dada and Surrealism (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Univer­
sity Press, 1974), 119-27. By permission of the publisher.
that denies rationally simplified correspondences or oppositions between dream
and reality, the play's scene divisions—"tableaux"—are numbered consecutively,
one to five, ignoring the work's three-act division entirely. Moreover, scenes that
take place between two people, with minimal stage directions, on sets that are
essentially bare, alternate with elaborately staged scenes filled with impossibly
grotesque events, objects, and characters.
Following a brief prologue, showing Patrice tracing lines in the mud of a
public square after a rainstorm, the first tableau begins. It takes place in a stage-
box, opening while the house lights are still on. Throughout this part of the
drama Patrice and Lea [Patrick and Leah] occupy an intermediary position be­
tween the public and the stage where the spectator anticipated seeing the drama
enacted, when he took his seat. Action has been displaced, brought forward, and
is now under way closer than he expected. If without difficulty he can identify a g
stock situation, when he sees Patrice kneeling at Lea's feet and saying, "Accept .j2
these flowers," no theatrical precedent exists to reassure him before the gesture g
accompanying these words: Patrice slapping Lea's face. The young woman calls 3
for her mother, not to complain, but to whisper the good news—"Mama! if you ^
only knew, Patrice loves me." Patrice, meanwhile, has announced that he is going g
for a walk by the seaside and has sat down facing the audience. Within a few £
moments he is directing offensive remarks at members of the public. t
Patrice's conduct at this point sets a precedent to be followed quite often as &
the drama unfolds. In this play, where action begins in a stage-box, moving up co
only later t o t h e stage, t h e barrier separating t h e public f r o m t h e spectacle
frequently tumbles. T h e spectator finds himself denied t h e comfortable feeling
of distance that is, he used t o believe, an invariable condition of watching events
enacted beyond t h e safety z o n e o f t h e footlights. Patrice confides in t h e au­
dience, "Lea loves me," delivering this aside at t h e t o p o f his voice. A t his urging,
Lea makes a similar confession, shouting, "I love Patrice. O h ! I love his guts. O h ! I
love this buffoon. O h ! I love this buffoon. F r o m all aspects, f r o m every seamy
side, in all his shapes. L o o k at t h e m , Patrice. Listen t o t h e m . H a ! ha! ha!" A voice
f r o m o u t f r o n t expresses a sense o f outrage in which every m e m b e r o f t h e
audience shares t o some extent: " B u t why! Merciful heaven! W h y ? Is t h e r e
something w r o n g w i t h you?" As o t h e r spectators begin t o intervene, their cries
are punctuated by revolver shots, before t h e lights at last go d o w n and silence is
restored, temporarily.
Nothing, so far, marks a significant departure in Les mysteres de I'amour from
effects tried out by Breton and Soupault in S'il vous plait. Very soon, however, the
concept of theatrical dialogue is broadened. When someone in the audience
declares aggressively, "Mr. Patrice, you are a criminal," Patrice responds. Before
long, Vitrac is questioning the fundamental convention of dramatic presentation
when he allows his hero to say, "They are waving at us," and permits Patrice and
Lea to wave back in friendly fashion. Involving his public directly, the playwright
takes a significant step. He deliberately brings the "dream" onstage face to face
with the "reality" in the auditorium, or, as Breton puts it in Nadja, "that which is
very summarily opposed" to dream "under the name of reality." Practicing prov­
ocation as he elects to do, Vitrac increases the public's feeling of disorientation
 before the dislocated conversations of Patrice and Lea, in which at times neither
seems to hear what the other is saying. In short, he draws his audience into the
action so as to make them more keenly aware of being left out of things.
Although the lights have come on again, revealing that action is still confined
to the stage-box, Lea behaves as if in her own dining room when warning Patrice
and a rival, Dovic, to watch out for the furniture as they roll on the floor in a
brutal fight. A few minutes later, she speaks to Patrice of being in their bedroom.
Only now do the house lights go out and the footlights come up. There follows a
brief illogical sequence involving an old and a young man whom we never see
again, which could well have been modeled on the last act of S'il vous plcfii
u Understandably, a few spectators express disapproval. The theater manager
J comes on stage to announce that the play is over. Unfortunately, we are in-
m formed, the author, a Mr. Theophile Mouchet, has just killed himself. When the
tt manager has gone off, someone out front calls for the author:
D
w
The curtain rises. The author appears. He is in shirt sleeves. His face and
U clothes are covered with blood. He is roaring with laughter. He is laughing with all
2 his might and holding his sides.
* The two curtains fall suddenly.
^ To leave the theater at this point, as one seems to have been invited to do,
o means missing the second tableau. This takes place on a stage divided into three
co sets. On the Quai des Grands-Augustins in Paris, Patrice is seen as a lieutenant of
Dragoons. Lea is carrying a doll. She says it is his child, but Patrice drops the baby
in the Seine anyway. In his bedroom Lloyd George (played by Dovic, he looks like
a certain British prime minister) lifts the sheets on a bed, showing Lea, who
recognizes it with horror, the head of a little girl resting on the pillow. When he
pulls the sheets right back to uncover the child, "It is naturally only a bust of flesh
sawn off at shoulder level." In the presence of Lea and Patrice, Lloyd George
proceeds to demonstrate his skill by sawing off the head of a young boy he has
carried in under his arm: "That's quite a job, or I'm no judge."
This whole tableau is situated in a twilight zone where horror and laughter
commingle—Vitrac, we notice, specifies that the flesh bust's role is a mute one—
and where the dead and the living converse. Lea's mother and her late father join
her and Lloyd George for dinner, while, upon the advice of Lloyd George, their
daughter places Patrice's knees under the flesh bust to conceal that a crime has
taken place. Patrice's head is now at liberty to withdraw to the top of a mirror-
wardrobe from which it observes the domestic scene. To her dead father's
annoyance, Lea finds the antics of Patrice's head so distracting that she finally has
to cover it with a sheet of newspaper. "You'll really have to take an interest in my
stories," Mr. Morin comments petulantly, after being interrupted while telling
one that begins quite promisingly: "Well, that night the sea was bad. We were
catching sardines by the netful. But the darkness, the thunder, the lightning, and
especially the niggers in the stokehold, not to mention the leopard . . ." Lloyd
George goes off with him in the direction of the Quai des Grands-Augustins,
agreeing that Lea is mad. Left alone, Lea and Madame Morin walk over to the
bed, from which slowly rise "two arms like two dead branches, but on which two
enormous very white hands have blossomed." In spite of her mother's warning
("Oh! my child! Don't go near. She has leprosy"), Lea kneels by the bed, recog­
nizes the victim's resemblance to herself, and concludes, "You really must agree
that one doesn't die of love."
One finds it easiest perhaps to accept the second tableau as a nightmare
dreamed by Lea. She has the last word, and we see her lying in bed as the next
tableau opens the second act. But Vitrac, we notice, does not tell us this is the
case, in the way that he took care to do when including dreams in Entree fibre. He
has given up establishing boundaries between the true and the false, the fanciful
and the factual because, apparently, such boundaries no longer have any validity
in his estimation. This would explain why, after letting us see cotton wool take
fire in Lloyd George's bedroom when Patrice's head passed close by in a dream
sequence, now, in the real world of a conventionally decorated hotel room, E
Vitrac shows us Lea's hands burning Patrice's lips as he kisses them, and smoking =-g
as she goes over to the washbasin to plunge them into water. Neither of the £
lovers, we observe, finds this phenomenon any more difficult to accept than jj
Lea's mother and dead father found events in the second tableau. -g
A butcher arrives to collect a parcel tied with string, left for him on the §
kitchen table. He grumbles that it is not worth his while to call again for so little: "■
"Even if you were to give me the skin with the nails and hair, I'd not give you a ^
penny more," he declares. Lea's evasiveness under Patrice's questions about this ^
man and the reasons for his visit adds to the mystery pervading Vitrac's drama, co
just as t h e butcher's complaint contributes t o t h e heavy atmosphere o f m o n ­
strous violence in Les mysteres de I'amour. T h e third tableau may provide less
striking visual manifestations o f mystery than w h e n Lloyd G e o r g e was o n stage,
but t h e behavior of Patrice and Lea is no less disturbing, in its way. Lea examining
sights visible in Patrice's right eye, Patrice's account o f a cryptic conversation
w i t h a neighbor in the middle of t h e night, t h e slaps he gives Lea, and, above all,
t h e f r e e d o m granted w o r d s (the basic elements o f conversation) in t h e remarks
he makes t o her—all this points t o an emancipation o f dramatic f o r m t o which
Vitrac is evidently dedicated. Meanwhile, s u m m o n e d by Patrice, Dovic, and
M a d a m e M o r i n while Lea is off stage (giving birth t o a son), t h e a u t h o r has n o
helpful answer t o give t o Patrice's questions a b o u t h o w this play is t o end:
"Listen, my boy, your case interests m e hardly at all. It hardly interests t h e public,
either." T h e m o s t t h e a u t h o r will admit is t h a t "in this case, I'd behave like y o u .
But, in this case, p e r m i t m e t o withdraw." His brief visit has explained nothing,
least of all Patrice's violent attack w i t h a chair, which leaves Dovic and M a d a m e
M o r i n stretched o u t on t h e f l o o r and t h e stage spattered w i t h blood. Patrice's
only excuse is t h e o n e he gives Lea: "Yes, that's the way it is. I'm left alone and
you see w h a t happens."
Even w h e n he is n o t alone, however, Patrice is s o m e w h a t unpredictable.
A t t e m p t i n g t o set his son o n a pedestal over t h e fireplace, he allows t h e child t o
fall f r o m his perch and kill himself. Evidencing a bewildering jumble of emotional
responses, Lea exclaims, "Ha! Ha! H a ! . . . Murder! Murder! He over there, my
lover, my Papa, my Papa, my Patrice, he's killed my Guigui, my Guigui, my Guillo-
tin. (Changing her tone.) Incidentally, you could have given him another name.
 Infanticide." This final exclamation does not prevent her, of course, from telling a
policeman who comes to investigate that the child caught measles when it fell.
The fourth tableau shows us Patrice as Mussolini and Madame Morin as a
stranger in mourning. Madame Morin disappears as soon as she has entrusted
her two dogs and child to someone she does not know—Lea, who finds the little
boy looks like "the one I have at home, like my Patrice." Unable to get rid of the
child, she gives us a chance to observe that, as she remarks, "A love is always a
big nuisance." But this whole sequence, which lacks the inventiveness of the
Lloyd George interlude, brings us nothing new. It was omitted from Artaud's
1927 production of Les mysteres de I'amour. Also omitted, more surprisingly, was
^ the fifth tableau, which constitutes the whole of the third and final act.
J As the fifth tableau begins, Lea is being brought down by hotel elevator,
m between two policemen, her hands bloody, her white dress in shreds. We learn
tt that she has broken the mirror-wardrobe, demolished the dressing table, set fire
j| to the drapes in her room, and strangled the goldfish. She has done all this, it
Z appears, because Patrice did not keep a few impractical promises, like taking her
2 to the North Pole and giving her stars of his own fabrication. In the vestibule Lea
JJj demonstrates strange faculties, giving testimony to the magic power of words.
"■ She announces that a door will open of its own accord; it does so. She tells the
^ policemen that they are going to say the word "light"; they do so in unison. As is
CQ the case with a similar prediction in Breton's Nadja, the door's obedience may
co seem a coincidence. Meanwhile the policemen's willingness to humor a prisoner
they think mad leads them to repeat readily enough the words "light" and
"night," which she forecasts. But neither coincidence nor indulgence explains
how Lea succeeds in summoning Patrice merely by pronouncing his name.
Patrice's arrival frightens the policemen off, literally freeing Lea and introduc­
ing an interlude involving several children. Now the conversation takes the
direction followed later in "Le dialogue en 1928" and "Le dialogue en 1934":

FIRST C H I L D
Mr. Patrice, what do you bring in your shoes?
PATRICE
Elephants under the palm trees.
SECOND CHILD
And what about that lion looking at us?
PATRICE
That, my child, is liberty.
THIRD CHILD
And what about the automobile, is it for us?
PATRICE
It is unbreakable and deep.
FIRST C H I L D
Are you giving us some new perfume?
PATRICE
Take these birds.
T h e first child is t h e son of t h e bakery's horse, while t h e second is t h e offspring
of his mother's sewing machine. T h e third, father o f a colonel in t h e Zouaves,
shoots t h e o t h e r t w o , then remarks t o Patrice, " W h a t d o you expect, Papa, I
was t h e father of a colonel of Zouaves by accident, but I will always be t h e son o f
love."
A f t e r listening t o all this, t h e spectator may feel entitled t o ask, as Patrice
n o w does, " W h a t is going t o b e c o m e o f m e in this w h o l e business?" W h a t e v e r
answer suggests itself, it is clear that nothing is t o be gained by looking t o Patrice
f o r elucidation o f Les mysteres de I'amour. H e tells a strange tale about t h e
harvesting o f factory smokestacks. T h e n he tries t o shoot t h e a u t h o r w i t h a
revolver handed him by t h e latter, w h o c o m m e n t s , "Useless, my dear Patrice!
Your bullets don't penetrate. A n d that's a pity!" W h e n Patrice tries t o r e t u r n t h e
revolver because it is o f no use t o him, t h e author insists o n his retaining it: "If E
you don't w a n t t o d o this for m e , do it in t h e interest of t h e drama you are play- =g
ing. I assure you that a last revolver shot is indispensable t o t h e denouement." £
Soon after presenting Lea w i t h a revolver of her o w n , t h e author leaves, first JJ
whispering t o Patrice, " A bit of g o o d advice, my friend, use t h e piece. Your future -g
depends o n it." Has he told t h e truth? W e are free t o make up o u r o w n minds S
about this, since t h e play comes t o a close before Patrice has t h e chance t o use "■
his w e a p o n . During his final discussion w i t h her, Lea fires h e r revolver and he t
cries, just before t h e curtain falls, " W h a t have you d o n e , Lea? W h a t have you w

done? You have just killed a spectator." co

A bullet p r o n o u n c e d harmless during an anti-Pirandellian conversation b e ­
t w e e n Patrice and t h e author, o n stage, b e c o m e s lethal w h e n it passes t h e
footlights o n its w a y into t h e audience. Vitrac's parting shot is n o t pointlessly
confusing, a m e r e gesture o f defiance. Rather, it brings into focus t h e m o r a l
implications o f his d r a m a o f f r u s t r a t e d love, w h i l e showing t h a t t h e spectator's
passive r o l e in t h e t h e a t e r is n o g u a r a n t e e o f safety w h e r e d r e a m and reality
cannot be k e p t apart. By t h e t i m e Les mysteres de I'amour is over, t h e public has
been m a d e t o realize t h a t , in t h e d r e a m played o u t b e f o r e t h e m , verisimilitude
has b e e n sacrificed t o t h e release o f an e m o t i o n a l e x p e r i e n c e t h a t makes its
effect felt in t h e so-called real w o r l d . By t h e e f f o r t he brings t o dispelling t h e
illusion t h a t his d r e a m is t o be t r e a t e d as m e r e a m u s e m e n t , R o g e r V i t r a c p r e ­
pares t h e w a y in Les mysteres de I'amour f o r Victor, ou Les enfants au pouvoir ( 1 9 2 8 ) .
That Lloyd George and Mussolini form part of the cast is further evidence that
Vitrac wants to dispel the illusion that his violent dream should be treated as
mere amusement. For these two characters point the way, respectively, back to
the mechanized carnage of World War I (Lloyd George was British prime minis­
ter from 1916 to 1922) and forward to the atomic holocaust as well as the ethnic
genocide of World War II (Mussolini ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943). In the second
tableau of Les mysteres de I'amour, however, Lloyd George performs acts of grue­
some butchery—sawing off heads, trying to dispose of the fragments of corpses—
in a more or less domestic setting, in the company of Lea and Patrice. And in the
fourth tableau Mussolini makes the argument that Lea should share her life with
"a man, a child, and dogs"—in other words, with a family, the Fascist symbol for
which, insidiously, was the fascio (a tightly wound bundle or close-knit group).
 Thus does Vitrac himself implicitly make the argument that the personal is
the political, and he does so in appositely dreamlike fashion: that is, where past,
present, and future can merge; where the actual and the potential are inextrica­
bly interwoven; where antithetical images of eroticism and death, laughter and
lamentation, words and weaponry, parenthood and infanticide, homicide and
suicide, authorship and autocracy can be freely juxtaposed; and where the other­
wise invisible connections between illusion and reality, thought and act, inner life
and exterior landscape can be made frighteningly tangible. As in the first tableau,
where Patrice's reduction of Lea to the parts of her body ("All these con­
structions of chalk, wax, wood, bone, and flesh should be incinerated"), even to
a a discarded fishhead, is thematically related to Lloyd George's, and later Mus-
J solinPs, literal reduction of the human body to inanimate object, ash, or sheer
UJ waste. The mysteries of love, indeed.
ec
D
!£ Select Bibliography on Vitrac
2 Auslander, Philip. "Surrealism in the Theatre: The Plays of Roger Vitrac." Theatre Journal
£ 32 (Oct. 1980): 357-69.
u. Levitt, Annette S. "Roger Vitrac and the Drama of Surrealism." In Aeolian Harps: Essays in
♦ Literature in Honor of Maurice Browning Carter, ed. Donna G. Fricke and Douglas C.
* Fricke. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press, 1976. 247-
I 72.
. "The Domestic Tragedies of Roger Vitrac." Modern Drama 30.4 (Dec. 1987): 514-
27.

See also Balakian, Surrealism; Benedikt and Wellwarth, Modern French Theatre; Bigsby;
Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd; Hedges; Melzer; Nadeau; Sandrow; and Zinder in
the Comprehensive Bibliography.
 T h e Mysteries of Love
A Surrealist Drama

Roger Vitrac
TO SUZANNE

—The women who love us

renew the true Sabbath.

—Alfred Jarry
(L'amour absolu)

CHARACTERS

PATRICK,twenty-three years of age

LEAH, twenty-one years of age
MRS. MORIN, Leah's mother
FIRST FRIEND OF PATRICK
SECOND FRIEND OF PATRICK
THIRD FRIEND OF PATRICK
DOVIC (diminutive of Ludovic), thirty years old
THE NEIGHBORS
THE VIRGIN (not a speaking part)
THE YOUNG MAN, an actor
THE OLD MAN, an actor
THE THEATER MANAGER
THEOPHILE MOUCHET, author of the drama
THE LIEUTENANT OF DRAGOONS (role taken by Patrick)
LLOYD GEORGE (role taken by Dovic)
THE CHILD OF RED AND YELLOW CLOTH (not a speaking part)
THE CHILD SAWED OFF AT THE SHOULDERS (not a speaking part)

Reprinted from Modem French Theatre: The Avant-Garde, Dada, and Surrealism; An Anthology
of Plays, ed. Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth; trans. Ralph J. Gladstone (New York:
Dutton, 1964), 227-67.
 THE WOMAN IN BLACK (role taken by Mrs. Morin)
THE MAN WITH A MILITARY HAIRCUT AND CHECKERED TROUSERS: Mr. M o r i n
THE BUTCHER
THE AUTHOR
GUILLOTIN, son of Patrick and Leah (not a speaking part)
A WHITE FOX TERRIER
A GRAY BULLDOG
MUSSOLINI (role taken by Patrick)
THE CONDUCTOR
THE CHAMBERMAID
TWO COOKS (not speaking parts)
A MAN IN EVENING DRESS
THE WOMAN WHO SELLS YARD GOODS
< SEVERAL GHOSTS (not speaking parts)
h HOTEL LODGERS
>
TWO POLICEMEN
♦ THE HOTEL MANAGER
CO THREE CHILDREN
A SPECTATOR (not a speaking part)

PROLOGUE

The stage represents a public square. The weather is cloudy. It has been rain-
ing. On the wall of a house is painted the portrait below. The mouth is black.
The cheeks are red like lips. The eyes are pale.
As the curtain rises, Patrick, crouching, is tracing sinuous lines in the mud with
a stick. A Policeman enters.
THE POLICEMAN: You there! What are you doing?
PATRICK: As you see, sir, I am just finishing off her hair.
He leaves, tracing a sinuous line.
The curtain slowly falls.
END OF THE PROLOGUE

ACT I
FIRST TABLEAU

A box overhanging the stage. The proscenium lights are out. The house lights,
a chandelier above the audience, are lighted. To the right and left: black
draperies. Framing the box: white lace, in festoons.
As the curtain rises, Leah is seated. Patrick is at her knees.
PATRICK: For heaven's sake! Confess, Leah.
LEAH: You're right.
PATRICK: Aren't I, Leah? Now at last you're being reasonable. Confess it,
then. Believe me, sooner or later, you would have to. Don't be obstinate
like a child. You don't want to make me angry, do you?
LEAH: Patrick! What are you doing?
PATRICK (still kneeling): Why, nothing, Leah, nothing. You can see: I'm out
for a walk. Ah! But will you confess now?
LEAH: No.
PATRICK: Then do accept these few flowers. (He slaps her.)
LEAH (laughing): Mama, Mama, Mama! §
PATRICK: (cupping his hands as a megaphone): Mrs. Morin! Mrs Morin! *§■
Enter Mrs. Morin. 8
MRS. MORIN: Excuse me, Madame, Sir, if I am disturbing you. §
X

LEAH: Oh, Mother!

PATRICK: I'm in the way, aren't I? f
MRS. MORIN: What! You young snake! Tell me right off to go away. (To Leah.) ♦
He's as cool as a coconut. *
PATRICK (holding out a chair to her): As for me, I'm going to take a stroll down co
by the waterside. (He sits down and looks at the audience.)
LEAH (softly): Mother! If you only knew how Patrick loves me.
PATRICK (shouting): Look out! You're going to fall.
MRS. MORIN: Why, that's fine, my dear.
PATRICK (still shouting): Is it you, the ox?
MRS. MORIN: And you, do you love him?
LEAH: Why, naturally.
PATRICK (still shouting): Go blow that lobster your father's nose, Girlie!
MRS. MORIN: Perhaps he will grow up, dear. But as for me, I have too much to
do with my dogs. Six little dogs, Leah!
LEAH: Now you're getting on my nerves. Is it my fault if Old Man Morin
wouldn't let me take my first communion? How spiteful!
MRS. MORIN: You will nevertheless have to decide.
LEAH: I don't dare.
PATRICK: Aha! Now it's the goat!
MRS. MORIN: Do you want me to speak for you?
LEAH: Pretty smart; you'll take him from me.
MRS. MORIN: Take that.
She slaps her, then goes off.
LEAH (crying): Patrick! Patrick! Patrick!
 PATRICK: Devil take animals and the dining room.
LEAH: You are alone in the world, Patrick.
PATRICK: Oh, you! Have respect for those who are close to me!
LEAH: Ah! I hear you quite well now. Therefore I'll tell you everything.
PATRICK: Well, well, well.. .
LEAH: It's up to you to question me.
PATRICK: That doesn't matter; Mrs. Morin, you certainly do have a thick
navel.
LEAH: Is that all? You're cruel!
PATRICK: I like that! That's a good one. What do you mean, Leah?
LEAH: I confess.
PATRICK: Ah! A thousand thanks, Leah. Thank you, thank you a thousand
times.
u Enter Patrick's three friends.
* FIRST FRIEND: I'm happy, you know. (They shake hands.)
> PATRICK: Thanks a lot.
t SECOND FRIEND: Pity. She was made for me. Must be made of wood, Patrick.
oo PATRICK: Thanks a lot. (They shake hands.)
w
THIRD FRIEND: Ah! The children's children. Save one for me.
PATRICK: Thanks, and you?
The three friends go off.
I'll have the necktie. The circular saw-toothed necktie. And I'll make a
bridge out of my blood, Leah.
LEAH: You are good.
PATRICK: Do you see, for a moment I took the lamb's part. It was bleating.
Baa . . . Baa . . . Baa . . . The grass was getting off the train. It was putting
on airs. The lamb pissed all over it. That's what it's like to be young.
(Pause.) Oh, but pardon me! You confessed. Didn't you confess?
LEAH: Yes. But to what?
PATRICK: That's true, to what?
LEAH: Will you wait for me a moment? (She goes off and returns immediately
with a basket filled with small dogs.) My mother is dogging you this basket
for the way.
PATRICK: Thanks. (He throws both dogs and basket into the audience.) Be­
cause I, you know, and religion . . . (A pause. Gesticulating.) What
beautiful sunshine! What beautiful sunlight! (Pause.) Really, Leah? May
I die of it on the spot! Oh! My friends.
Enter the three friends.
(Stillgesticulating.) Will you leave, all you others?
The three friends leave.
Do you see, Leah, I'm happy. I don't need anything else. I'm stifling. It's
 the oysters. Do you hear? {Shouting.) It's the oysters. But what is the
lemon doing? Ah, Leah, will you hide that leg, that knee! Will you hide
that thigh! {Screaming.) Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! I will shout it out. I will shout
it out from the rooftops, from the stars, from above the stars! {Taking the
audience into his confidence.) Leah loves me, Leah loves me, Leah loves
me. She confessed it. She loves me. {To Leah.) It's your turn now. Shout
it out, Leah. Go on my little Leah, my Lele, my Leah-Leah. Shout it out,
now, shout it, my Leahleahleah.
LEAH {to the audience): I love Patrick. Oh! I love his guts. Oh! I love the
clown. I love the clown. From every viewpoint, from every seam, from
every form. Look at them, Patrick. Listen to them. Oh! Oh! Oh! . . . {She
burst into laughter.)
A VOICE {in the audience): But why? Merciful heavens! Why? Are you both
ill?
LEAH: Madly.
THE VOICE: Are you both mad?
PATRICK: Madly.
A VOICE {in the audience): Do you hear them, Martine?
A shot.
ANOTHER VOICE: D O you hear them, Marie?
A shot.
ANOTHER VOICE: D O you hear them, Julie?
A shot.
ANOTHER VOICE: Do you hear them, Theresa?
A shot.
ANOTHER VOICE: Do you hear them, Michelle?
A shot.
ANOTHER VOICE: Do you hear them, Esther?
A shot.
SEVERAL VOICES: Kill me! Kill him! Kill her! Mercy! Pardon! The Child!
Tumulty cries, shots. Suddenly the house lights go off. Instant silence. The
box alone is half-lighted.
PATRICK: Listen. A stroll in the mountains. The spruce trees are frozen. Ah,
youth! Chandeliers under ice. And then the swamps! The swamps? So
many beds with childless women. And suddenly there's the sparrow-
hawk. It's he. He is dead, I tell you. He falls like a flashing of lightning.
There are no wings on either side of his naked body on the ground.
There are two eyes. Isn't it so, Leah?
LEAH: It isn't Leah.
PATRICK: And yet it is she. The rest of the body, you'll say? Oh! See! She flies
an ensign of blood. Do as she does, ladies. Hold onto your skin while
removing your black mourning furs. Let it remain attached. You, Leah,
 above all, don't do it. Don't do it here. Your muscles would get cold and
your nerves would become consumed. Oh, it's just that I don't allow
myself to be surprised, that's all. Not me. Don't worry, my bed will smell
neither of fulminate nor of powder, the way it does here.
LEAH: What! It already smells like brains.
PATRICK: Some good advice. Throw some sound and sweep under the arm­
chairs. This mud is an infection.
LEAH: Stop it, Patrick.
PATRICK: Order, damn it all! Tidy things up a bit. The women, please, lay
them out on the right. The men standing on the left. And the children in
the middle, in the sauce.
LEAH: My big hero is right.
PATRICK: Shut up. And now, Commissioner, please chain all these fine
people up for me.
< A VOICE (in the audience): Mr. Patrick, you are a criminal.
H PATRICK I, sir? No, sir. Are you deaf? I love Leah. You should have shouted
>
out that you love Julie, Marie, Theresa, Michelle, or Esther, and Leah
4 would naturally have been among them. And I would experience a
Q voluptuous pleasure in my wrists.
00
LEAH: And I wouldn't have to sleep with phosphorus tonight.
PATRICK: You little bird-brain.
LEAH: Stop, Patrick.
PATRICK (very casually): My dear, there will be a lot of people here tonight.
LEAH: So much the better, so much the better.
PATRICK: They're all signaling to us.
Leah and Patrick make friendly gestures to the audience. The house lights
come on.
LEAH: And the face?
PATRICK: Come, now! You remind me of a slashing knife. A wound.
LEAH: Ah! That animal that pissed, how dear it is to your heart.
PATRICK: No, Leah. I swear it. It was right in the forehead. Besides, it's of no
importance.
LEAH: The face, Patrick?
PATRICK: Oh! Sirens! You all have it, you're all fishheaded.
LEAH: Be a little discreet. If you force me to it, I'll be stark naked.
PATRICK: How useless it all is. Only clothing interests me. An empty dress or
suit or shirt walking about. All these constructions of chalk, wax, wood,
bone, and flesh should be incinerated. A hat gliding along six feet above
the sidewalk, have you ever seen that?
LEAH: What shitabed notions! And help!
PATRICK: Leah! Leah!
LEAH: What's the matter?
PATRICK: Nothing to worry about. My plaster hurts.
LEAH: Your plaster?
PATRICK: My hollow space.
LEAH:So?
PATRICK: Oh! So you can take your place at the pump.
LEAH: Why, Patrick?
PATRICK: Why, to pump up the red, my dear child.
LEAH: Bladders and lanterns, my love?
PATRICK: Isn't that always the way with bearded women! The intelligence of
the extremities.
Pause.
Enter Dovic. Patrick looks at Leah dully. He is entirely indifferent to the
scene that is to follow.
DOVIC (to Leah): Absolutely, positively, no.
LEAH: What's all this fuss?
DOVIC: You jealous liar, that's it.
LEAH: And all a-tremble, and all a-sweat, and all in tears.
DOVIC: Now, which one did you want, the animal, machinery, or the child?
LEAH: But he was opening up my belly, that one.
DOVIC: You mean your noodle.
LEAH: With his beard.
DOVIC: Oh, no! No scandal here, right? I protest, Leah. (Slapping her.) I've
always loved you. (Pinching her.) I still love you. (Biting her.) Give me
credit for that? (Pulling her ears.) Did I have cold sweats? (Spitting in her
face.) I caressed your breasts and your cheeks. (Kicking her.) Everything I
had was yours. (Making as though to strangle her.) You left me. (Shaking
her violently.) Did I hold it against you? (Striking her with his fist.) I am
good-natured. (Throwing heron the ground.) I have already forgiven you.
(He drags her around the box by the hair.)
Patrick rises.
LEAH (presenting Dovic to him): You know, Patrick, Dovic is a real gentleman.
PATRICK: Who is this Dovic?
DOVIC: That's me, sir.
LEAH (whispering to Patrick): He has ants on the back of his head.
PATRICK: Very good. And what interests you in life, Mr. Dovic?
DOVIC: Love. Love really.
PATRICK: Funny idea, coming to call. For without doubt you are dining
with us?
 LEAH: Did I invite him?
DOVIC: I'm used to the stairs, and the key is always in the door.
PATRICK: Perfect. (To Leah.) Close the windows a n d set the table.
(To Dovic.) And love in what aspect?
DOVIC (pointing to Leah): See for yourself.
Without another word, Patrick and Dovic come to blows. They roll on the
ground and strike each other violently.
LEAH (following the combat): Look out for the statue. Lean over to the right
or you'll knock the armchair over. Now to the left. You're rolling into the
fireplace. Look out for the plants, Patrick! Dovic, your nose is bleeding,
you're getting spots on the tablecloth. T h e dishes are in pieces. O h , my
God! Bravo, both of you.
A doorbell rings.
Patrick, Dovic, stop it right now. Someone's ringing. G e t u p , Patrick! G e t
u u p , Dovic!
tL Enter a few neighbors. Patrick and Dovic get up. Dovic is bloody.
> PATRICK (to Dovic): G o away. (To the neighbors.) And you too.
♦ DOVIC (showing a place in the box): T h a t palm is mine.
w Exit Dovic and the neighbors shrugging their shoulders.
co LEAH: I've got a migraine.
PATRICK: Never mind. Look, what sunshine!
LEAH: Tell m e : You won't ask m e anything about my past life, Patrick?
PATRICK: N o .
Pause.
Enter a woman dressed in a long nightgown. Her face, hands, and feet are
blue.
PATRICK: Good day, M a d a m e .
LEAH: In our room? W h a t are you doing there, Patrick?
PATRICK: W h y not?
LEAH: Who's this tart?
PATRICK: She's the virgin, Leah; she's the virgin. Are you happy?
Exit the woman in the nightgown.
The three knocks, traditional to French stagecraft, are heard. The house
lights go off. The proscenium lights go on. The box is plunged into dark-
ness. For a few seconds the curtain is strangely shaken. With each shake,
the most diverse cries are uttered in the audience. Finally the curtain rises
slowly. The stage is white. On the backdrop appears this inscription:
ITS ALWAYS POSSIBLE
TO DIE
TWO HOURS ATA TIME
C I G A R E T T E S : SILK
From the left, enter a Young M a n in evening dress. From the right, an Old
M a n with his beard trailing on the ground. The Young M a n divests himself
 of his cane, his hat and his gloves, which he places on the floor of the stage.
The Old Man raises his arms heavenward, and smiles.
THE YOUNG MAN (pulling a bird out of his pocket): Dad, you have before you
one who is about to die.
THE OLD MAN: Then you will spread out my beard on the sheet. It needs to
dry out.
THE YOUNG MAN: Don't you ever wash it? Look how dirty it is!
THE OLD MAN: Ah! When I was a child, Justin, it was as white as milk.
The Young Man opens his hand. The bird flies off. Both go offstage to the
left, weeping.
The curtain falls abruptly. A shot is heard. A few protests arise in the
audience. The Theater Manager appears immediately.
o
THE THEATER MANAGER: Ladies and gentlemen, the play is over. The drama
which it has been our privilege to present to you is by Mr. Theophile c
Mouchet. Mr. Theophile Mouchet has just killed himself. I£
The Manager disappears. Stupor, then sudden and increasing laughter. 4)

A VOICE: Author! Author! £

♦
ALL THE AUDIENCE (in chorus): Author! Author! Author! ♦
The curtain rises again. The Author appears. He is in his shirtsleeves. His OT
face and clothing are covered with blood. He laughs. He laughs heartily. co
He laughs with all his might, holding his sides. Both curtains suddenly fall.

SECOND TABLEAU

The stage represents, on the left, the Quai des Grands-Augustins in Paris. To
the right, a bedroom. In the center stands a small cabin with a porthole
overlooking the Seine. In the background, in the space which should be oc-
cupied by the Palais de Justice, stands an advertising sign bearing this inscrip-
tion in large blue letters: Le Petit Parisien. On the parapet, booksellers7 stalls
affecting the shape of coffins. Above, red tugboat stacks. The bedroom has
closed windows, formed like narrow arches, the tops of which are lost in obscu-
rity; they are adorned with very white muslin curtains. In front of the fireplace
and a couple of yards from the entrance to the room stands a stove of the
u
salamandery variety. But it is from the fireplace that, from time to time, blue
flames emerge. The bed is entirely covered by the sheets. A table. Chairs. A
pedestal lamp with a green shade on the table. A glass-fronted sideboard is
filled with dishes. In a corner, some old newspapers. A package of medicated
cotton wool stands in front of the stove.

I
QUAI DES GRANDS-AUGUSTINS

Enter the Lieutenant of Dragoons and Leah, carrying in her arms a cloth doll,
half red, half yellow.
PATRICK (as the Lieutenant of Dragoons): I don't like people's children.
LEAH: Look at her, Patrick. She has my eyes, my nose, my mouth. They've
cut her hair like this. It's sad. Is she a little Chinese girl? I happen to be a
blonde. But you know that she's really yours.
She blows into a child's toy trumpet The doll weeps. Enter Lloyd George.
He looks like the former English prime minister.
LLOYD GEORGE: Psstt . . . Pstt . . . Pstt . . . Pstt . . .
PATRICK: Ah! What a terribly tragic conclusion.
He seizes the doll, deposits it in the river, and disappears. Lloyd George
goes into his room. Leah follows him.

II
LLOYD GEORGE'S ROOM

LEAH: I'm frightened, Dovic.

Lloyd George crosses the room, raises the bedsheets, and reveals to a hor-
rified Leah a little girls head resting on the pillow.
LEAH: Mr. Lloyd George—I recognize her!
With a sudden gesture, Lloyd George completely removes the sheets and
uncovers the child. Naturally, it is only a bust of flesh which has been
sawed off at the shoulders; the rest of the body has disappeared. Enter
Patrick as the Lieutenant of Dragoons. His cheeks are hollow and his eyes
deeply sunken. Leah rushes into the small cabin and begins to utter pierc-
ing shrieks, for the space of a few seconds. Lloyd George and Patrick
remain facing each other, petrified. Leah rejoins them.
(To Patrick.) Go on, go on, I can see you're not a party to these goings-on.
Patrick slips into the bed beside the girls bust.
LLOYD GEORGE (to Leah): Ah! Now let's see a sample of my savoir-faire.
He goes off stage to the right and returns immediately carrying a young
man under his arm. He deposits him on the table, and saws off his head.
During this operation, terrifying crashing sounds, and the sound of bells,
are heard.
(Carrying off the pieces.) There's a tidy bit of work, if I do say so myself.
Leah shrugs her shoulders. She bends over the bed and removes the little
girls eyes. They are as big as ostrich eggs.
LEAH: My eyes, Patrick! My eyes!
PATRICK (turning toward the wall): I don't want to see it. I don't want to see it.
Enter Lloyd George. He is carrying a black suitcase, which he holds out to
Leah.
LLOYD GEORGE: Here, Madame, are the miraculous remains of the well-
beloved.
Leah crosses the Quai des Grands-Augustins. She weeps and disappears.
Enter Mrs. Morin, in mourning; and the late Mr. Morin. He has a mili-
 tary haircut and wears checkered trousers. The lamp lights of itself All sit
at the table. Patrick alone remains lying in the bed. Lloyd George sets four
places. He brings numerous dishes: lobsters, chickens, dressed roasts, sher-
bets, pyramids of fruit. From time to time, he releases some birds. Leah
returns. She takes her place. All eat and gesticulate in silence. Mr. Morin
has removed his coat and is in his shirtsleeves. Mrs. Morin, her lips out-
rageously made up, a crepe hat on her head, remains motionless.
LLOYD GEORGE (to Leah): Go over and arrange the Young Officer of Dra­
goons' knees below the little girl's shoulders. No one must notice that the
child has been sawed off at the shoulders. The sheets, fallen in where the
thighs and legs ought to produce natural protuberances, might give away
the crime.
LEAH: That's true. (She rises and arranges the knees of the Young Officer of
Dragoons as Lloyd George has directed her. Then she returns to the table.
Mr. Morin and Mrs. Morin have been pretending not to see anything.)
LLOYD GEORGE (to Leah): Madame, kindly look at the sideboard.
Leah raises her eyes and sees Patrick's head looking at her from on top of
the sideboard.
(Lloyd George rises, takes Leah by the arm, pulls her to the front of the
stage, and says to her): How hard it's raining! I won't repeat it again. You
are my unwilling accomplice, and if you talk, you will be handed over to
the police. Besides, we must put an end to this. I propose the river.
LEAH: Decidedly, this is becoming a mania with you. What I would prefer
are those booksellers' chests along the Seine that close with a padlock
and are covered over with a sheet of zinc.
LLOYD GEORGE: My, my, can you see that?
LEAH: Too late!
Patrick as the Officer of Dragoons comes down from his observation point
and goes over to the fire. The package of medicated cotton wool catches
ablaze. Mrs. Morin utters a loud cry. Patrick calmly returns to his place on
top of the sideboard.
LLOYD GEORGE (laughing): Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! The assassination victims
themselves fail in their attempt.
All resume eating. Lloyd George rises only to fetch new dishes.
MR. MORIN: However, that evening the sea was rough. Sardines were being
taken by the netful. But the night, the thunder, the lightning, and espe­
cially the Negroes in the boiler room, not to mention the leopard . . . Eh,
my wife? Surely you won't deny, Mrs. Morin, my wife, that one's ever
eaten so well.
LLOYD GEORGE: I know quite well, sir, how to handle all this. But tell me—
which way is the harbor?
Leah suddenly rises and, with the gestures of a sleepwalker, without being
noticed, draws her chair near the dresser and covers Patrick's head over
 with a newspaper. She returns to the table and continues eating with the
others.
MR. MORIN: Still, you must take some interest in my stories. However, that
evening, the sea was rough. Sardines were being taken by the netful. But
the leopard and the captain's knife and all the glasses were shattered .. .
At that moment the wind carries off the newspaper covering Patrick's head.
Leah utters a loud cry. Mr. Morin rises and, taking Lloyd George by the
arm, pulls him off toward the Quai des Grands-Augustins.
She's mad, sir. What, ho! See the crazy woman! See the crazy woman!
LLOYD GEORGE: Oh, my! The crazy woman! Oh! The crazy woman!
They go offstage.
MRS. MORIN: I've seen everything. Leah, come on over here.
They go toward the bed where two arms are being raised which resemble
two dead branches, but whereon are flowering two enormous, very white
u hands.
^ Ah! My daughter! Don't come any closer. She has leprosy.
t Leah kneels.
LEAH: She has my slanted eyes. My blond hair. My gleaming mouth. You
must agree that you don't die of love.
END OF THE SECOND TABLEAU AND OF THE FIRST ACT.

ACT II
THIRD TABLEAU

The stage represents a hotel room. A bed. A table. Chairs. A wardrobe, and so
on. Leah is stretched out on the bed. Patrick is at her bedside.
PATRICK: It's turning. It's turning.
LEAH: What's turning?
PATRICK: Not the table, obviously.
LEAH: The earth is turning.
PATRICK: Be quiet. The daylight is in my left eye.
LEAH: Oh!—he's starting that again!
PATRICK: I said, the daylight is in my left eye.
LEAH: Did I say it wasn't? (A pause.) And in your right eye, Patrick?
PATRICK: There is a mountain.
LEAH: Can I see?
PATRICK: If you want.
Leah bends over Patrick's eye, and looks.
LEAH: What is it?
PATRICK: It's a wheel.
LEAH: And behind it?
PATRICK: Behind it, there's a white quarry.
LEAH: Yes, the workers are taking it easy.
PATRICK: Aren't they, though!
LEAH: What's that shining among the stones?
PATRICK: Their tools. They're pretty, aren't they? They're made of nickel.
The smallest one looks like a pink fingernail, and the biggest one like an
ax. One of the men is holding the ax. Do you see him, Leah?
LEAH: Very well. He seems tired.
PATRICK: Still, he's got food and drink there.
LEAH: He's taking a bath. That's curious.
PATRICK: What's so curious about that? o
■j

LEAH: He's melting. He's white. Now the animals are eating him. *&
PATRICK: Poor creatures. •§
LEAH: Poor creatures? Those vipers? Those flaming, scaly things? £
PATRICK: They haven't done anything to you. ^
LEAH: In that case, kiss my hands. *-
Patrick kisses her hands but suddenly leaps back. t
PATRICK: Ouch! i>
LEAH: What have I done? °°
PATRICK: You've burned me.
Smoke is rising from Leah's hands. Leah goes toward the washstand and
plunges them into the water.
LEAH: And you—you frightened me!
PATRICK: So in the future take care of your eyes, and leave mine alone.
Leah weeps.
That's no reason to cry.
LEAH: The world bores me.
PATRICK: Where is this world?
LEAH: Here I am, Patrick; here I am.
PATRICK: Pardon, Leah. The world, if you please.
Leah stretches out on the bed.
LEAH: Come, Patrick.
PATRICK: Oh! How long it is. (Pointing to an electric lamp.) The equator on a
grid. And what lands have you protected, Madame? Tahiti, Tahiti, where
change purses drop like ripe bananas? Where lace is a valued auxiliary
on the ambassadors' legs, Tahiti the shoe of spring?
LEAH: Tahiti? My hips. You boor!
PATRICK: Pull yourself together a bit, Leah. It's turning.
LEAH: Not the table, obviously, you idiot.
PATRICK: The earth is turning. The daylight is in my left eye.
 LEAH: Why don't you get a grip on yourself and listen to me?
PATRICK: And yet it does turn.
LEAH: You're imagining things.
PATRICK: I'm not doing anything any more. I am the machine that is to turn
in a vacuum. That's the brain, you say? It's poisoned by work. It's at the
stage of tetanus. A nice animal, that one. Only yesterday I could still eat.
Today, Leah, it's all over. The brain is in the belly. We let that outcast do
anything. The heart? You can look for it in the bed. The stomach? It licks
my feet beneath the table. The liver makes faces in the mirrors. The
spleen is in the drawer next to the corkscrew, and my lungs are having
fun making holes in your canaries. My poor brain, that divine dough,
bends under any yoke. It's not Leah who's complaining, is it?
LEAH: Well! There's one who turns quickly, yet not at all awkwardly. Nev­
ertheless, I didn't want this warfare.
u The doorbell rings.
Jf PATRICK: Come in.
> Enter the Butcher.
♦ THE BUTCHER: Is there anything for me, little lady?
oo LEAH: Yes, Casper. You will find everything wrapped up on the kitchen table.
00
THE BUTCHER: Very good, Miss Leah.
Exit the Butcher.
PATRICK: Who is that fellow?
LEAH: He's a man of sorrows.
PATRICK: And what does he do?
LEAH: He slaughters cattle.
PATRICK: Poor creatures!
LEAH: No calling is to be despised.
Re-enter the Butcher.
THE BUTCHER: Well now, Miss Leah, I'll not be coming to your place
any more. Not worth the bother. Just some bones where even a whore
wouldn't find a pittance! You can keep your garbage for the soldiers. You
could give me the skin with the hair and nails on it now, and I still
wouldn't give you another penny. You robber!
Exit the Butcher.
PATRICK: What does that man come to do here?
LEAH: Nothing, dear. He's very talented, Casper is. He reupholsters the
chairs and replaces the windowpanes.
PATRICK: It seems to me I've seen his face before.
LEAH: Come now, Patrick, don't say that. You always insist that I have to turn
out the light before you go to bed.
PATRICK: W h o , me?
LEAH: Yes, you. And that brain that you're so proud of. There's certainly a
good-time Charlie: before a meal, all he dreams about is knife wounds,
animals dying in the forest—and such language! And after that there's the
prairie, the country with its delicate herbs where Mr. Patrick lies down
like the cloud called cirrus which in shape looks like a pike and in color
like fire.
PATRICK: Go on! Next time our drainpipes won't dry up quite so quickly.
LEAH: So it would seem.
PATRICK: Only last night, someone was shouting: "Are you through cutting
each other's throats up there?" I get up in my nightshirt and I answer,
"This is August, dear sir, the month of the shower of stars." And do you «
know what our neighbor answers? o
LEAH: What did our neighbor answer? |[
0>
PATRICK: "When you have enough blood to go into business you should 'g
become a painter, not go around scandalizing people!" f*.
LEAH: You see. ^
PATRICK: You, naturally, are going to suppose that he's being reasonable. *-
LEAH: What are you talking about? 4
PATRICK: The reasons of lodgers. §
LEAH: Pardon me, I misunderstood.
PATRICK: Would you dare suppose that I don't have my reason?
LEAH: Far from it. Reason is balance, isn't it? You climb ladders well enough.
PATRICK: Oh! That hair, what battles!
LEAH: But how cosmetic!
PATRICK: You said it. You could have seen through every pore in the skin. A
diamond millstone, that chest. And it's fortunate. Women today select
pink underthings! You, it's the mouth that lights your way. It's like a
quarry of blood.
LEAH: What nonsense! What about poetry?
PATRICK (slaps her): Take that!
LEAH: I'm not happy with you.
PATRICK: (slaps her again): And now?
LEAH: I'm unhappy.
PATRICK (dragging her around by the hair): I'd be interested to know if I'll be a
clock all my life. Or rather a clock's pendulum, or even pendent from a
clock.
LEAH: Have mercy, Patrick; have mercy! I won't start up again. I'll always be
happy.
PATRICK: Look at me, Leah. I'm not bad-looking—maybe I have something
missing?
 LEAH: What would that be?
PATRICK: Fortune. Fortune for every care and garments for the skin. Fortune?
Did I say fortune, Leah? Yes, I said fortune. What's most important of all
is underwear. I go into a cafe. Faces are hidden behind pulled-up skirts.
They are on the ceiling like pears. And suddenly everyone's kissing. They
stick pins into the fleshy parts of their legs, and I hear on all sides: "How
good-looking he is!" Chance, that pearl—I find it on the staircase. No,
Leah, it's the fragrance that guides me. That house, I gild it every morn­
ing, for the evening before it is a ship in which we have both gone down.
Open the door, for God's sake! And let the gesture accompany it. I said
fortune. Fortune for every care and garments for the skin.
LEAH: The skin!
PATRICK: Ah! Don't touch on that one. My skin! My parchment? And also,
skin yourself.
u LEAH: You're hard, Patrick. You're heartless.
<
* PATRICK: Well, I get along as I can—that's no one's lookout but my own. My
£ behavior is my own. What was it someone once said? Love: the need to
* come out of oneself, someone once said. And that is why I ask you this:
* Are you through looking for what has been left me? Are you through
jg looking at my skeleton? You're certainly quite an X-ray.
LEAH: What I have to listen to!
PATRICK: Ah, bah! What are you listening to? Are you really listening to this
walking scaffold? A spinning top! Oh! The Skeleton and the Spinning
top (a fable):
A skeleton six feet tall
Happened to run out of plaster
The worms no longer cared for it it had become so brittle and lovely
And the rest what did you do with it
When sitting down at the table
We made animals out of it
And the reason is this speed supplied
By the momentum of my darling's heart
That top
(The heart or the darling?
-Both.)
LEAH: Think of the future, rather.
PATRICK: The child you bear in your bosom, Leah, infinitely disturbs me.
You may remove it.
LEAH: Rest assured, it's only temporary.
Exit Leah.
PATRICK (alone): What a business! But what sunlight!
Enter Mrs. Morin.
MRS. MORIN: Good day, Mr. Patrick.
PATRICK: Mrs. Morin! I'm happy to see you.
MRS. MORIN: You may believe that your pleasure is shared, my dear
son-in-law.
PATRICK: Son-in-law, do you say? Please be seated, and remain calm. You're
no doubt bent on death.
MRS. MORIN: On life, do you mean?
PATRICK: On life, on death, I know that tune. Your daughter, Mrs. Morin, is
an eel on that theme.
MRS. MORIN: She has someone to take after.
PATRICK: I have hinted at it, Madame: she takes after death.
MRS. MORIN: But what sort of man are you, Mr. Patrick?
PATRICK: Ah there we are!
Enter Dovic.
MRS. MORIN: There's Dovic. (To Dovic.) Good day, son-in-law.
DOVIC: Leave me alone, you. (To Patrick.) Patrick, I'm quite fond of you.
PATRICK: Just one question, Mr. Dovic. You doubtless know the author of this
play?
DOVIC: He's my father.
PATRICK: No.
DOVIC: At any rate, he's my best friend.
PATRICK: Well, then, please have him step over here a moment.
DOVIC: Hey, there! Author! Author!
ALL (singing in chorus): Why, there's the author, how are you, old lady?
Why, there's the author, how are you, my love?
Enter the Author.
THE AUTHOR: Good day, Mrs. Morin. Good day, Dovic; and good day to you,
Patrick.
PATRICK: You've come just at the right time: how do you want all this to end?
THE AUTHOR: Well now, my lad, you seem quite involved in this.
PATRICK: Don't I, though? One word more.
THE AUTHOR: Go ahead.
PATRICK: You betray yourself, sir. Am I to conclude that we are to go ahead?
THE AUTHOR: Resolutely.
PATRICK: Then it's useless to talk. No one here may have the floor.
THE AUTHOR: Listen, my boy, your case doesn't interest me very much. It
doesn't interest the public very much, either.
PATRICK: You don't think so?
THE AUTHOR: I understand myself as well as you understand me, and as well
as you understand it.
 DOVIC : I beg your pardon?
PATRICK: You leave us alone. Tend to the women. I am speaking with the
gentleman. (To the Author.) Just one little word of advice, if you please?
THE AUTHOR: My friend, do you really want me to tell you something? Well, I
am about to reveal my greatest weakness: in this particular case, I would
behave as you do. But, in this particular case, permit me to withdraw.
Exit.
PATRICK: By Hercules! Let's go ahead.
He seizes a chair and breaks up everything. He knocks down Dovic and
Mrs. Morin. The stage is spattered with blood. The light goes out. He
continues to flail about furiously in the dark.
LEAH: (offstage): Ah! Ah! Mo—Mo—Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother,
Mother, aaaaah . . .
The light goes on again. Patrick is in tatters. Dovic and Mrs. Morin are
u stretched out on the floor. Enter Leah, a child in her arms.
* LEAH (joyfully): It's a boy. (Taken aback with shock.) Oh, our apartment! And
£ while I was giving birth to your son!
♦ PATRICK: Yes, now you see. You leave me alone and you see what happens.
Let's see the child.
02
co LEAH: It didn't take me too long?
PATRICK: He seems well enough put together. Don't you think he'll be too
cold on the marble mantelpiece?
LEAH: I'll clean the mirror and I'll make a fire every morning. But he'd be
better off in the bed, between us.
PATRICK: It's warm enough right there! You can sweep away the broken
statues. (Taking his son and raising him up above him.) Guillotin, you
will be called Guillotin, and all your life you will occupy the place of a
masterpiece, there, between our two rooms, on the pedestal of the Venus
de Milo.
LEAH: What do you mean to do with your son? With your little sonny-boy,
your Gui-gui, your Guiguillollo, your Guillo?
PATRICK: Well, that's a nice role you've got ready for me. (Placing the child on
the mantelpiece.) Hold steady. And now, Guillotin, come into my arms.
The child risks a movement, loses its balance, falls and is killed.
LEAH: Ah! Ah! Ah! . . . Murder! Murder! That one, my lover, my daddy, my
daddy, my Patrick, who's gone and murdered my Guigui, my Guigui, my
Guillotin. (Her tone changes.) By the way, you could have given him
some other name. You infanticide!
PATRICK: Enough, Leah. You will light the torches and prepare my traveling
gear. I have things to do in the neighborhood.
LEAH: Good night, Patrick.
Exit Patrick.
A POLICEMAN (entering): Are you the one that's making all the noise? What's
the matter with you, Madame? You're crying? Has someone beaten you?
LEAH: Oh, it's nothing, Officer; it's the little one who fell and caught the
scarlet fever.
The curtain falls abruptly.
END OF THE THIRD TABLEAU

FOURTH TABLEAU

The stage simultaneously represents a railway station, a dining car, the sea-
shore, a hotel lobby, a yard goods shop, the main square of a provincial town.
p
To be suitably arranged are signal discs, telegraph wires, several laid tables, J
large pieces of cotton wool to simulate the foaming waves, ships7 masts, green
plants, garden chairs, a sign bearing the inscription "Yard Goods," and an
explorer's statue. A projector will light up each part of the stage according to 2
5K
the location of the action. £
As the curtain rises, Leah is alone in the center of the stage. Enter Mrs. Morin jj
in full mourning. She is holding a child in her arms. By her side, both tied to *""
the same leash, trot two dogs: a white fox terrier and a gray bulldog. $
MRS. MORIN: Pardon me, Madame, would you hold my child a moment? j§
LEAH: I should hardly think so, Madame; my train leaves in five minutes.
MRS. MORIN: Have no fear! I'll be back soon. Just long enough to pick up
tickets for my dogs, and then I'll be back. Besides, what are you afraid of?
My husband is in this coach.
Darkness, then light. Mussolini is seated at a table. Enter Leah, the child
in her arms and the dogs following her. Several passengers are eating. Leah
sits, and the two dogs stretch out at her feet. A Conductor passes.
LEAH: Is it luncheon time already?
THE CONDUCTOR: It's five after twelve.
LEAH: At what time will we arrive?
THE CONDUCTOR: At three.
Whistles. Steam noises. The train starts.
LEAH (at the door): Stop! Stop! Stop! I've been given a child. . . . Yes, the
child isn't mine . . . the woman . . . there!
THE CONDUCTOR (laughing): Come now, Madame, that one's been tried on
us before. You keep the child; you'd come to regret it later on.
Leah sits down again.
LEAH: What have they done? Me, a child-stealer? I should say not! But now
how to get rid of it? A cherub is such a nuisance!
MUSSOLINI (from his place): The sea air will do the child good.
LEAH: That's true.
MUSSOLINI: You understand, you can't.. .
 LEAH (interrupting him): Excuse me, sir, but you are mistaken. Your wife, I
suppose it was, entrusted me with this child and these animals. Only you
will readily understand that I cannot be burdened with a child, with
dogs, and with a man, at my age.
MUSSOLINI: Well! You could say a man, a child, and dogs.
Darkness, then light.
MUSSOLINI (alone): The sea! What foam! Not a drop of water. Just foam.
Foam up to the roofs ofthe houses. It rises at regular intervals. I've never
seen anything so impressive! And this town, built on a bridge! The sea,
where is the sea? It's two feet below, the sea. I'm frightened.
Darkness, then light. Enter Leah from the left with the child and the dogs.
An old Chambermaid enters from the right.
LEAH: Funny country.
THE CHAMBERMAID (sitting on one ofthe steps to the stage): You're not obliged
u to stay here.
Jf LEAH: Could I have a few bones for my dogs?
> A Cook enters from the left. He is peeling some vegetables. A second Cook
♦ follows him; he too is peeling vegetables. Finally, the last to enter is a Man
* in Evening Dress, with white gloves, also peeling vegetables.
co THE MAN IN EVENING DRESS (to the Chambermaid): Answer the lady! Yes,
Madame, you'll be given some bones.
Leah manifests great joy. She places the child and the dogs underneath
her dress (without being afraid to show her legs) and shakes them in all
directions.
LEAH: The bulldog is unhappy. Why, I hadn't noticed his paws. He has paws
like a tiger's.
Enter Mussolini; the Cooks and the Man in Evening Dress, who seemed
interested in Leah's actions, are seized with panic, and flee. Leah places
the dogs on the floor. She keeps the child in her lap. Mussolini kicks the fox
terrier and sends it rolling into the wings.
You brute! You've bashed his snout in, and his ear!
MUSSOLINI: Doctors aren't for dogs: better have him taken care of.
Leah places the child on the floor.
LEAH: Oh, how horrible are these black shoes, these laced shoes, and these
black stockings! I'm going to buy him some others.
MUSSOLINI: No, it's useless.
LEAH: You're right: I'd better go.
Darkness followed by light. The yard goods shop.
LEAH: I'd like some white leather booties for the child.
THE SHOPKEEPER: Sky blue would be prettier.
LEAH: No, white! I want white booties!
THE SHOPKEEPER: What taste!
LEAH: Everyone to his taste. (She examines the booties.) Why! The soles are
made of cork. They can't be very practical. They'd soak up the water.
THE SHOPKEEPER: And what about wine-bottle corks when you push them
under water?
LEAH: All right, I'll take the sky blue ones.
Darkness followed by light.
LEAH (seated): I'm going to Saint Affrica, in Africa. I can't take you.
MUSSOLINI: Complain! I advise you to complain. A husband without looking
for one, a child you haven't borne, and dogs you haven't bought.
LEAH: He has curls. He's blond. He has large black eyes. He looks like the
one I have at home, like my Patrick. I'm keeping the child. He's too
pretty.
Darkness, then light
LEAH (holding the child by the hand): The light is opaque; the atmosphere is
heavy. It is the city of wills-o'-the-wisp. And those people, those black
phantoms. It is all very disturbing. (She runs.) There! I've got one! It's
Mussolini.
MUSSOLINI: Well! It's obvious you've never had a child before. You're run­
ning like a madwoman, running as though you were alone, and you're
dragging the brat on the floor.
LEAH: Yes, you're right. I'd forgotten him. I was holding him by the hand.
But, first, please call me "Madame." I can't stand disrespect.
MUSSOLINI: There she goes again!
Mussolini, the child, and the dogs begin to weep.
LEAH: What's wrong with you? Why are you crying?
MUSSOLINI: Ah, I don't hold it against you. (Taking the child's black shoes
from his pocket.) Here, put his old shoes, his black shoes, back on him.
Someday he may be able to race along with you. But just now he needed
them.
LEAH: Oh, my God! If I could only change my heart! (She throws away the
blue shoes and places the black ones on the child's feet) And the hair
falling straight down over his forehead—where are his lovely blond curls?
MUSSOLINI: Yes, he had on a wig.
Leah begins to walk rapidly around the stage holding the child by the
hand and saying:
LEAH: Oh—it's true! Now he runs as fast as I, he runs as fast as I, he runs as fast
as I. (She stops and takes the child into her arms.) My little one, my little
one, now we will never part again. You will have no more wigs. And so
that you may pass unrecognized I will dye your hair black.
Exit Leah followed by the dogs. Mussolini sits down and holds his head in
his hands. The curtain slowly falls.
END OF THE FOURTH TABLEAU AND OF THE SECOND ACT
 ACT III
FIFTH TABLEAU

The stage represents a hotel lobby at midnight. As the curtain rises, a clock is
heard to strike, bells ring, there are footsteps and shouts on the stairs. The
elevator filled with lodgers goes up and down at full speed. People in evening
gowns, evening dress, shirtsleeves, and so on.
SEVERAL VOICES: —It's number 53. —It's on the fourth. —On the fourth.
—53? —A woman. —Do they know who she is? —She's living alone.
—She's an actress. —An American. —A housewife. —A prostitute. —The
poor woman; what's wrong with her? —She's gone mad. —There's noth­
ing wrong with her. —She's hysterical. —She's wrecking everything.
—She's wrecking the furniture. —She's breaking the windows. —She's
about to set fire to the whole building.
ONE LOUDER VOICE (from above): We can't get it open. Will you open up? (A
^ pause.) No? (A pause.) Break down the door.
Jf A loud cry, followed by absolute silence. The elevator comes down. Leah,
> her hands dripping blood, her white dress in tatters, is in it between Two
♦ Policemen. Jostling on the stairs as the lodgers rush down to watch.
^ FIRST POLICEMAN (to the Manager): What's her name?
co THE MANAGER: We don't know. Here we call her Madame Leah.
SECOND POLICEMAN: Hasn't she filled in a police form?
THE MANAGER: Police matters are your concern.
FIRST POLICEMAN: That's right. In that case, Madame Leah—since Madame
Leah it is—kindly follow us.
LEAH (exaltedly): I will follow you to the ends of the earth, to the ends of the
earth. (Bursts of laughter.)
SECOND POLICEMAN: Either she's crazy or she's drunk. Do you know if she
has any vices, sir?
THE MANAGER: I've been trying to tell you that I don't know her at all.
FIRST POLICEMAN: That's no answer. Couldn't she be injecting herself or
inhaling drugs?
THE MANAGER (to Leah): Do you inject yourself? Do you inhale drugs?
LEAH: I neither inject myself nor do I inhale drugs.
FIRST POLICEMAN (to the lodgers): Does anyone here know Madame Leah? Is
there someone here who can tell us anything about her?
ALL: Madame Leah? Madame Leah? Madame Leah? . ..
FIRST POLICEMAN: Now, then, what has she done, this Madame Leah?
THE MANAGER: She smashed the wardrobe. She made a shambles of the
bathroom. She strangled the goldfish in their tank. She set fire to the
curtains in her room. That's what she's done, this Madame Leah. She'll
have to pay for it too, this Madame Leah.
FIRST POLICEMAN: Did you hear what he said, Madame? You will admit
these facts, I assume?
LEAH (to the Manager): I did not come here, sir, to occupy a number, not
even Number 53. You say I smashed the wardrobe: Patrick had promised
to take me to the pole. Did he do it? You say I made a shambles of the
bathroom? Patrick had promised me some stars which he had made
himself. You press on a coiled spring: you're supposed to see the sea, the
trees, and the clouds. What did I see? You say I strangled the goldfish in
their tank? I sold all I could of Saint Patrick's body. The rest had gone on
a trip. Has the rest come back? If it has, why hasn't someone told me? I
will build you artificial grottoes at my own expense and I will buy you
clocks made of silk and human flesh. And I will stock your holy-water
pond in which carp and Holy Sacraments will swim. As for your curtains,
sir, I set them ablaze to please you. Marlborough, Marlborough died in
the wars. It's only right that you should resurrect his mouth on the
balcony of your hotel. I did what I could to open his eyes. But your walls
are of iron, sir, your walls have nickel pupils. They have stripped off the
flesh from my insect hands, my little Frenchwoman's frogs.
SEVERAL VOICES: Charming! Mad? Charming! Mad, but charming.
The lodgers slowly withdraw.
THE MANAGER: Ladies and gentlemen, kindly, I beseech you, return to your
apartments. May I ask that you be a little discreet? I myself am mortified
by this scandal. Happily, it's all over. All's well that ends well, isn't that
right, gentlemen? Good night, ladies. (To the Policemen.) See what you
can do with her. No more scenes, right? I don't want to make an issue of
this. I just want to be left in peace. Good night.
FIRST POLICEMAN: Madame Leah, please come with us.
SECOND POLICEMAN: Come with us.
LEAH: Officers! (Pointing to the door.) Look at that door.
FIRST POLICEMAN: So what?
SECOND POLICEMAN: I see it.
LEAH: It's about to open. It must open.
FIRST POLICEMAN: That's right, it must open. I'm going to open it myself right
away.
LEAH (sadly): Don't trouble yourself, Officer. It will open by itself.
The door opens by itself.
Just look at the power of words.
POLICEMEN (together): What about the power of words?
LEAH: You'll see. Say the word "light."
POLICEMEN (together): Light.
LEAH (disconcerted): Now you have followed the light. Not a thing changed.
The light keeps shining. It keeps shining all by itself.
 The Policemen shrug their shoulders.
And now, say: "the night."
POLICEMEN (together): Let's humor her. The night.
LEAH: It's waiting for you, just as your shadows wait for you to follow you. The
night gets along without us. It passes all by itself. But I, I say, I am going to
say, that I carry him . . . and he passes . . . as though molded by my throat
and sprung from my mouth: "Patrick."
Enter Patrick. The Policemen flee in terror.
Ah! Patrick, what joy!
They kiss.
PATRICK: Weren't you still waiting for me? Were you still waiting for me?
LEAH: I was hardly waiting for you at all. Still, yesterday while I was eating
strawberries, I said to myself: "Will I ever see the cream on the table
again? Patrick in his place?" And I took some sugar.
< PATRICK: And you took some sugar?
ft LEAH: I took some. Ah! All that sugar I wasted!
> PATRICK: And the house?

♦ LEAH: Now it's in the hands of the electricians.

oo Clap of thunder.
00
PATRICK: What is that sound?
LEAH: It's thunder.
PATRICK: But the sky is like lead.
LEAH: Today is Corpus Christi day.
PATRICK: Today is Corpus Christi day.
Enter some Children.
FIRST CHILD: Mr. Patrick, what did you bring in your shoes?
PATRICK: Elephants beneath the palms.
SECOND CHILD: And that lion looking at us?
PATRICK: That, my boy, is liberty.
THIRD CHILD: And the automobile, is it for us?
PATRICK: It's unbreakable and deep.
FIRST CHILD: Are you giving us any new scents?
PATRICK: Take these birds.
SECOND CHILD: Give us something more.
PATRICK: Leah, don't you have anything for these children?
LEAH: Children, leave your father alone.
THE CHILDREN: But Patrick isn't our father!
PATRICK: Who is your father, then, children?
FIRST CHILD: Mine is the bakery's horse.
SECOND CHILD: Mine is my mother's sewing machine.
PATRICK (to the Third Child): And who is yours?
THIRD CHILD: My father, Mr. Patrick? Rather say my son who is off fighting the
Arabs. He has a large face like an apple tart and giant's ears. My son's beard
grows in his wallet and he has eyes in all his pockets. They say he's quite a
character. But, then, what don't they say? Isn't that right, Mr. Patrick?
They also say you buy Negresses to make grape preserves and that you sell
the leavings to the goldsmiths. Such a disgusting trade fairly makes me
retch. My son will never get over it when he finds out. He's a good friend of
Leah's, isn't he, my girl? This is what he said to me before he went away:
"Be happy, little father! Leah is the finest of the finest, and it won't be long
before Patrick smashes the terrace of the house against her face." I didn't
p
say anything to such nonsense. Leah forbids me to talk about it, but she |
thinks a lot of characters like me. Isn't that right, children?
THE CHILDREN (together): Yes, sir. Long live the colonel's father!
4)
PATRICK: Ah! sir! Your son is a colonel?
THIRD CHILD: We've been knocking ourselves out repeating it. My son is a
I5
colonel of Zouaves. -c
PATRICK: Go on, dear child, assemble your troops and leave me in peace. ♦
THIRD CHILD: By my command! Fall in! ^
The Children line up side by side. The colonels father pulls a revolver from <§
his pocket and kills them point-blank.
Write that down in your hunting record, Mr. Patrick!
PATRICK: Oh, my son, my son! Think of the future of our line! Come here
and let me decorate and embrace you properly.
THIRD CHILD: What do you want, Papa? I was the father of a colonel of
Zouaves by accident, but I'll always be a child of love.
Clap of thunder.
PATRICK: Begin reading the proclamation.
LEAH: My God, you've given me the breasts of a cow—give me today the
crested helmet of rebellion, for Patrick and my child have forsaken me.
Clap of thunder.
THIRD CHILD: Rise, Madame. Your Patrick has lost nothing in his travels. The
Nile flows through many lands, and I was my family's joy before the age
of reason. Give thanks to your son while you accept mine. If Patrick had
met the colonel of Zouaves, he would have lacked for nothing. He would
have been restored to you a eunuch, Leah. And my father would today
have that bayonet-like voice which is the sign of imminent genius.
LEAH: Thank you, little one. You speak like a book.
THIRD CHILD: Mother, books don't speak.
PATRICK: What do they do, my son?
THIRD CHILD: They read.
Clap of thunder.
 PATRICK: Go away, you swarm of flies. Miniature graybeards. Go blow your
noses. They get on my nerves, these children. They exasperate me.
LEAH: Yes, they're killing each other. I'm fed up with it too.
PATRICK: A fine bonnet, that crown of newborn babes, one of whom already
has a son who is a colonel of Zouaves. But how do I fit into the story? And
the final outcome?
LEAH: YouVe put on weight, Patrick.
PATRICK: The outcome?
LEAH: Ah! I've waited so long already!
PATRICK: The outcome?
LEAH: How impatiently!
PATRICK: Yes, that's right. But to conclude . ..
LEAH: To conclude what?
u PATRICK: To love each other.
* LEAH: Fm hungry.
> PATRICK: Oh, my dear, what big teeth you have!
t LEAH: The better to rock you with, my child.
♦
PATRICK: Well, then, let's go to sleep.
LEAH: No, I want you to tell me a story.
PATRICK: Well, then, Fll tell you one. It will be the last. The factory chimneys
are harvested at the end of November. First they are polished by being
rolled in sand. They come out smooth and bright after that operation.
Some are set aside for reproduction, on the right; the others are placed
on the left. The latter are divided into two parts. One part is for arma­
ments. Cannons are made from them. The rest are sold at auction. These
are therefore scattered. But as they change hands, they wear out, and
soon nothing is left of these former factory chimneys. All that remains is
the factories and the cannons. Then the cannons are aimed at the facto­
ries. A cannon is given away to every lady who asks for one, so that finally
not a single cannon remains.
LEAH: And, dear Patrick, what do the ladies do with all those cannons?
PATRICK: My dear, you don't have to believe me—but they eat them.
LEAH: It's not true.
Enter the Author.
THE AUTHOR: Hey there! Patrick!
LEAH: Who are you?
PATRICK: He's the Author.
THE AUTHOR: Do you need me?
PATRICK: No, thank you.
THE AUTHOR (handing him a revolver): Here, take this; you'll need it.
PATRICK: You're right. (He fires at the Author.)
THE AUTHOR: It's no use, my dear Patrick! Those bullets can't penetrate me.
And it's a shame!
PATRICK: Well, then, keep the thing. I have no use for it.
THE AUTHOR: Please. If you won't do it for me, then do it for the sake of the
drama you are enacting. I assure you that a shot at the end of the play is
absolutely necessary for the development of the plot.
PATRICK: Do you think so?
THE AUTHOR: I'm sure of it.
PATRICK: Then I will obey you. Good-bye, sir.
THE AUTHOR: Farewell, Patrick.
LEAH (to the Author): Tell me something.
THE AUTHOR: Madame?
LEAH: Aren't you going to give me anything?
THE AUTHOR: That's a reasonable question. Take this. (He hands her another
revolver.)
LEAH: Is it loaded, at least? (To Patrick.) I'm sure you haven't examined your
weapon.
THE AUTHOR: Have no fear; they are both suitably provided [equipped].
LEAH (to Patrick): Don't you think the gentleman takes after Dovic a little?
PATRICK: The gentleman has all his parts properly in place. That's enough,
Leah.
THE AUTHOR: You should make allowances, Patrick. Leah is a woman.
PATRICK: What did you say?
THE AUTHOR: I said: Leah is a woman.
PATRICK: I'm a woman too, then. What would you say to that?
THE AUTHOR: What I say is this: I know more about it than you do, but I must
say I didn't think you'd turn out so well.
PATRICK: See how white my skin is.
THE AUTHOR: That wouldn't prove very much.
PATRICK: It wouldn't prove anything, actually, if it were not for the perpetual
snows. The perpetual snows, sir, if you care to know, have taught me to
see clearly into this. The mountains, it is true, did somewhat disturb me.
But do you know what I did with the mountains?
THE AUTHOR: What did you do with the mountains?
PATRICK: I turned them into men.
THE AUTHOR: Your words make everything impossible, my friend.
PATRICK: Well, then, write plays without words.
THE AUTHOR: Did I ever intend to do otherwise?
PATRICK: Yes, you put words of love into my mouth.
 THE AUTHOR: You should have spat them out.
PATRICK: I tried to, but they turned into gunshots or dizzy spells.
THE AUTHOR: That's hardly my fault. Life is like that.
PATRICK: Leave life alone, then, and increase the size of your brain.
THE AUTHOR: Without fail.
PATRICK: When it gives birth, save a little brain for me.
THE AUTHOR: You can count on me.
PATRICK: I can really do without it, but it will amuse Leah's child.
THE AUTHOR: Don't you have anything else to ask me?
PATRICK: N o .
LEAH: May I ask you for something too?
THE AUTHOR: If you don't ask for too much.
LEAH: Then give us two little brains. One for the child and the other for me.
< THE AUTHOR: For you?
H LEAH: Yes, that will give me three.
>
THE AUTHOR: How is that?
♦
♦ LEAH: Mine, Patrick's, and yours.
CD THE AUTHOR (hastily): Count on me, count on me. (To Patrick, in low tones.)
One bit of good advice, my friend; use that thing you're holding. Your
future depends on it. (He runs away.)
PATRICK: Where are you running off to? Where are you running off to?
THE AUTHOR: I'm going to give birth. Good night.
A long pause. Patrick and Leah look at each other.
PATRICK: Ah, Leah, there's still love!
LEAH: Love worn down to the bare rope, and the rope to hang yourself. Love:
the secret work of wear. There's just you, Patrick.
PATRICK: Me, let's talk about it! Me, a little cork of marrow bobbing on a
string. There's you, Leah.
LEAH: Ah, Patrick: the beautiful architecture of wrath! I would be quite
willing to live on roses: they have a flowery odor. I need coal and bed-
sheets. There is pain, Patrick.
PATRICK: Pain? A burning drop of oil engendering a body. The curving of the
earth is the pain of the world, as the tongue is the pain of thought, as the
isthmus of the neck is the pain of the body and, when it is sliced through,
the most painful criminals are severed from life. Pain? The great genesis.
But there is kindness, Leah.
LEAH: Kindness? No, Patrick. Kindness, a gift at the end of a rubber band, the
flabby malady of death. Fat cheeks and overburdened knees. Don't try to
touch me with that. The trained-dog factory. But there is forgiveness,
Patrick.
PATRICK: Forgiveness, like the sun. Forgiveness, like returning. Forgiveness,
like a boomerang. Forgiveness, like births. Forgiveness, like the seasons.
Forgiveness, without any ill feelings.
LEAH: There is death.
PATRICK: Yes, death. But death like forgiveness. Like snow on the mountain.
Forgiveness, like fire you slice with a knife. Forgiveness, like the water
houses are made of. Forgiveness, like the murderer other crimes are
made of. Forgiveness, like the living other dead are made of. Forgiveness,
like the secret the storms are made of. Forgiveness, like the horse fortunes
are made of. Forgiveness, like the old man the clouds are made of.
Forgiveness, like me, whom I am making a criminal of. Forgiveness, like
you whom I am making a deadly acid of. The heart is red already. Flow.
Leah. Hands on the copper of shadows. The heart is red already as far as
the end of the theater, where someone is about to die.
LEAH: Enough, Patrick! (She fires a shot)
PATRICK: What have you done, Leah? What have you done? YouVe just
killed a spectator.
END OF THE FIFTH TABLEAU AND THE THIRD ACT
- ^ ^ ^ ^ ndre Breton, poet, novelist, playwright, theorist, and editor,
L^r ^ ^ H was born on February 18, 1896, in Tinchebroy (Orne),
in^^ ^ ^ # France. Although he never practiced medicine, Breton at-
tended medical school, and his study of mental illness and his exposure
IQJP^ to the writings of Sigmund Freud fueled his interest in dreams. The
earliest influence on Breton's poetry was Symbolism, particularly the poetry of
Paul Valery and Arthur Rimbaud. By 1916 he had joined the Dada movement,
and although he was a follower of Tzara, Breton contributed to the demise of
Dada when in 1924 he and Jacques Vache founded Surrealism as a movement.
The Magnetic Fields (1919), on which Breton collaborated with Philippe Soupault,
is generally regarded as the first genuine Surrealist work, and their subsequent
play, If You Please (1920), remains one of the earliest and best examples of
"automatic writing," a technique the Surrealists developed to help them bypass
their brains' logical functions.
As editor of the magazine Litterature, Breton became the official leader of the
Surrealist movement. He published three theoretical documents central to the
development of Surrealism: First Surrealist Manifesto (1924), Second Surrealist
Manifesto (1930), and What Is Surrealism? (1934). In the first, he defined Surreal­
ism as "pure psychic automatism" and stated Surrealism's central goal: to bridge
the gap between the waking moments of reality and the dream state of sleep. He
moreover advocated the denial of logic and even morality in the creation of art.
Later, communism became the central focus of the Surrealists' agenda—until
1935, that is, when Breton broke with this political movement. He remained a
Marxist and Surrealist, however, and while he was in exile in New York during
World War II introduced Surrealism as an influence on American art. He died on
September 28, 1966, in Paris.
 First Surrealist Manifesto

Andre Breton

We are still living under the reign of logic, but the logical processes of our
time apply only to the solution of problems of secondary interest. The abso­
lute rationalism which remains in fashion allows for the consideration of
only those facts narrowly relevant to our experience. Logical conclusions, on
the other hand, escape us. Needless to say, boundaries have been assigned
even to experience. It revolves in a cage from which release is becoming
increasingly difficult. It too depends upon immediate utility and is guarded
by common sense. In the guise of civilization, under the pretext of progress,
we have succeeded in dismissing from our minds anything that, rightly or
wrongly, could be regarded as superstition or myth; and we have proscribed
every way of seeking the truth which does not conform to convention. It
would appear that it is by sheer chance that an aspect of intellectual life—
and by far the most important, in my opinion—about which no one was
supposed to be concerned any longer has, recently, been brought back to
light. Credit for this must go to Freud. On the evidence of his discoveries a
current of opinion is at last developing which will enable the explorer of the
human mind to extend his investigations, since he will be empowered to
deal with more than merely summary realities. Perhaps the imagination is
on the verge of recovering its rights. If the depths of our minds conceal
strange forces capable of augmenting or conquering those on the surface, it
is in our greatest interest to capture them; first to capture them and later to
submit them, should the occasion arise, to the control of reason. The ana­
lysts themselves can only gain by this. But it is important to note that there is

Excerpt reprinted from Avant-Garde Drama: A Casebook, ed. Bernard F. Dukore and Daniel C.
Gerould; trans. Patrick Waldberg (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976), 563-72.
 no method fixed a priori for the execution of this enterprise, that until the
new order it can be considered the province of poets as well as scholars, and
that its success does not depend upon the more or less capricious routes
which will be followed.
It was only fitting that Freud should appear with his critique on the
dream. In fact, it is incredible that this important part of psychic activity has
still attracted so little attention. (For, at least from man's birth to his death,
thought presents no solution of continuity; the sum of dreaming m o m e n t s -
even taking into consideration pure dream alone, that of sleep—is from the
point of view of time no less than the sum of moments of reality, which we
shall confine to waking moments.) I have always been astounded by the
extreme disproportion in the importance and seriousness assigned to events
of the waking moments and to those of sleep by the ordinary observer. Man,
when he ceases to sleep, is above all at the mercy of his memory, and the
_ memory normally delights in feebly retracing the circumstance of the dream
O for him, depriving it of all actual consequence and obliterating the only
iu determinant from the point at which he thinks he abandoned this constant
CD hope, this anxiety, a few hours earlier. He has the illusion of continuing
♦ something worthwhile. The dream finds itself relegated to a parenthesis, like
^ the night. And in general it gives no more counsel than the night. This
w singular state of affairs seems to invite a few reflections:
1. Within the limits to which its performance is restricted (or what passes
for performance), the dream, according to all outward appearances, is con­
tinuous and bears traces of organization. Only memory claims the right to
edit it, to suppress transitions and present us with a series of dreams rather
than the dream. Similarly, at no given instant do we have more than a distinct
representation of realities whose coordination is a matter of will.* It is impor­
tant to note that nothing leads to a greater dissipation of the constituent
elements of the dream. I regret discussing this according to a formula which
in principle excludes the dream. For how long, sleeping logicians, philoso­
phers? I would like to sleep in order to enable myself to surrender to sleepers,
as I surrender to those who read me with their eyes open, in order to stop the
conscious rhythm of my thought from prevailing over this material. Perhaps
my dream of last night was a continuation of the preceding night's, and will
be continued tonight with an admirable precision. It could be, as they say.
And as it is in no way proven that, in such a case, the "reality" with which I
am concerned even exists in the dream state, or that it does not sink into the
immemorial, then why should I not concede to the dream what I sometimes
refuse to reality—that weight of self-assurance which by its own terms is not
exposed to my denial? Why should I not expect more of the dream sign than

* We must take into consideration the thickness of the dream. I usually retain only that which
comes from the most superficial layers. What I prefer to visualize in it is everything that sinks at the
awakening, everything that is not left to me of the function of that preceding day, dark foliage, absurd
branches. In "reality," too, I prefer to fall
I do of a daily increasing degree of consciousness? Could not the dreams as
well be applied to the solution of life's fundamental problems? Are these
problems the same in one case as in the other, and do they already exist in
the dream? Is the dream less oppressed by sanctions than the rest? I am
growing old and, perhaps more than this reality to which I believe myself
confined, it is the dream, and the detachment that I owe to it, which is
aging me.
2.1 return to the waking state. I am obliged to retain it as a phenomenon
of interference. Not only does the mind show a strange tendency to disorien-
tation under these conditions (this is the clue to slips of the tongue and
lapses of all kinds whose secret is just beginning to be surrendered to us), but
when functioning normally the mind still seems to obey none other than
those suggestions which rise from that deep night I am commending. Sound
as it may be, its equilibrium is relative. The mind hardly dares express itself
and, when it does, is limited to stating that this idea or that woman has an
effect on it What effect it cannot say; thus it gives the measure of its subjectiv- c
ism and nothing more. The idea, the woman, disturbs it, disposes it to less -g
severity. Their role is to isolate one second of its disappearance and remove it m
to the sky in that glorious acceleration that it can be, that it is. Then, as a last ♦
resort, the mind invokes chance—a more obscure divinity than the others— ^
to whom it attributes all its aberrations. Who says that the angle from which §
that idea is presented which affects the mind, as well as what the mind loves
in that woman's eye, is not precisely the same thing that attracts the mind to
its dream and reunites it with data lost through its own error? And if things
were otherwise, of what might the mind not be capable? I should like to
present it with the key to that passage.
3. The mind of the dreaming man is fully satisfied with whatever hap­
pens to it. The agonizing question of possibility does not arise. Kill, plunder
more quickly, love as much as you wish. And if you die, are you not sure of
being roused from the dead? Let yourself be led. Events will not tolerate
deferment. You have no name. Everything is inestimably easy.
What power, I wonder, what power so much more generous than others
confers this natural aspect upon the dream and makes me welcome unre­
servedly a throng of episodes whose strangeness would overwhelm me if they
were happening as I write this? And yet I can believe it with my own eyes, my
own ears. That great day has come, that beast has spoken.
If man's awakening is harsher, if he breaks the spell too well, it is because
he has been led to form a poor idea of expiation.
4. When the time comes when we can submit the dream to a methodical
examination, when by methods yet to be determined we succeed in realizing
the dream in its entirety (and that implies a memory discipline measurable
in generations, but we can still begin by recording salient facts), when the
dream's curve is developed with an unequaled breadth and regularity, then
we can hope that mysteries which are not really mysteries will give way to
 the great Mystery. I believe in the future resolution of these two states—
outwardly so contradictory—which are dream and reality, into a sort of abso­
lute reality, a surreality, so to speak. I am aiming for its conquest, certain that
I myself shall not attain it, but too indifferent to my death not to calculate the
joys of such possession.
They say that not long ago, just before he went to sleep, Saint-Pol-Roux
placed a placard on the door of his manor at Camaret which read: THE POET
WORKS.
There is still a great deal to say, but I did want to touch lightly, in passing,
upon a subject which in itself would require a very long exposition with a
different precision. I shall return to it. For the time being my intention has
been to see that justice was done to that hatred of the marvelous which rages
in certain men, that ridicule under which they would like to crush it. Let us
resolve, therefore: the Marvelous is always beautiful, everything marvelous
z is beautiful. Nothing but the Marvelous is beautiful.
O . . . One night, before falling asleep, I became aware of a most bizarre
w sentence, clearly articulated to the point where it was impossible to change a
cfi word of it, but still separate from the sound of any voice. It came to me
♦ bearing no trace of the events with which I was involved at that time, at least
QQ to my conscious knowledge. It seemed to me a highly insistent sentence—a
co sentence, I might say, which knocked at the window. I quickly took note of it
and was prepared to disregard it when something about its whole character
held me back. The sentence truly astounded me. Unfortunately I still cannot
remember the exact words to this day, but it was something like: 'A man is
cut in half by the window'; but it can only suffer from ambiguity, accom­
panied as it was by the feeble visual representation of a walking man cut in
half by a window perpendicular to the axis of his body. * It was probably a
simple matter of a man leaning on the window and then straightening up.
But the window followed the movements of the man, and I realized that I
was dealing with a very rare type of image. Immediately I had the idea of
incorporating it into my poetic material, but no sooner had I invested it with
poetic form than it went on to give way to a scarcely intermittent succession
of sentences which surprised me no less than the first and gave me the
impression of such a free gift that the control which I had had over myself up

* Had I been a painter, this visual representation would undoubtedly have dominated the other.
It is certainly my previous disposition which decided it. Since that day I have had occasion to con­
centrate my attention voluntarily on similar apparitions, and I know that they are not inferior in clar­
ity to auditory phenomena. Armed with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper, it would be easy for me to
follow its contours. This is because here again it is not a matter of drawing, it is only a matter of trac-
ing. I would be able to draw quite well a tree, a wave, a musical instrument—all things of which I am
incapable of furnishing the briefest sketch at this time. Sure of finding my way, I would plunge into a
labyrinth of lines which at first would not seem to contribute to anything. And upon opening my eyes
I would experience a very strong impression ofjamais vi/." What I am saying has been proved many
times by Robert Desnos. To be convinced of this, one has only to thumb through No. 36 oiFeuilles
Libres, which contains several of his drawings (Romeo and Juliet, A Man Died This Morning, etc.).
They were taken by this review as drawings of the insane and innocently published as such.
to that point seemed illusory and I no longer thought of anything but how to
put an end to the interminable quarrel which was taking place within me.*
Totally involved as I was at the time with Freud, and familiar with his
methods of examination, which I had had some occasion to practice on the
sick during the war, I resolved to obtain from myself what one seeks to obtain
from a patient—a spoken monologue uttered as rapidly as possible, over
which the critical faculty of the subject has no control, unencumbered by
any reticence, which is spoken thought as far as such a thing is possible. It
seemed to me, and still does—the manner in which the sentence about the
man cut in two came to me proves it—that the speed of thought is no greater
than that of words, and that it does not necessarily defy language or the
moving pen. It was with this in mind that Philippe Soupault (with whom I
had shared these first conclusions) and I undertook to cover some paper with
writing, with a laudable contempt for what might result in terms of literature.
The ease of realization did the rest. At the end of the first day we were able to
read to each other around fifty pages obtained by this method, and began to c
compare our results. Altogether, those of Soupault and my own presented a -g
remarkable similarity, even including the same faults in construction: in CQ
both cases there was the illusion of an extraordinary verve, a great deal ♦
of emotion, a considerable assortment of images of a quality such as we ^
would never have b e e n capable of achieving in ordinary writing, a very vivid c§
graphic quality, and here and there an acutely comic passage. T h e only
difference between our texts seemed to m e essentially due to our respective
natures (Soupault's is less static than mine) and, if I may hazard a slight
criticism, due to the fact that he had m a d e the mistake of distributing a few
words in the way of titles at the head of certain pages—no doubt in the spirit
of mystification. O n the other hand, I must give h i m credit for maintaining
his steadfast opposition to the slightest alteration in the course of any passage

* Knut Hamsun attributes the kind of revelation by which I have just been possessed to hunger,
and he may well be right. (The fact is that I was not eating every day at that period.) Unquestionably
the manifestations that he describes below are the same as mine:
The next day I awoke early. It was still dark. My eyes had been open for a long time when I
heard the clock in the flat overhead sound five o'clock. I wanted to go back to sleep, but had no
success. I was completely awake and a thousand things ran through my mind.
All of a sudden several good pieces came to me, just right for use in a sketch or article. I
found abruptly, and by chance, very beautiful phrases, phrases such as I had never written.
I repeated them to myself slowly, word for word: they were excellent. And they kept coming.
I rose and took a piece of paper and pencil to the desk behind my bed. It was as though a vein
had burst in me, one word followed another, set itself in place, adapted itself to the situation,
scenes accumulated, action unfolded, replies surged in my brain. I enjoyed myself prodi­
giously. Thoughts came to me so rapidly and continued to flow so abundantly that I lost a
multitude of delicate details because my pencil could not go fast enough, and even then I was
hurrying, my hand was always moving. I didn't lose a minute. Sentences continued to be driven
from me, I was at the heart of my subject.
Apollinaire affirmed that Chirico's paintings had been executed under the influence of cenes-
thesiac pains (migraines, colic).
 which seemed to me rather badly put. He was completely right on this point,
of course.* In fact, it is very difficult to appreciate the full value of the various
elements when confronted by them. It can even be said to be impossible to
appreciate them at the first reading. These elements are outwardly as strange
to you who have written them as to anyone else, and you are naturally distrust­
ful of them. Poetically speaking, they are especially endowed with a very
high degree of immediate absurdity. The peculiarity of this absurdity, on
closer examination, comes from their capitulation to everything—both inad­
missible and legitimate—in the world, to produce a revelation of a certain
number of premises and facts generally no less objective than any others.
In homage to Guillaume Apollinaire—who died recently, and who ap­
pears to have consistently obeyed an impulse similar to ours without ever
really sacrificing mediocre literary means—Soupault and I used the name
SURREALISM to designate the new mode of pure expression which we had at
_ our disposal and with which we were anxious to benefit our friends. Today I
O do not believe anything more need be said about this word. The meaning
UJ which we have given it has generally prevailed over Apollinaire's meaning.
eo With even more justification we could have used supernaturalism, em-
♦ ployed by Gerard de Nerval in the dedication of filles du feu. f In fact, Nerval
0 appears to have possessed to an admirable extent the spirit to which we refer.
co Apollinaire, on the other hand, possessed only the letter of Surrealism
(which was still imperfect) and showed himself powerless to give it the
theoretical insight that engages us. Here are two passages by Nerval which
appear most significant in this regard:
I will explain to you, my dear Dumas, the phenomenon of which you spoke
above. As you know, there are certain storytellers who cannot invent without
identifying themselves with the characters from their imagination. You know
with what conviction our old friend Nodier told how he had had the misfortune
to be guillotined at the time of the Revolution; one became so convinced that
one wondered how he had managed to stick his head back on.

And since you have had the imprudence to cite one of the sonnets composed
in this state of supernaturalist reverie, as the Germans would say, you must hear
all of them. You will find them at the end of the volume. They are hardly more
obscure than Hegel's metaphysics or Swedenborg's MEMORABLES, and would
lose their charm in explication, if such a thing were possible, so concede me at
least the merit of their expression.!

* I believe increasingly in the infallibility of my thought in regard to myself, and it is too

accurate. Nevertheless, in this writing down of thoughts, where one is at the mercy of the first exterior
distraction, "transports" can be produced. It would be inexcusable to seek to ignore them. By
definition, thought is strong and incapable of being at fault. We must attribute those obvious
weaknesses to suggestions which come from outside.
t And also by Thomas Carlyle in Sartor Resartus (chap. 8, "Natural Supernaturalism"),
1833-34.
+ See also L'IDEOREALISME by Saint-Pol-Roux.
 It would be dishonest to dispute our right to employ the word SURREAL­
ISM in the very particular sense in which we intend it, for it is clear that
before we came along this word amounted to nothing. Thus I shall define it
once and for all:
Surrealism, noun, masc, Pure psychic automatism by which it is in­
tended to express, either verbally or in writing, the true function of thought.
Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside
all aesthetic or moral preoccupations.
Encycl. Philos. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of
certain forms of association heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of the
dream, and in the disinterested play of thought. It leads to the permanent
destruction of all other psychic mechanisms and to its substitution for them
in the solution of the principal problems of life.

The forms of Surrealist language adapt themselves best to dialogue.

Here, two thoughts confront each other; while one is being delivered, the
other is busy with it; but how is it busy with it? To assume that it incorporates
it within itself would be tantamount to admitting that there is a time during
which it is possible for it to live completely off that other thought, which is
highly unlikely. And, in fact, the attention it pays is completely exterior; it
has only time enough to approve or reject—generally reject—with all the
consideration of which man is capable. This mode of language, moreover,
does not allow the heart of the matter to be plumbed. My attention, prey to
an entreaty which it cannot in all decency reject, treats the opposing thought
as an enemy; in ordinary conversation, it "takes it up" almost always on the
words, the figures of speech, it employs; it puts me in a position to turn it to
good advantage in my reply by distorting them. This is true to such a degree
that in certain pathological states of mind, where sensory disorders occupy
the patient's complete attention, he limits himself, while continuing to an­
swer the questions, to seizing the last word spoken in his presence or the last
portion of the Surrealist sentence some trace of which he finds in his mind.
Q. "How old are you?"
A. "You." (Echolalia.)
Q. "What is your name?"
A. "Forty-five houses." (Gamer syndrome, or beside-the-point replies.)
There is no conversation in which some trace of this disorder does not
occur. The effort to be social which dictates it and the considerable practice
we have at it are the only things which enable us to conceal it temporarily. It
is also the great weakness of the book that it is in constant conflict with its
best, by which I mean the most demanding, readers. In the very short di­
alogue that I concocted above between the doctor and the madman, it was in
fact the madman who got the better of the exchange—because, through his
replies, he obtrudes upon the attention of the doctor examining him—and
 because he is not the person asking the questions. Does this mean that his
thought at this point is the stronger? Perhaps. He is free not to care any
longer about his age or name.

Poetic Surrealism, which is the subject of this study, has focused its
efforts up to this point on reestablishing dialogue in its absolute truth, by
freeing both interlocutors from any obligations of politeness. Each of them
simply pursues his soliloquy without trying to derive any special dialectical
pleasure from it and without trying to impose anything whatsoever upon his
neighbor. The remarks exchanged are not, as is generally the case, meant to
develop some thesis, however unimportant it may be; they are as [disin­
terested] as possible. As for the reply that they elicit, it is, in principle, totally
indifferent to the personal pride of the person speaking. The words, the
images are only so many springboards for the mind of the listener. In Les
z champs magnetiques, the first purely Surrealist work, this is the way in which
O the pages grouped together under the title Barrieres must be conceived of—
UJ pages wherein Soupault and I show ourselves to be impartial interlocutors.
tc
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♦
02
I>
CO
cl

The Theater of Cruelty

a ntonin Artaud, poet, theorist, playwright, actor, director, and

designer, was born in Marseilles, France, on September 4,
1896. From 1921 to 1924, he worked as an actor for some of
the most respected and influential avant-garde directors in Paris, in­
cluding Aurelien Lugne-Poe, Charles Dullin, and Georges Pitoeff (in the
last case, in Georges and Ludmilla PitoefTs influential production of
Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author). In 1924, Artaud joined
the Surrealist movement and served as director of the Bureau of Sur­
realist Research in 1925. Because of his devotion to theater, however—
a theater that Andre Breton found to be too oriented toward commer­
cial production—and also because of his "unorthodox" interest in occultism,
mysticism, and Oriental religion, Artaud split with the Surrealists. Along with
Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron, he founded the Theatre Alfred-Jarry in Paris in
1926. For the Theatre Alfred-Jarry, he directed the premieres of Vitrac's Myste-
ries of Love (1927) and V7ctor, or The Children Take Over (1928), but not even the
success of the latter production could save the theater, which closed after two
seasons. Artaud attempted to start another theater, the Theater of Cruelty, in
1935, but its first and only production, his own The Cenci (based on works by
Shelley and Stendhal), received poor reviews and closed quickly.
Ultimately, Artaud influenced the avant-garde more through his theoretical
writings than through his plays and productions. In The Theater and Its Double
(1938), a collection of his articles, Artaud articulated his concept of a theoretical
language dependent on the body rather than the word as its primary unit of
expression. He coined the term "theater of cruelty" to capture his vision of
theater, in which a visceral attack on the senses would be used to confront what
Artaud saw as a diseased society. The plays he wrote during the 1920s—The
Spurt of Blood (1925), The Philosopher's Stone (1926), and The Burnt Belly, or The
Crazy Mother (1927)—are all characterized by violent images in disconnected
 sequences that defy ordinary logic. Artaud's theories were heavily influenced by
the physical style of a Balinese dance company he saw at the Colonial Exposition
of 1931 in Paris, as well as by his own battles with psychosis. He was first
institutionalized at the age of eighteen and then confined to sanatoriums from
1937 to 1946. He died of cancer in Ivry-sur-Seine on March 4, 1948, yet his
writings and dramatic vision exerted a powerful influence on avant-garde the­
ater, including the work of Adamov, Genet, Arrabal, lonesco, Beckett, Grotow-
ski, the Living Theater, and Peter Brook, for the rest of the century.
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Artaud's Theater of Cruelty and The Spurt of Blood
u-^—, ^ ^ rtaud's revolutionary ideas took written shape in the 1930s,
lu^^ ^^m when he wrote the essays later collected in The Theater and Its
ng^ ^^0 Double. To realize his theatrical aims, he founded the Theater
^^^ of Cruelty in 1935. Its only production was The Cenci, a tale of incest
D ^ F * and murder, based on Stendhal's story and Shelley's tragedy—the only
full-length play Artaud wrote. With musique concrete plus frenzied shouting
and ritualistic chanting by the actors, including himself as Count Cenci, the
production—also directed by Artaud—was badly received (possibly owing to
philistine incomprehension), lasted just seventeen days, ruined him financially,
led him to despair, and probably exacerbated his insanity.
As his cruel theater ultimately would have been, Artaud's impassioned essays
in The Theater and Its Double are a jeremiad against the traditional theater. To
Artaud, the idolatry of masterpieces is an act of bourgeois conformism. "No
More Masterpieces!" he cries. Valid for the past, they have nothing to say to the
present, and their forms "no longer respond to the needs of the time." Instead of
subordinating theatrical elements to the text, Artaud would either get rid of the
text or else subjugate it to theatrical language (such as movement, lighting,
scenery, and sound). Anxious to put an end to the dominance of the spoken
word, he wants "a language halfway between gesture and thought," a language
addressed not to the spectator's mind but to the senses. It would express what is
"beyond the reach of the spoken language."
To Artaud, theater should not be an intellectual experience but should
"shake the organism to its foundations and leave an ineffaceable scar." In his
theater, "violent physical images [would] crush and hypnotize the sensibility of
the spectator^]," assaulting them with sensual, theatrical means. Neither reas­
suring nor restful, discursive nor detached, Artaud's theater aims at disturbing
the senses, pushing the audience's experience to new extremes, revealing our
cultural hypocrisies, and releasing subconscious as well as anarchic impulses. In
these respects, he says, it resembles the plague, which is likewise "a delirium and
is communicative." Like the plague, theater "is the revelation, the bringing forth,
the exteriorization of a depth of latent cruelty by means of which all the per­
verse possibilities of the mind, whether of an individual or a people, are lo­
calized." Artaud's proposed theater is one of cruelty, by which he does not mean
decapitation, dismemberment, or assault with knife and meat cleaver, but rather
the cruelty of existence, of humans' precarious position in the universe. "We are
not free," he declaims. "And the sky can still fall on our heads. And the theater
has been created to teach us that first of all." (Ironically, while Europe was
suffering convulsions like those of the plague, while cruelty in all senses of the
word lacerated civilization during World War II, he was safely incarcerated in an
insane asylum.)
Artaud, then, sought total theater. Demolishing the traditional barrier be-

By Bert Cardullo. Published here for the first time.

 tween stage and spectator, he would place the latter in the middle of the action.
With their senses bombarded on all sides, the spectators would become part of
a stage-spectator space in which there was little or no distinction between
playing area and audience area. For such a theatrical event, Artaud would aban­
don the conventional theater building and, reconstructing the interior of a barn
or a hangar, deploy the action all over the floor, as well as in galleries and on
catwalks. Moreover, the action could occur in various parts of the room, even on
various levels, at the same time.
I- In this theater, the audience's senses would be overwhelmed by groans,
w shrieks, incantations, harmonic tones, apparitions, ritualistic costumes and
£ masks, giant effigies, and swift changes of dazzling light, together with pulsating
|jj| sexual rhythms. Words would be used less as language than as sounds, and
O noises also would figure prominently. In Artaud's radio production of his To End
S5 God's Judgment (1947)—a blasphemous and obscene but hypnotic, powerful
Jj poem about humanity, God, and the cosmos—shouts and incantations mixed
^ with the sounds of percussion instruments. In his production plan for Strind-
I- berg's Ghost Sonata (around 1928), the steps of some characters would be
j muffled, those of others magnified; the voice of the Cook, to be played by a
•" dummy, would be amplified by several loudspeakers, thus hiding its source; and
J the wind would blend with people's voices. Lighting would not merely illuminate
co but also create special effects and assault the audience's senses. In Artaud's
co production of The Cenci, blinding lights terrified the characters—and the specta­
tors—while unrealistic costumes vividly projected these figures' inner states. As
Count Cenci, for instance, Artaud wore a tight-fitting costume upon which his
chest, stomach, and leg muscles were outlined in white—as if his skin had been
stripped off—a grotesque visualization of the character's grotesque, tortured
soul.
The Spurt of Blood—written in 1924 but not performed until forty years later
in Peter Brook's London Theatre of Cruelty—can be seen in traditional, literary
terms, but it can also be seen in Artaud's untraditional terms. Regarded conven­
tionally, it symbolically dramatizes such themes as the movement from inno­
cence and faith to lust and fear (the Young Man), degeneration (in place of the
godliness of the body are "the little obscenities of man"), blasphemy (the Bawd's
biting of God's wrist) and its consequences, the reality behind myths (the greed,
brutality, and selfishness behind the idealistic image of the Knight, for instance),
and the dangerous fascination of women (represented by scorpions that crawl
from beneath a skirt). To regard the play only in this manner, however, is to regard
an unconventional work conventionally.
The Spurt of Blood is also an early example of the theater of cruelty. Employing
not only language but also purely theatrical means, such as shifting tones of voice,
to convey meaning, Artaud creates violent images of the cruelty of human exis­
tence in a world in which the sky bombards human beings and shakes them to
their core. In a nightmarish universe in which a Young Man's exclamation that the
world is beautifully built is followed by a rending of the heavens ("The sky has
gone mad," he says next), Artaud presents a fantastic temporal spectrum of
creation and destruction speeded up and slowed down, like a phonograph rec-
ord. Associating gluttony and lust, sex and violence, even innocence and swinish­
ness, The Spurt of Blood attacks the senses with bizarre sights and sounds as it
reaches toward our subconscious impulses and fears.

Select Bibliography on Artaud

Barber, Stephen. Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs. London: Faber and Faber, 1993.
Bermel, Albert. "The Dreamer as Mankind: The Fountain of Blood, by Antonin Artaud." In
Bermel, Contradictory Characters, 256-68. New York: Dutton, 1973.
. Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, 47-54,62-64. New York: Taplinger, 1977.
Cohn, Ruby. "Artaud's Jet de sang: Parody or Cruelty?" Theatre Journal 31(1979): 312-18.
Costich, Julia F. Antonin Artaud. Boston: Twayne, 1978.
Esslin, Martin. Artaud. London: Calder, 1976.
Goodall, Jane. Artaud and the Gnostic Drama. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Greene, Naomi. Artaud: Poet Without Words. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970.
Knapp, Bettina. Antonin Artaud: Man of Vision. 1969. Chicago: Swallow, 1980.
Sellin, Eric. The Dramatic Concepts ofAntonin Artaud. Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
1968.

See Ahrends; Benedikt and Wellwarth, Modern French Theatre; Finter; Hayman; Kott;
Matthews, Theatre in Dado and Surrealism; Plunka; Torelli; Torn; and Wellwarth, in
the General Bibliography.
 T h e Spurt of Blood

Antonin Artaud

CHARACTERS

A YOUNG MAN
A YOUNG GIRL
A KNIGHT
A WET-NURSE
A PRIEST
A COBBLER
A BEADLE
A BAWD
A JUDGE
A PEDDLER
A HUGE VOICE

YOUNG MAN: I love you and everything is beautiful.

YOUNG GIRL: [With quavering voice] You love me and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG MAN: [In a lower tone] I love you and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG GIRL: [In an even lower tone] You love me and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG MAN: [Leaving her abruptly] I love you.
[Silence]
Face me.

Reprinted from A Treasury of the Theatre, vol. 2, 4th ed., ed. John Gassner and Bernard F.
Dukore; trans. Ruby Cohn (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), 705-6.
YOUNG GIRL: [As before, standing opposite him]
There.
YOUNG MAN: [In an exalted, high-pitched voice] I love you, I am great, I am
lucid, I am full, I am dense.
YOUNG GIRL: [In the same high-pitched voice] We love each other.
YOUNG MAN: We are intense. Ah, how beautifully the world is built.
[Silence. There is a noise as if an immense wheel were turning and moving
the air. A hurricane separates them. At the same time, two stars are seen
colliding, and from them fall a series of legs of living flesh, with feet, hands,
scalps, masks, colonnades, porticos, temples, alembics, falling more and
more slowly, as if in a vacuum; then three scorpions one after another, and
finally a frog and a beetle which come to rest with desperate slowness,
nauseating slowness] o
o
YOUNG MAN: [Crying with all his strength] The sky has gone mad. CO
o
[He looks at the sky] t
Let's hurry away from here. £
[He pushes the Young Girl before him]
[Enter a medieval Knight in gigantic armor, followed by a Wet-Nurse IE
♦
holding her breasts in her hands, and puffing because her breasts are ♦
swollen] i>
KNIGHT: Let go of your tits. Give me my papers.
WET-NURSE: [Screaming in high pitch] Ah! Ah! Ah!
KNIGHT: Damn, what's the matter with you?
WET-NURSE: Our daughter, there, with him.
KNIGHT: Quiet, there's no girl there.
WET-NURSE: I'm telling you that they're screwing.
KNIGHT: What the Hell do I care if they're screwing?
WET-NURSE: Incest.
KNIGHT: Midwife.
WET-NURSE: [Plunging her hands deep into her pockets, which are as big as her
breasts] Pimp.
[She throws his papers at him]
KNIGHT: Let me eat.
[The Wet-Nurse rushes out]
[He gets up, and from each paper he takes a huge hunk of Swiss cheese.
Suddenly he coughs and chokes]
KNIGHT: [With full mouth] Ehp. Ehp. Show me your breasts. Show me your
breasts. Where did she go?
[He runs out]
[The Young Man comes back]
YOUNG MAN: I saw, I knew, I understood. Here on a public street, the priest,
 the cobbler, the peddler, the entrance to the church, the red light of the
brothel, the scales of justice. I can't stand it any longer!
[Like shadows, a Priest, a Cobbler, a Beadle, a Bawd, a Judge, a Peddler,
arrive on stage]
YOUNG MAN: IVe lost her; give her back to me.
ALL: [In different tones] Who, who, who, who?
YOUNG MAN: My wife.
BEADLE: [Very fat] Your wife, you're kidding!
YOUNG MAN: Kidding! Maybe she's yours!
BEADLE: [Tapping his forehead] Maybe she is.
[He runs out]
[The Priest leaves the group and puts his arm around the neck of the Young
Man]
Q PRIEST: [As if confessing someone] To what part of your body do you refer
5 most often?
£ YOUNG MAN: To G o d .
^ [Confused by the reply, the Priest immediately shifts to a Swiss accent]
i PRIEST: [In Swiss accent] But that isn't done any more. We no longer hear
<g through that ear. You have to ask that of volcanoes and earthquakes. We
00
wallow in the little obscenities of man in the confession box. That's life.
YOUNG MAN: [Much impressed] Ah that's life! Then everything is shot to hell.
PRIEST: [Still with Swiss accent] Of course.
[At this moment, night suddenly falls onstage. The earth quakes. There are
furious thunder and zigzags of lightning in every direction; through the
zigzags all the characters can be seen running around, bumping into each
other and falling, then getting up and running about like crazy. Then, an
enormous hand seizes the Bawd by her hair, which bursts into flame and
grows huge before our eyes]
HUGE VOICE: Bitch, look at your body!
[The Bawd's body is seen to be absolutely naked and hideous beneath her
blouse and skirt, which become transparent as glass]
BAWD: Leave me alone, God.
[She bites God in the wrist An immense spurt of blood lacerates the stage,
and through the biggest flash of lightning the Priest can be seen, making
the sign of the cross. When the lights go on again, all the characters are
dead, and their corpses lie all over the ground. Only the Young Man and
the Bawd remain, devouring each other with their eyes. The Bawd falls into
the Young Man's arms]
BAWD: [With the sigh of one having an orgasm] Tell me how it happened to
you.
[The Young Man hides his head in his hands. The Wet-Nurse comes back,
carrying the Young Girl under her arm like a bundle. The Young Girl is
 dead. The Bawd takes her and drops her on the ground, where she collapses
and becomes flat as a pancake. The Wet-Nurse no longer has her breasts.
Her chest is completely flat ]
KNIGHT: [In a terrible voice] Where did you put them? Give me my Swiss
cheese.
WET-NURSE: [Boldly and gaily] Here you are.
[She lifts up her dress. The Young Man wants to run away, but he is frozen
like a petrified puppet]
YOUNG MAN: [As if suspended in the air, and with the voice of a ventriloquist]
Don't hurt Mommy!
KNIGHT: She-devil!
[He hides his face in horror. A multitude of scorpions crawl out from "§
beneath the Wet-Nurse's dress and swarm between her legs. Her vagina g
swells up, splits, and becomes transparent and glistening, like a sun. The *©"
Young Man and Bawd run off as though lobotomized] |»
YOUNG GIRL: [Getting up, dazed] The virgin! Ah, that's what he was looking *>
for. 4
♦
♦
00
CO
 N o More Masterpieces

Antonin Artaud

One of the reasons for the asphyxiating atmosphere in which we live without
possible escape or remedy—and in which we all share, even the most revolu­
tionary among us—is our respect for what has been written, formulated, or
painted, what has been given form, as if all expression were not at last
exhausted, were not at a point where things must break apart if they are to
start anew and begin fresh.
We must have done with this idea of masterpieces reserved for a self-
styled elite and not understood by the general public; the mind has no such
restricted districts as those so often used for clandestine sexual encounters.
Masterpieces of the past are good for the past: they are not good for us.
We have the right to say what has been said and even what has not been said
in a way that belongs to us, a way that is immediate and direct, corresponding
to present modes of feeling, and understandable to everyone.
It is idiotic to reproach the masses for having no sense of the sublime,
when the sublime is confused with one or another of its formal manifesta­
tions, which are moreover always defunct manifestations. And if, for exam­
ple, a contemporary public does not understand Oedipus Rex, I shall make
bold to say that it is the fault of Oedipus Rex and not of the public.
In Oedipus Rex there is the theme of incest and the idea that nature
mocks at morality and that there are certain unspecified powers at large
which we would do well to beware of, call them destiny or anything you
choose.
There is in addition the presence of a plague epidemic which is a physi-

Reprinted from Antonin Artaud, The Theater and Its Double, trans. Mary Caroline Richards
(New York: Grove, 1958), 74-83. Used by permission of Grove Atlantic, © 1958.
cal incarnation of these powers. But the whole in a m a n n e r and language
that have lost all touch with the rude and epileptic rhythm of our time.
Sophocles speaks grandly perhaps, but in a style that is no longer timely. His
language is too refined for this age; it is as if he were speaking beside the
point.
However, a public that shudders at train wrecks, that is familiar with
earthquakes, plagues, revolutions, wars; that is sensitive to the disordered
anguish of love, can be affected by all these grand notions and asks only to
b e c o m e aware of them, but on condition that it is addressed in its own
language, and that its knowledge of these things does not come to it through
adulterated trappings and speech that belong to extinct eras which will never
live again.
Today as yesterday, the public is greedy for mystery: it asks only to be­
c o m e aware of the laws according to which destiny manifests itself, and to
divine perhaps the secret of its apparitions.
Let us leave textual criticism to graduate students, formal criticism to
aesthetes, and recognize that what has b e e n said is not still to be said; that an 2
expression does not have the same value twice, does not live two lives; that all 5
words, once spoken, are dead and function only at the m o m e n t when they ♦
are uttered; that a form, once it has served, cannot be used again and asks *
only to be replaced by another; and that the theater is the only place in the co
world where a gesture, once made, can never be m a d e the same way twice.
If the public does not frequent our literary masterpieces, it is because
those masterpieces are literary, that is to say, fixed; and fixed in forms that no
longer respond to the needs of the time.
Far from blaming the public, we ought to blame the formal screen we
interpose between ourselves and the public, and this new form of idolatry,
the idolatry of fixed masterpieces which is one of the aspects of bourgeois
conformism.
This conformism makes us confuse sublimity, ideas, and things with the
forms they have taken in time and in our minds—in our snobbish, precious,
aesthetic mentalities which the public does not understand.
How pointless in such matters to accuse the public of bad taste because it
relishes insanities, so long as the public is not shown a valid spectacle; and I
defy anyone to show m e here a spectacle valid—valid in the supreme sense of
the theater—since the last great romantic melodramas, i.e., since a h u n d r e d
years ago.
T h e public, which takes the false for the true, has the sense of the true
and always responds to it when it is manifested. However, it is not upon the
stage that the true is to be sought nowadays, but in the street; and if the crowd
in the street is offered an occasion to show its h u m a n dignity, it will always
do so.
If people are out of the habit of going to the theater, if we have all finally
come to think of theater as an inferior art, a means of popular distraction,
 and to use it as an outlet for our worst instincts, it is because we have learned
too well what the theater has been, namely, falsehood and illusion. It is
because we have been accustomed for four hundred years, that is since the
Renaissance, to a purely descriptive and narrative theater—storytelling psy­
chology; it is because every possible ingenuity has been exerted in bringing
to life on the stage plausible but detached beings, with the spectacle on one
side, the public on the other—and because the public is no longer shown
anything but the mirror of itself.
Shakespeare himself is responsible for this aberration and decline, this
disinterested idea of the theater which wishes a theatrical performance to
leave the public intact, without setting off one image that will shake the
organism to its foundations and leave an ineffaceable scar.
If, in Shakespeare, a man is sometimes preoccupied with what tran­
scends him, it is always in order to determine the ultimate consequences of
Q this preoccupation within him, i.e., psychology.
3 Psychology, which works relentlessly to reduce the unknown to the
l- known, to the quotidian and the ordinary, is the cause of the theater's abase-
< ment and its fearful loss of energy, which seems to me to have reached its
t lowest point. And I think both the theater and we ourselves have had enough
^ of psychology.
co I believe furthermore that we can all agree on this matter sufficiently so
that there is no need to descend to the repugnant level of the modern and
French theater to condemn the theater of psychology.
Stories about money, worry over money, social careerism, the pangs of
love unspoiled by altruism, sexuality sugar-coated with an eroticism that has
lost its mystery have nothing to do with the theater, even if they do belong to
psychology. These torments, seductions, and lusts before which we are
nothing but Peeping Toms gratifying our cravings, tend to go bad, and their
rot turns to revolution: we must take this into account.
But this is not our most serious concern.
If Shakespeare and his imitators have gradually insinuated the idea of art
for art's sake, with art on one side and life on the other, we can [stick to] this
feeble and lazy idea only as long as the life outside endures. But there are too
many signs that everything that used to sustain our lives no longer does so,
that we are all mad, desperate, and sick. And I call for us to react.
This idea of a detached art, of poetry as a charm which exists only to
distract our leisure, is a decadent idea and an unmistakable symptom of our
power to castrate.
Our literary admiration for Rimbaud, Jarry, Lautreamont, and a few
others, which has driven two men to suicide, but turned into cafe gossip for
the rest, belongs to this idea of literary poetry, of detached art, of neutral
spiritual activity which creates nothing and produces nothing; and I can bear
witness that at the very moment when that kind of personal poetry which
involves only the man who creates it and only at the moment he creates it
broke out in its most abusive fashion, the theater was scorned more than ever
before by poets who have never had the sense of direct and concerted action,
nor of efficacity, nor of danger.
We must get rid of our superstitious valuation of texts and written poetry.
Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the
dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is
our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and
valid it may be, that petrifies us, deadens our responses, and prevents us from
making contact with that underlying power, call it thought-energy, the life
force, the determinism of change, lunar menses, or anything you like. Be­
neath the poetry of the texts, there is the actual poetry, without form and
without text. And just as the efficacity of masks in the magic practices of
certain tribes is exhausted—and these masks are no longer good for anything
except museums—so the poetic efficacity of a text is exhausted; yet the poetry
and the efficacity of the theater are exhausted least quickly of all, since they
permit the action of what is gesticulated and pronounced, and which is -o
never made the same way twice. fl
It is a question of knowing what we want. If we are prepared for war, <
plague, famine, and slaughter we do not even need to say so, we have only to ♦
continue as we are; continue behaving like snobs, rushing en masse to hear
such and such a singer, to see such and such an admirable performance co
which never transcends the realm of art (and even the Russian ballet at the
height of its splendor never transcended the realm of art), to marvel at such
and such an exhibition of painting in which exciting shapes explode here
and there but at random and without any genuine consciousness of the
forces they could rouse.
This empiricism, randomness, individualism, and anarchy must cease.
Enough of personal poems, benefiting those who create them much
more than those who read them.
Once and for all, enough of this closed, egoistic, and personal art.
Our spiritual anarchy and intellectual disorder are a function of the
anarchy of everything else—or rather, everything else is a function of this
anarchy.
I am not one of those who believe that civilization has to change in order
for the theater to change; but I do believe that the theater, utilized in the
highest and most difficult sense possible, has the power to influence the
aspect and formation of things: and the encounter upon the stage of two
passionate manifestations, two living centers, two nervous magnetisms is
something as entire, true, even decisive, as, in life, the encounter of one
epidermis with another in a timeless debauchery.
That is why I propose a theater of cruelty.—With this mania we all have
for depreciating everything, as soon as I have said "cruelty," everybody will at
once take it to mean "blood." But "theater of cruelty" means a theater
difficult and cruel for myself first of all. And, on the level of performance, it is
 not the cruelty we can exercise upon each other by hacking at each other's
bodies, carving up our personal anatomies, or, like Assyrian emperors, send­
ing parcels of human ears, noses, or neatly detached nostrils through the
mail, but the much more terrible and necessary cruelty which things can
exercise against us. We are not free. And the sky can still fall on our heads.
And the theater has been created to teach us that first of all.
Either we will be capable of returning by present-day means to this
superior idea of poetry and poetry-through-theater which underlies the
Myths told by the great ancient tragedians, capable once more of entertain­
ing a religious idea of the theater (without meditation, useless contempla­
tion, and vague dreams), capable of attaining awareness and a possession of
certain dominant forces, of certain notions that control all others, and (since
ideas, when they are effective, carry their energy with them) capable of
recovering within ourselves those energies which ultimately create order
Q and increase the value of life, or else we might as well abandon ourselves
3 now, without protest, and recognize that we are no longer good for anything
h- but disorder, famine, blood, war, and epidemics.
< Either we restore all the arts to a central attitude and necessity, finding an
♦ analogy between a gesture made in painting or the theater, and a gesture
^ made by lava in a volcanic explosion, or we must stop painting, babbling,
co writing, or doing whatever it is we do.
I propose to bring back into the theater this elementary magical idea,
taken up by modern psychoanalysis, which consists in effecting a patient's
cure by making him assume the apparent and exterior attitudes of the de­
sired condition.
I propose to renounce our empiricism of imagery, in which the uncon­
scious furnishes images at random, and which the poet arranges at random
too, calling them poetic and hence hermetic images, as if the kind of trance
that poetry provides did not have its reverberations throughout the whole
sensibility, in every nerve, and as if poetry were some vague force whose
movements were invariable.
I propose to return through the theater to an idea of the physical knowl­
edge of images and the means of inducing trances, as in Chinese medicine,
which knows, over the entire extent of the human anatomy, at what points to
puncture in order to regulate the subtlest functions.
Those who have forgotten the communicative power and magical mime­
sis of a gesture, the theater can reinstruct, because a gesture carries its energy
with it, and there are still human beings in the theater to manifest the force
of the gesture made.
To create art is to deprive a gesture of its reverberation in the organism,
whereas this reverberation, if the gesture is made in the conditions and with
the force required, incites the organism and, through it, the entire individu­
ality, to take attitudes in harmony with the gesture.
The theater is the only place in the world, the last general means we still
possess of directly affecting the organism and, in periods of neurosis and
petty sensuality like the one in which we are immersed, of attacking this
sensuality by physical means it cannot withstand.
If music affects snakes, it is not on account of the spiritual notions it offers
them, but because snakes are long and coil their length upon the earth,
because their bodies touch the earth at almost every point; and because the
musical vibrations which are communicated to the earth affect them like a
very subtle, very long massage; and I propose to treat the spectators like the
snake charmer's subjects and conduct them by means of their organisms to an
apprehension of the subtlest notions.
At first by crude means, which will gradually be refined. These immedi­
ate crude means will hold their attention at the start.
That is why in the "theater of cruelty" the spectator is in the center and
the spectacle surrounds him.
In this spectacle the sonorization is constant: sounds, noises, cries are
chosen first for their vibratory quality, then for what they represent. -o
Among these gradually refined means, light is interposed in its turn. £
Light which is not created merely to add color or to brighten, and which <
brings its power, influence, suggestions with it. And the light of a green ♦
cavern does not sensually dispose the organism like the light of a windy day.
After sound and light there is action, and the dynamism of action: here <§
the theater, far from copying life, puts itself whenever possible in communi­
cation with pure forces. And whether you accept or deny them, there is
nevertheless a way of speaking which gives the name of "forces" to whatever
brings to birth images of energy in the unconscious, and gratuitous crime on
the surface.
A violent and concentrated action is a kind of lyricism: it summons up
supernatural images, a bloodstream of images, a bleeding spurt of images in
the poet's head and in the spectator's as well.
Whatever the conflicts that haunt the mind of a given period, I defy any
spectator to whom such violent scenes will have transferred their blood, who
will have felt in himself the transit of a superior action, who will have seen
the extraordinary and essential movements of his thought illuminated in
extraordinary deeds—the violence and blood having been placed at the
service of the violence of the thought—I defy that spectator to give himself
up, once outside the theater, to ideas of war, riot, and blatant murder.
So expressed, this idea seems dangerous and sophomoric. It will be
claimed that example breeds example, that if the attitude of cure induces
cure, the attitude of murder will induce murder. Everything depends upon
the manner and the purity with which the thing is done. There is a risk. But
let it not be forgotten that though a theatrical gesture is violent, it is disin­
terested; and that the theater teaches precisely the uselessness of the action
which, once [performed,] is not to be [performed,] and the superior use of
the state unused by the action and which, restored, produces a purification.
 I propose, then, a theater in which violent physical images crush and
hypnotize the sensibility of the spectator seized by the theater as by a whirl­
wind of higher forces.
A theater which, abandoning psychology, recounts the extraordinary,
stages natural conflicts, natural and subtle forces, and presents itself first of
all as an exceptional power of redirection. A theater that induces trance, as
the dances of Dervishes induce trance, and that addresses itself to the organ­
ism by precise instruments, by the same means as those of certain tribal
music cures which we admire on records but are incapable of originating
among ourselves.
There is a risk involved, but in the present circumstances I believe it is a
risk worth running. I do not believe we have managed to revitalize the world
we live in, and I do not believe it is worth the trouble of clinging to; but I
do propose something to get us out of our [malaise] instead of continuing
Q
to complain about it, and about the boredom, inertia, and stupidity of
D everything.

<
♦
00
00
CO
t
Qi Russian Oberiu

a i
leksandr Vvedensky, playwright, children's fiction writer, poet,
!
and theorist, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on
' December 6, 1904. After graduating from the Lentovskaia
gymnasium (secondary school) in 1921, he briefly studied law and Asian
languages before focusing on the writing of poetry and drama. From
1923 to 1926, Vvedensky did research into the nature of poetry with
Igor Terentev, the Futurist poet and theater director who headed the
Institute of Artistic Culture in Leningrad. In 1925, Vvedensky met
Daniil Kharms, and together the two of them formed the core of a
group of avant-garde writers that would officially found Oberiu in 1928.
(The name is derived from the initials of the group's full name: Obedinenie
Realnogo Iskusstva, or the Society for Real Art; its members called themselves
Oberiuty.) Their earliest theater work was created with Radiks, a student drama
group from the Institute for Art History, and included several evenings of Dada-
inspired theater, poetry, and dance.
In 1928, the Oberiuty published a manifesto in which they declared their
preference for visual elements and spectacle over plot and argued for a drama
unconstrained by logic. The Oberiuty produced poetry, manifestos, plays, and
provocative performances that attempted to expand the meaning of words
through distortion and juxtaposition. Along with other avant-gardists, the
Oberiuty came under government attack as a threat to socialism in 1930, at
which time they disbanded rather than risk reprisals for their continued public
affiliation. Vvedensky was arrested and imprisoned in 1931 and began living in
exile in Kursk in 1932.
In 1936 he moved to Kharkov, Ukraine, where in 1938 he wrote Christmas at
the Ivanovs' (his only full-length drama), not only a parody of the realistic conven­
tions and assumptions of socialist realist drama of the 1930s, but also a demon­
stration of the absurdity of everyday, domestic routine and the meaninglessness
 of life in general (like lonesco's Bald Soprano [1950] and a number of other plays
from the Theater of the Absurd). Vvedensky was arrested once again on
September 27, 1941, but the circumstances of his death remain uncertain; either
he died of dysentery, or he was shot by a guard around December 20, 1941,
while being transported from Kharkov in a prison convoy.

CO

O
Z
<
m
D
en
♦
The Oberiuty
_ ^ ^ ^ ^ more entertaining and funnier exercise in the absurd than
Is^^ ^ ^ f l Elizabeth Bam, Vvedensky's Christmas at the Ivanovs' is an "anti-
n^p» v ^ f t l Christmas anti-play" (to borrow George Gibian's character-
_ ization) which freely uses absurdist, grotesque, and surreal techniques
0 ^ ^ to spoof not only the conventions of Christmas celebrations but the
conventions also of traditional representational drama.
The play opens with the seven Ivanov children (though nobody, not even the
parents, is called Ivanov) being given a bath by nurses on Christmas Eve. The
children all have different surnames and range in age from one to eighty-two
years. While they are in the tub, off to the right cooks are slaughtering chickens
and suckling pigs. In the art-as-shock style of Dada and Surrealist drama, violence
and sex frequently come together. As two of the sisters, Dunya and Sonya,
quarrel over the latter's boasts about the size of her breasts and buttocks, a
nurse menaces Sonya with an ax because of her bad language. But Sonya is
incorrigible and continues to scandalize the rest with frank talk about masturba­
tion and how she intends to expose herself to guests during the Christmas
celebration. The nurse finally chops off her head in disgust. After the police
remove her, the scene shifts to a forest where woodcutters are felling trees for
Christmas. One of them is the nurse's fiance Fyodor, who boasts of his love for
her. When the woodcutters ride out on a sled, animals appear and talk among
themselves. The patent surrealism of the first scene is reinforced in the animal
scene, in which the dialogue takes place between a giraffe, a wolf, a beaverlike
animal, a lion, and a "porky" suckling pig.
The surreal and absurd merge in the following scene as the dead Sonya's
mother and father return home, find their daughter in a coffin with her decapi­
tated head lying on a cushion nearby, and then proceed to have intercourse in the
same room. Within the context of the surreal, everything, of course, is possible.
And so we find absurd stage directions such as the following in which Vvedensky
is obviously having fun with his readers:

Sonya (formerly a thirty-two-year-old girl) lies like a railway post that has been
knocked over. Can she hear what her mother is saying? How can she? She is quite
dead. She has been killed. The door opens. Father enters, followed by Fyodor,
followed by woodcutters. They carry in a Christmas tree. They see the coffin,
and all take off their caps. Except for the tree, which has no cap and which
understands nothing about it all. (p. 171; all translations from George Gibian, ed.
and trans., The Man with the Black Coat Russia's Literature of the Absurd: Selected
Works ofDaniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky [Cornell University Press, 1971 ])

Moreover, at the very end of the scene Sonya's head and body engage in conver­
sation (p. 172):

Reprinted from Harold B. Segel, "The Oberiuty: Swan Song of the NER" in Twentieth Century
Russian Drama (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 230-38.
 THE HEAD: Body, you heard everything.
THE BODY: I heard nothing. I have no ears. But I felt it all.
In the realm of the surreal, not only is everything possible but inversion is
commonplace. When the murderess-nurse is brought to an insane asylum for
examination, it appears that the one who is really insane is the examining doctor.
Believing himself to be persecuted, he fires a pistol at a mirror which he takes to
be one of his enemies. When an attendant enters and asks who fired the gun, the
doctor says that it was the mirror. Before the scene ends, Vvedensky manages to
slip in another surreal stage direction, this one calling for the doctor's patients to
sail away out of the room in a boat, pushing themselves along the floor with oars.
They are off to pick berries and mushrooms.
2 With the third act virtually all pretense of a plot vanishes. The opening stage
{* direction reads:
CD

0 Table. A coffin on the table. In the coffin, Sonya Ostrova. Inside Sonya Ostrova, a
5 heart. In the heart, coagulating blood. In the blood, red and white corpuscles.
3; Also of course gangrene poison, (p. 181)
(A
^ The first speaker is the dog Vera, who recites a poem. The one-year-old boy
+ Petya comes in and he and the dog converse. At one point the dog asks him if he
♦ is surprised that she is talking and not barking. Petya's answer? "What can
§> surprise me, at my age? Calm down." At the end of the scene, brother and sister
Misha Pestrov and Dunya Shustrova enter. Misha wishes her a Happy Christmas,
then declares: "Soon there will be a Christmas pee." Dunya replies, "Not pee
but bee. No bee but tree. Best wishes. Is Sonya sleeping?" The dog Vera answers
the question, saying, "No. She is peeing."
The scene shifts next to a courtroom, where no sooner does the judge
appear than he declares that he is dying and is quickly replaced with another
judge. But the second judge also dies and has to be replaced. The court protocol
read by the Secretary consists of nothing more than a series of nonsense qua­
trains. Finally, the nurse who killed Sonya is sentenced to be executed by hanging.
The fourth act [follows,] with another typical Vvedensky stage direction:

The ninth scene, like all the preceding ones, represents events which took place
six years before my birth, or forty years ago. That is the least of it. So why should
we grieve and weep that somebody was killed? We didn't know any of them, and
anyway they have all died. (p. 185)

The children are at last permitted to view the Christmas tree. The mother
plays the piano and sings, but the mood becomes somber when the mother
recalls Sonya's death and begins to weep. At this point, the twenty-five-year-old
son Volodya shoots himself in the temple and then tells his mother not to cry but
to laugh for he too has shot himself. The mother replies by singing that she will
not spoil their good time. But the topic of death again intrudes when the one-
year-old son Petya says that life will pass quickly and soon they will all die.
Thereafter the characters onstage die (after announcing that they are about to
die), leaving just the father and mother. Before they too die, they exchange the
following (p. 189)..
 FATHER P.: They've died too. They say the woodcutter Fyodor has finished his
studies and become a teacher of Latin. What has happened to me? A stab­
bing in the heart. I see nothing. I'm dying.
MOTHER p.: What are you saying? You see there is a man of the common people,
and he's worked his way up. God, what an unhappy Christmas we're having.
(She falls down and dies.)

In their shocking, often puzzling, yet often delightful blending of the absurd,
grotesque, and nonsensical t h e plays of Kharms and Vvedensky represent an
e x t r e m e f o r m , perhaps the most extreme, o f Russian avant-garde drama of the
first t w o decades of the twentieth century. But in order t o view them in the
proper perspective, they should be regarded, I think, as the end of a tradition
rather than as an isolated episode in the history of twentieth-century Russian
drama o r as the beginning of anything new. T h e absurd and grotesque permeate 3
the most original Russian plays of the N E P [ N e w Economic Policy] era, but the a5
plays of Kharms and Vvedensky are anything but typical NEP satires. Apart from o
the names of the characters, there is nothing Russian about the plays, nor do §
they bristle with the topical satire of the comedies of Erdman, Romashov, Bui- ft
gakov, and Mayakovsky. They also lack the philosophical dimension and social tf
implications of the plays of such later absurdists as lonesco, Beckett, Pinter, and t
the Poles Siawomir Mrozek and Tadeusz Rozewicz. Christmas at the Ivanovs is a _
spoof on the ritual of Christmas celebration but it cannot be seen as directed £§
against a Russian celebration o f Christmas. For all its nonsense, Elizabeth Bam
does evoke a sense of dread but what further o r m o r e specific meaning does the
play have?
Because of their apparent absence o f meaning, their experimental nature,
their sexual frankness, and their mocking irreverence, the plays o f Kharms and
Vvedensky lay beyond any possible redemption once socialist realism became
the aesthetic law of the land. Their suppression and the fate suffered by their
authors meant that a watershed in postrevolutionary Russian literature had
been reached; N E P was definitely at an end, not only as an economic policy but,
more grievously, as an artistic ambience.

Select Bibliography on Vvedensky

Nakhimovsky, Alice Stone. Laughter in the Void: An Introduction to the Writings ofDaniil
Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky. Vienna: Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, 1982.
Nikol'skaia, Tat'iana. "The Oberiuty and the Theatricalization of Life." In Daniel Kharms
and the Poetics of the Absurd, ed. Neil Cornwell, 195-99. Houndmills, England:
Macmillan, 1991.
Vishevsky, Anatoly. "Tradition in the Topsy-Turvy World of Parody: Analysis of Two
'Oberiu' Plays." Slavic and East European Journal 30.3 (Fall 1986): 355-66.

See also Gibian; Listengarten; and Roberts, in the General Bibliography.

 Christmas at the Ivanovs

Aleksandr Vvedensky

CAST OF CHARACTERS
The children:
PETYA PEROV—one-year-old boy
NINA SEROVA—eight-year-old girl
VARYA PETROVA—seventeen-year-old girl
VOLODYA KOMAROV—twenty-five-year-old boy
SONYA OSTROVA—thirty-two-year-old girl
MISHA PESTROV—seventy-six-year-old boy
DUNYA SHUSTROVA—eighty-two-year-old girl
PUZYROVA—mother
PUZYROV—father
FYODOR THE WOODCUTTER
THE DOG VERA
UNDERTAKER
Nannies, policemen, woodcutters, a clerk, a medical attendant, a doctor,
patients, judges, court employees, a secretary, a giraffe, a lion, a piglet,
chambermaids, cooks, soldiers, teachers of Latin and Greek. The action
takes place in the 1890s.

This translation is published here for the first time. Trans. Julia Listengarten and Karin
Coonrod.
 ACT I
SCENE 1

(There is a painted bathtub in the first scene. Christmas Eve, so the children
are bathing. A chest of drawers stands there, as well. To the right of the door,
cooks are slaughtering chickens and slaughtering piglets. Nannies, nannies,
nannies are washing the children. All the children are in the big bathtub,
except Petya Perov, a one-year-old boy, who is bathing in a pan standing
directly in front of the door. A clock hangs on the wall to the left of the door. Its
face shows nine in the evening.)
ONE-YEAR-OLD BOY PETYA PEROV Will there be Christmas? There will be. Yet
suddenly there will not be. Suddenly I will die. o
NANNY Wash yourself, Petya Perov. Soap your ears and neck. You can't talk .2
yet. I
PETYA PEROV I can talk inside my thoughts. I can cry. I can laugh. What do o
you want? o
VARYA PETROVA (seventeen-year-old girl) Volodya, scrub my back. God knows, .|i
moss has grown on it. What do you think? ■*
u
VOLODYA KOMAROV (twenty-five-year-old boy) I think nothing. I burned my ♦
belly. g
MISHA PESTROV (seventy-six-year old boy) Now you will have a blot. Which I °°
know nothing will remove. Ever.
SONYA OSTROVA (thirty-two-year old girl) You, Misha, are always wrong. Better
look at what has happened to my breasts.
DUNYA SHUSTROVA (eighty-two-year-old girl) Bragging again. You bragged
about the buttocks, now the breasts. Fear God.
SONYA OSTROVA (thirty-two-year-old girl. Hangs her head like a grown-up
Ukrainian.) You hurt me. Fool, idiot, slut.
NANNY (waving an axe as though it were a small hatchet) Sonya, if you keep
cursing, I will tell your father and mother, I will kill you with the axe.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) And you will feel for a brief flash how your
skin splits open and how the blood spurts out. What you will feel next is
unknown to us.
NINA SEROVA (eight-year-oldgirl) Sonyechka, that nanny is crazy or criminal.
She can do anything. Why did they bring her to us?
MISHA PESTROV (seventy'-six-year-old boy) Children, quit quarreling. Nobody
will live to see Christmas this way. The parents have bought candles,
candies, and matches—matches to light the candles.
SONYA OSTROVA (thirty-two-year-old girl) I don't need the candles. I have a
finger.
VARYA PETROVA (seventeen-year-old girl) Sonya, don't persist in this. Don't
persist. Clean yourself better.
 VOLODYA KOMAROV (twenty-five-year-old boy) Girls must wash more often
than boys or they become repulsive. I think so.
MISHA PESTROV (seventy-six-year-old boy) Oh, enough of this rubbish. Tomor­
row is Christmas, and we will all be celebrating.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) Only I will sit in the arms of the guests in
turn, with a serious and stupid look, as if I understood nothing. I and
invisible God.
SONYA OSTROVA (thirty-two-year-old girl) And when I enter the hall, when
they light the Christmas tree, I will hold up my skirt and show everything
to everybody.
NANNY (becoming ferocious) No, you won't. You have nothing to show—you
are still little.
>- SONYA OSTROVA (thirty-two-year-old girl) No, I will show it. I still have a little
one. This is true, what you say. This is even better. This is not what you
z have.
ui
Q NANNY (Seizes the axe and chops off her head.) You deserved this death.
> CHILDREN (scream) Murderer. She is a murderer. Save us. Stop the bath.
>
♦ (The cooks stop slaughtering chickens and slaughtering piglets. Having moved
away from the body two paces, the bloody, reckless head lies on the floor. The
dog Vera howls behind the doors. The police enter.)
POLICE Where on earth are the parents?
CHILDREN (in chorus) They are at the theater.
POLICE They left a while ago, then?
CHILDREN A while, but not forever.
POLICE What are they watching,
A ballet or a drama?
CHILDREN Must be a ballet.
We love our mama.
POLICE Such cultured people discern we.
CHILDREN Do you always wear cothurni?
POLICE Always. We see a cadaver
And a head disengaged.
Here a person is lying ineffectively,
Herself not whole entirely.
What happened here?
CHILDREN Nanny with the axe
Killed our sister-dear.
POLICE And where is the murderer?
NANNY I am here in front of you.
Tie me up.
Lay me down.
And execute me.
 POLICE Hey, servants, a light.
SERVANTS We sob immoderately.
And the light burns shamelessly.
NANNY (sobbing) Sentence the horse,
Pity my remorse.
POLICE Why sentence the horse,
If the horse is not guilty
Of this bloodshed?
We will never find
A guilty horse.
NANNY I am mentally deranged. >|
POLICE Hurry up, get dressed. They'll decide over there. You'll go through -£
examination by the experts. Put handcuffs or fetters on her. *
ONE COOK NOW, nanny, your destiny lies with these fetters. J|
ANOTHER COOK Killer. S
POLICE Hey, cooks, quiet. Hurry up, hurry up, let's go. Good-bye, children. [g

(A knocking on the door is heard. Puzyrov-father and Puzyrova-mother rush in. ♦

They are driven mad with grief. They shout, bark, and bellow horribly. A clock
hangs on the wall to the left of the door. Its face shows twelve midnight.) ^

SCENE 2

(The same evening and a forest. There is so much snow that one could carry it
off by cartloads. And, in fact, this is happening. In the forest woodcutters cut
down Christmas trees. Tomorrow many Russian and Jewish families will have
Christmas. Among other woodcutters one called Fyodor stands out. He is the
fiance of the nanny who committed the murder. What does he know about it?
He knows nothing yet. He gently cuts down the Christmas tree for Christmas
at the Puzyrovs. All the beasts have hidden in their lairs. The woodcutters sing
a hymn in chorus. On the same clock to the left of the door the same nine in the
evening.)
WOODCUTTERS
How pleasant in a wood,
How bright the snowfall.
Pray to the wheel so good,
It is rounder, rounder than all.
The silent, lovely trees
Lie lengthwise on horses' backs.
Stepchildren squeal angelically,
And in their sleds make tracks.
Tomorrow is Christmas Day,
And we dishonorable folk
 To toast it, shout "hooray"
And drink until we choke.
God watches us from his throne,
Gently and knowingly he smiles.
"Ah, people," he softly intones,
"You are my little orphan exiles."
FYODOR (pensively) No, you don't know what I will tell you now. I have a
fiancee. She works as a nanny for the big Puzyrov family. She is very
beautiful. I love her very much. She and I are already living together as
husband and wife.

(Each woodcutter, to the extent of his ability, makes a gesture to indicate

interest in what Fyodor just said. As it turns out, they cannot speak. The fact
* that just now they were singing is simply an occurrence of the sort life is so
S full of.)
IU
Q
|JJ FYODOR But she is very nervous, that fiancee of mine. Nothing to be done.
> Hard job. Big family. Many children. Nothing to be done.
^ WOODCUTTER A fruit.
$
00
(Although he spoke, he spoke out of order. So it doesnt count His friends
always talk out of order.)
SECOND WOODCUTTER Jaundice.
FYODOR After I have done with her, I never feel bored and never feel dis­
gusted. We have one soul.
THIRD WOODCUTTER Suspenders.
FYODOR So now I will bring the tree, and at night I will go to her. She has
bathed the children and is waiting for me now. Nothing to be done.

(Fyodor and the woodcutters sit down on the sled and ride out of the forest)
(Beasts emerge: a Giraffe, a wonderful beast; a Wolf, a beaverlike beast; a
Lion, the king; and a porky Piglet.)
GIRAFFE The clock is ticking.
WOLF Like a herd of sheep.
LION Like a herd of bulls.
PIGLET Like sturgeon gristle.
GIRAFFE The stars shine.
WOLF Like the blood of sheep.
LION Like the blood of bulls.
PIGLET Like the milk of a wet nurse.
GIRAFFE The rivers flow.
WOLF Like the words of sheep.
LION Like the words of bulls.
PIGLET Like the goddess salmon.
GIRAFFE Where is our death?
WOLF In the souls of sheep.
LION In the souls of bulls.
PIGLET In the spacious vessels.
GIRAFFE Thank you very much. The lesson is over.

(The beasts—the Giraffe, a wonderful beast; the Wolf, a beaverlike beast; the
Lion, the king; and the porky Piglet, just as they are in life—exeunt. The forest "s
remains alone. The face on the clock to the left of the door shows midnight) §

SCENE 3 *j
8
(Night Candles, floating down river. Glasses. Beard. Saliva. Tears. Puzyrova- g
mother. She wears feminine armor. She is a beauty. She has a large bosom. -g
Sonya Ostrova lies prone in the coffin. She is bloodless. Her cut-off head lies on u
the cushion right up against her former body. A clock hangs on the wall to the ♦
left of the door. Its face shows two in the morning.) ^
PUZYROV-FATHER (cries) My little girl, Sonya, how can this be? How can this co
be? In the morning you were still playing with the ball and running
around as if alive.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER Sonyechka. Sonyechka. Sonyechka. Sonyechka. Son-
yechka. Sonyechka. Sonyechka.
PUZYROV-FATHER (cries) T h e devil m a d e us go to the theater and watch that
silly ballet with woolly fat-bellied ballet dancers. As I now recollect, o n e
of them, jumping and shining, smiled at m e . But I thought, why do I
need her: I have children, I have a wife, I have money. And I was so
exhilarated, so exhilarated. T h e n we left the theater, and I called the
c o a c h m a n and told h i m : Vanya, drive us h o m e fast—my heart tells m e
something is wrong.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER (yawns) O h cruel G o d , cruel G o d , why are you punish­
ing us?
PUZYROV-FATHER (blows his nose) We were like a flame, and you are ex­
tinguishing us.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER (powders herself) We wanted to celebrate Christmas for
our children.
PUZYROV-FATHER (kisses her) And we will celebrate, we will. No matter what.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER (undresses herself) Oh, we will have a Christmas tree.
The Christmas tree of all Christmas trees.
PUZYROV-FATHER (his imagination on fire) You are my beauty, and the chil­
dren are such sweethearts.
 PUZYROVA-MOTHER (gives in to him) God, why does the sofa creak so? How
awful this is.
PUZYROV-FATHER (having finished his business, he cries) God, our daughter
has died, and we are here like beasts.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER (cries) Didn't die, didn't die, that's the thing. She was
killed.

(A nanny enters carrying the one-year-old Petya Perov.)

NANNY The boy woke up. There is no peace in his soul. He is frowning. He
looks at everything with repugnance.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER Sleep, Petenka, sleep. We are keeping you safe.
>- PETYA (one-year-old boy) But is Sonya still dead?
</> PUZYROV-FATHER (sighs) Yes, she is dead. Yes, she was killed. Yes, she is dead.
w PETYA (one-year-old boy) I thought so. So will there be Christmas?
£ PUZYROVA-MOTHER There will be. There will be. What are all you children
> doing right now?
^ PETYA (one-year-old boy) All of us children are sleeping right now. And I am
o falling asleep. (He falls asleep.)

(The nanny takes him to the parents, who bless him with the sign of the cross
and kiss him. The nanny takes him away.)

PUZYROV-FATHER (to his wife) You stay alone for a while by the coffin. I will
be right back. I will go to see if the Christmas tree is coming in. (He runs
out of the room. He returns in a second, rubbing his hands.) We need to
add more candles—these are sinking into oblivion. (He bows low to the
coffin and his wife and exits on his toes.)
PUZYROVA-MOTHER (alone) Sonyechka, you know, as we were climbing the
stairs, a black crow was flying above me all the time, and I felt my heart
twisting with sorrow, and when we came into the apartment, and when
the servant Stepan Nikolaev said, "She was killed, she was killed," I did
not cry out in a gloomy voice. How frightened I was. How frightened.
How uneasy.

(Sonya Ostrova—formerly a thirty-two-year-old girl—lies still like a cut-down

rail post. Does she hear what her mother is saying to her? No, how could she?
She is completely dead. She was killed.)

(The door opens wide. Puzyrov-father enters. Followed by Fyodor. Followed by

the woodcutters. They carry the Christmas tree. They see the coffin, and all of
them take their hats off. Except the Christmas tree, which does not have a hat
and which understands nothing about this.)
PUZYROV-FATHER Quiet, my boys, quiet. Here is my little daughter-girl breath­
ing her last breaths. But not even her last (he sobs)—her head is cut off.
FYODOR You are speaking about grief to us. But we are bringing happiness to
you. Here we brought the Christmas tree.
FIRST WOODCUTTER A fruit.
SECOND WOODCUTTER An epistle to the Greeks.
THIRD WOODCUTTER A person is drowning. Save him.
(All exeunt. Sonya Ostrova, the former thirty-two-year-old girl, remains alone.
Her remains: head and body.)
THE HEAD Body, did you hear it all?
THE BODY I, Head, heard nothing. I have no ears. I felt it all.

(The face on the clock to the left of the door shows three in the morning.)

ACT II
SCENE 4

(Precinct. Night Sealing wax. Police. The clock face to the left of the door
shows midnight. The clerk is sitting and the constable is sitting.)
CLERK Sealing wax always has hot lips. The quill pen has two beautiful hips.
CONSTABLE
I am bored, clerk,
I stood guard all day, eclipsed.
I froze. I shivered. And nothing matters to me,
Wandering rain and pyramids
Egyptian in sunny Egypt.
Amuse me.
CLERK You, constable, I see, have lost your mind. Amuse you? I am your boss.
CONSTABLE
Oh, God,
Pharmacies, taverns, and houses of ill repute
Will one day drive me mad and dissolute.
Instead of taking poisoned people to the pharmacy,
Fd prefer to sit in a library
And read various passages of Marx and dream,
And in the morning, drink not vodka but cream.
CLERK And what happened to that drunk? Is he still swinging?
CONSTABLE
He is swinging like this pendulum,
And the Milky Way is swinging above him.
How many there are of these toilers of the sea,
Outcast folk and peasant serfs.
(Enter Police Chief and gendarmes.)
POLICE CHIEF Everyone stand. Everything clear. Pray to God. Right here,
right now, they are bringing a criminal.

(Soldiers, servants, cooks, and teachers of Latin and Greek drag in the nanny
who killed Sonya.)

POLICE CHIEF Let her go. (Addresses the nanny.) Go to prison.

NANNY My hands are covered with blood. My teeth are covered with blood.
God has abandoned me. I am mentally deranged. She is doing some­
thing now.
POLICE CHIEF You nanny, who are you talking about? Look, don't ramble in
your speech. Give me a glass of vodka. Who is she?
NANNY Sonya Ostrova, whose head I cut off. She is thinking something now. I
am cold. My head hurts, as does my stomach.
CLERK And still young. And still not bad-looking. And still beautiful. And still
like a star. And still like a string. And still like a soul.
CONSTABLE (to nanny)
I can imagine your situation,
You killed the girl with the axe.
Now your soul suffers mutilation,
A spiritual parallax.
POLICE CHIEF SO, nanny, how do you feel? Is it pleasant to be a murderer?
NANNY NO. Difficult.
POLICE CHIEF You know, they'll execute you. My God, they'll execute you.
NANNY I bang my fists. I bang my feet. Her head is in my head. I am Sonya
Ostrova—the nanny cut my head off. Fedya-Fyodor, save me.
CONSTABLE
Once, I remember, I stood on guard in a bitter frost.
People walked by, animals ran wildly.
A cloud of Greek horsemen passed by on the boulevard like a
shadow.
I blew a loud whistle, calling the janitors to myself.
For a long time we all stood looking through the telescopes.
Putting our ears to the ground, we waited for the clatter of hooves.
Then, vainly and idly we looked for the army of horsemen.
Quietly sobbing, alas for us, we departed for our homes.
POLICE CHIEF Why have you told us this? I am asking you. Fool! Climber!
You do not know the civil service.
CONSTABLE I wanted to distract the murderer from her dark thoughts.
CLERK Knocking. These are medics. Medics, take her to your lunatic
asylum.
{Knocking on the door, the medics enter.)
MEDICS Whom do we take—that Napoleon?

{Exeunt The face on the clock to the left of the door shows four in the
morning.)

SCENE 5

{Lunatic asylum. A doctor stands near the barrier and aims at the mirror.
Flowers, paintings, and small rugs are around. The face on the clock to the left
of the door shows four in the morning.) §
DOCTOR God, how terrifying. Everyone is crazy around here. They haunt §
me. They devour my dreams. They want to shoot me. Here is one of £
them; he sneaked up and is aiming at me. He aims but doesn't shoot, he Z
aims but doesn't shoot. He doesn't shoot, he doesn't shoot, he doesn't g
shoot, but he aims. So I will shoot. §

{He shoots. The mirror breaks. Enter a stony attendant.) s

ATTENDANT Who fired the cannon? §
DOCTOR I don't know—probably the mirror. And how many of you are there?
ATTENDANT There are many of us.
DOCTOR Now, now. My foolishness hurts a little. Somebody has been
brought in.
ATTENDANT The nanny-murderer has been brought in from the precinct.
DOCTOR Is she black as coal?
ATTENDANT You know I don't know everything.
DOCTOR What to do? I don't like this little rug. {He shoots it. The attendant
falls as though dead.) Why did you fall? I shot the little rug, not you.
ATTENDANT {gets up) It seemed to me I was a little rug. I was mistaken. This
nanny says she is mentally deranged.
DOCTOR That is what she says; we don't say that. We won't say that without
reason. I, you know, hold all our garden with all its trees and under­
ground worms and silent clouds right here, right here—what is it called?
{He points to the palm of his hand.)
ATTENDANT Grapes.
DOCTOR No.
ATTENDANT Wall.
DOCTOR No. In the palm of my hand. So, bring in this nanny.

{The nanny enters.)

 NANNY I am mentally deranged. I killed a child.
DOCTOR It is not good to kill children. You are healthy.
NANNY I did not do it on purpose. I am mentally deranged. I can be executed.
DOCTOR You are healthy. You have color in your face. Count to three.
NANNY I can't.
ATTENDANT One. Two. Three.
DOCTOR You see, and yet you say you can't. You have a constitution of iron.
NANNY I am talking desperately. I didn't count, your attendant did.
DOCTOR At this point it is difficult to prove. Do you hear me?
ATTENDANT I hear you. I am the nanny, I must hear everything.
NANNY God, my life is ending. Soon I'll be executed.
>- DOCTOR Take her away and bring in the Christmas tree. Thank God, that's
</> better. Just a little bit jollier. I am sick and tired of being on duty. Good
iu night.
Q

> (Patients sail from the hall into the room in a boat, pushing the oars against
♦ the floor.)
♦
o DOCTOR Good morning patients, where are you going?
LUNATICS To pick mushrooms, to pick berries.
DOCTOR Very good.
ATTENDANT I'll go for a swim with you.
DOCTOR Nanny, go execute yourself. You are healthy. You are blooming with
health.

(The face on the clock to the left of the door shows six in the morning.)

SCENE 6

(Corridor. Doors over here. Doors over there. And doors right here. Dark.
Fyodor the woodcutter, fiance of the nanny who killed Sonya Ostrova, in a
tailcoat, with candy in hand, walks through the corridor. For some unknown
reason he is blindfolded. The face on the clock to the left of the door shows five
in the morning.)
FYODOR (enters through one of the doors) Are you sleeping?
VOICE OF ONE OF THE MAIDS I am sleeping, but come in.
FYODOR That means you are in bed. Look, I brought you a treat.
THE MAID Where did you come from?
FYODOR I was at the public baths. I washed myself with brushes, like a horse.
They blindfolded me. Why don't I take off my tailcoat?
MAID Take your clothes off. Lie on me.
FYODOR I will, I will. No rush. Eat the treat.
MAID I am eating it. And you do your work. Tomorrow we will have Christmas.
FYODOR (he lies on her) I know. I know.
MAID And our girl was killed.
FYODOR I know. I heard.
MAID She is already lying in the coffin.
FYODOR I know. I know.
MAID The mother cried, and also the father.
FYODOR (gets up off her) I am bored with you. You are not my fiancee.
MAID SO what? o
FYODOR You are a stranger to my spirit. I will soon disappear like a poppy. £
MAID Who needs you? But, do you want to do it one more time? ■£
FYODOR No, no, I have a terrible sadness. I will soon disappear like happiness.
MAID What are you thinking about right now? So
FYODOR About how the whole world has become uninteresting to me after ]g
u
you. And the table lost the salt and the sky and the walls and the window
and the sky and the forest. I will soon disappear like the night. ^
MAID You are impolite. I will punish you for that. Look at me. I will tell you §
something unnatural. ^
FYODOR Try. You are a toad.
MAID Your fiancee killed the girl. Did you see the killed girl? Your fiancee cut
off her head.
FYODOR (croaks)
MAID (grins) Do you know the girl Sonya Ostrova? That is who she killed.
FYODOR (meows)
MAID What, are you in pain?
FYODOR (sings like a bird)
MAID And this is the one you loved. And why? And what for? And you
yourself probably . . .
FYODOR No, not myself. . .
MAID Sure, sure, do you think I believe you?
FYODOR Word of honor.
MAID G O away. I want to sleep. Tomorrow will be Christmas.
FYODOR I know. I know.
MAID What are you babbling now? I want nothing to do with you.
FYODOR I am babbling out of great grief. What is left for me to do?
MAID Grieve, grieve, grieve. And still nothing will help you. You are right.
FYODOR And still nothing will help me.
MAID Yet maybe you will try to study, study, study.
 FYODOR I will try. I will learn Latin. I will become a teacher. Good-bye.
MAID Good-bye.

(Fyodor disappears. The maid sleeps. The face on the clock to the left of the
door shows six in the morning.)

ACT III
SCENE 7

(Table. Coffin on the table. Sonya Ostrova in the coffin. A heart inside Sonya
Ostrova. Coagulating blood inside the heart. Red and white corpuscles in the
blood. And of course putrefaction of the corpse. Everybody sees that it is dawn.
The dog Vera, with her tail between her legs, walks around the coffin. The face
>- on the clock to the left of the door shows eight in the morning.)
V)
Z THE DOG VERA
LU
Q Around the coffin walk I
w
Looking carefully with my eye.
> _
>
What could this death signify?
* A poor person prays for bread.
§ Bronze folk pray to blue sky spread.
A priest will say the Mass instead.
The corpse lies here freezing.
The taste of ham is pleasing.
Dulcinea is dead—no appeasing.
Every place there are bloody spots.
What evil manners, evil plots.
Nanny, your action rots.
Life is for decoration.
Death is for trepidation.
Why, Nanny, this annihilation?
For the most important arteries
And the most courageous bacteria,
What, nanny, are your criteria?
Fyodor would your buttocks pet
Always in the morning sweat,
Now you'll be a corpse to forget.

(The one-year-old boy Petya Perov enters, stumbling.)

PETYA PEROV I am the youngest—I wake up earlier than everybody else. I

remember now that two years ago I didn't remember anything. I hear the
dog reciting a speech in verse. She is crying ever so quietly.
THE DOG VERA
How cold it is in the hall.
What, Petya, did you call?
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) What can I call? I can only announce some
things.
THE DOG VERA
I howl, I howl, I howl, I strive,
Wishing Sonya were alive.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) She was unusually indecent. And now it is
frightening to look at her.
THE DOG VERA Are you not surprised that I speak and do not bark?
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) What can surprise me at my age? Relax.
THE DOG VERA Give me a glass of water. This is too much for me.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) Don't worry. During my short life I will see
even worse things.
THE DOG VERA This Sonya, wretched Ostrova, was immoral. But I showed
her . .. Explain all this to me.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) Daddy, Mummy, Uncle, Aunty, Nanny.
THE DOG VERA What are you saying? Come to your senses.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) I am now one year old. Don't forget. Daddy.

Mummy. Uncle. Aunty. Fire. Cloud. Apple. Stone. Don't forget.

(He leaves the room in his nanny's arms, while pooping in his pants.)

THE DOG VERA (recollecting) He actually is still little and young.

(Misha Pestrov and Dunya Shustrova enter, mumbling and holding hands.)

MISHA PESTROV (seventy-six-year-old boy) Happy day! Today is Christmas.

Soon there will be glee.
DUNYA SHUSTROVA (eighty-two-year-old girl) Not glee but a bee. And not a bee
but a tree. Happy day. Happy day. Is Sonya sleeping?
THE DOG VERA No, she is peeing.
(The face on the clock to the left of the door shows nine in the morning.)

SCENE 8

(There is a painted courtroom in the eighth scene. Vintage judges—judging in

wigs. Insects are hopping. Mothballs are gathering strength. Gendarmes are
inflating. The face on the clock to the left of the door shows eight in the
morning.)
JUDGE (croaking) Having not been able to wait until Christmas—I died.
 {He is quickly replaced by another judge.)

ANOTHER JUDGE I feel bad, I feel bad. Save me. {He dies. He is quickly
replaced by another judge.)
ALL {in chorus) We are frightened by the two deaths.
It is a rare occasion—judge for yourself.
ALL OTHERS {in turn):
We judge.
We will judge
And so awake.
They carry
The court
And the vessel
* Of the people.
Z They carry
a The judges
> On dishes.
>
4 {Having started its session, the court gets down to the case of Kozlov and
co Oslov.)

THE SECRETARY {reads from the record)

One winter evening Kozlov
Went to wash his nanny goats.
At the river he met Oslov,
Who had scrubbed his donkeys' coats.
Oslov says to Kozlov:
"What I say to you is true.
And written in the Chasoslov:
Wet goats are taboo."
Kozlov says to Oslov:
"You can spare the reprimand.
It's the psalter that I'm fond of;
Let the Chasoslov be damned!"
Oslov says to Kozlov:
"But the Psalms us likewise tell
That goats you mustn't wash off,
Or, by God, you'll go to Hell!"
Kozlov says to Oslov:
"Oh, shut up, you stupid twit.
My goats have had enough of you
And think you're full of shit!"
 Oslov says to Kozlov:
"Hey, don't you treat me like a fool.
Fll break this willow branch off
And beat your goats—you mule!"
Kozlov says to Oslov:
"Touch my goats and by this hand,
Pll beat your stupid donkeys down
Until they cannot stand!"
"You stupid ass!" "You old nanny!"
And the snow is turning red;
For now there's lots of blood,
And nearly all the livestock's dead.
For just like wilting flowers,
The goats lie on the snow;
And the donkeys, overpowered,
Have fallen to their foe.
Kozlov brays at Oslov,
"Resuscitate my goats!"
Oslov bleats at Kozlov,
"Revive my donkeys!"
JUDGES The phenomenon of death is evident
THE SECRETARY Hmm, evident.
JUDGES Do not say "hmm."
THE SECRETARY All right, I won't.
JUDGE
I begin the trial:
I judge,
I argue,
I sit,
I decide
—No, I do not transgress.
Once more:
I judge,
I argue,
I sit,
I decide
—No, I do not transgress.
Once more:
I judge,
I argue,
I sit,
 I will decide
—No, I will not transgress.
I have finished judging—everything is clear to me. Adelina Franzevna
Shmetterling, who has been a nanny and has killed the girl Sonya Ostrova:
execute—hang her.
NANNY (shouts) I cannot live.
THE SECRETARY So you will not. So we are meeting you halfway.

(Everybody understands that the nanny was present at the court trial, and the
conversation about Kozlov and Oslov took place simply to divert attention.
The face on the clock to the left of the door shows nine in the morning.)
(End of Scene 8. End of Act III)

| ACT IV
W SCENE Q
V
Q
ID
> (Scene 9, like all the previous ones, depicts events that took place six years
^ before my birth or forty years before us. At least. So there is no need for us to get
♦ upset and grieve that somebody was killed. We didnt know any of them, and
2 they all died, in any case. A couple of hours passed between Act 3 and Act 4. In
^ front of the tightly closed doors stand the children, freshly washed, wreathed
with flowers. The face on the clock to the left of the door shows six in the
evening.)
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) They will open right now. They will open
right now. How interesting. I will see the Christmas tree.
NINA SEROVA (eight-year-old girl) You saw it last year, too.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) I saw, I saw. But I don't remember. I am still
young. Still silly.
VARYA PETROVA (seventeen-year-old girl) Ah, Christmas tree, Christmas tree.
Ah, Christmas tree, Christmas tree. Ah, Christmas tree, Christmas tree.
DUNYA SHUSTROVA (eighty-two-year-old girl) I will jump around. I will shout
with laughter.
VOLODYA KOMAROV (twenty-five-year-old boy) Nanka, I want to go to the toilet.
NANNY Volodya, if you need to go to the toilet, whisper in your own ear;
otherwise you will embarrass the girls.
MISHA PESTROV (seventy-six-year-old boy) But do girls go to the toilet?
NANNY They do. They go.
MISHA PESTROV (seventy-six-year-old boy) But how? How do they go? And do
you go?
NANNY They go the way it needs to be done. I go too.
VOLODYA KOMAROV (twenty-five-year-old boy) See, I went. See, it feels better.
How soon will they let us in?
VARYA PETROVA (seventeen-year-old girl, whispers) Nanny. I also need to go. I
am excited.
NANNY (whispers) Pretend that you are going.
MISHA PESTROV (seventy-six-year-old boy) Where does she want to go with
you?
GIRLS (in chorus) Where the tsar goes on foot. (They cry and stay back.)
NANNY You fools. You should have said that you were going to play the
piano.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) Why do you teach them to lie? What is the
use of this lie? How boring to live, no matter what they say.

(Suddenly the door opens. In the doorway stand the parents.)

PUZYROV-FATHER Well, let's celebrate. I did what I could. Here is the Christ­
mas tree. And right now Mama will play.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER (true to what was said, sits down at the piano, plays, and
sings)
Suddenly the music thunders
Like a sword smiting granite asunder.
All open the door
And we enter Tver.
Not Tver, but simply the festive hall,
Filled with the Christmas tree so tall.
All hide the sting of spite:
One flies like a bee in sunlight,
Another like a moth in a chase
Above the trunk of the tree in space,
And the third like a huge fireplace,
The fourth like chalk erased,
The fifth brushes up against the candle and screams,
And I growl, I growl, I growl in dreams.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) Christmas tree, I must tell you: How beauti­
ful you are.
NINA SEROVA (eight-year-old girl) Christmas tree, I want to explain to you:
How good you are.
VARYA PETROVA (seventeen-year-old girl) Ah, Christmas tree, Christmas tree.
Ah, Christmas tree, Christmas tree. Ah, Christmas tree, Christmas tree.
VOLODYA KOMAROV (twenty-five-year-old boy) Christmas tree, I want to inform
you: How splendid you are.
MISHA PESTROV (seventy-six-year-old boy) Bliss, bliss, bliss, bliss.
DUNYA SHUSTROVA (eighty-two-year-old girl) Like teeth. Like teeth. Like
teeth. Like teeth.
 PUZYROV-FATHER I am very glad that everybody is having fun. I am very
unhappy that Sonya died. How sad that everybody is sad.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER (sings) Aouyeeya
BGRT.
(Unable to continue singing, cries.)
VOLODYA KOMAROV (twenty'-five-year-old boy. He shoots at his temple above
the ear.) Mama, don't cry. Laugh. See, I shot myself.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER (sings) All right, I will not darken your celebration. Let's
celebrate. And yet, poor, poor Sonya.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) It's okay, it's okay, Mama. Life will pass
quickly. Soon everybody will die.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER Petya, are you joking? What are you saying?
>-
PUZYROV-FATHER He doesn't seem to be joking. Volodya Komarov has al-
£ ready died.
IU
Q PUZYROVA-MOTHER Did he really die?
iu
> PUZYROV-FATHER Yes, certainly. He shot himself.
>
DUNYA SHUSTROVA (eighty-two-year-old girl) I am dying while I sit in the
♦
armchair.
SI
^H
PUZYROVA-MOTHER What is she saying?
MISHA PESTROV (seventy-six-year-old boy) I longed for longevity. There is no
longevity. I have died.
NANNY Children's diseases, children's diseases. When will they ever learn to
conquer you? (Dies.)
NINA SEROVA (eight-year-old girl) Nanny, nanny, what is it with you? Why do
you have such a sharp nose?
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) The nose is sharp, but the knife and razors
are still sharper.
PUZYROV-FATHER We still have our two youngest children left. Petya and
Nina. Well, we will carry on somehow.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER That doesn't console me. What, is the sun outside the
window?
PUZYROV-FATHER What sun? It is evening right now. We will put out the
lights on the Christmas tree.
PETYA PEROV (one-year-old boy) I want to die so much. Passionately. I am
dying. I am dying. So, I have died.
NINA SEROVA (eight-year-old girl) And I. Ah, Christmas tree, Christmas tree.
Ah, Christmas tree, Christmas tree. Ah, Christmas tree. That is all. I have
died.
PUZYROV-FATHER And they too have died. They say that the woodcutter
Fyodor has finished studying and has become a teacher of Latin. What is
it with me? What a sharp stab in the heart. I see nothing. I am dying.
PUZYROVA-MOTHER What are you saying? You see, there is a man of the
masses who achieved what he wanted. God, such an unhappy Christmas
we are having. (Falls and dies.)

(End of Scene 9, and also of the act, and also of the whole play.)
(The face on the clock to the left of the door shows seven in the evening.)
„-^^ ^ p 3 aniil Ivanovich Kharms, playwright, children's fiction writer,
lk^» M V poet, and theorist, was born on December 30, 1905, in St.
n j ^ ^ L ^ k Petersburg, Russia. A self-styled eccentric who, like Alfred
Jarry, attempted to draw public attention to his work through his odd
0 ^ * personal behavior, Kharms was a member of several avant-garde writ­
ing groups during the 1920s. In 1925, he met Vvedensky, and together they
became the center of a group of writers who in 1928 officially founded Oberiu;
as early as 1926, though, they had produced work along the lines of their 1928
manifesto. Kharms' writing, most notably in his early play Elizabeth Bam (1928),
rejects Realism and conventional plot structure in favor of dissemination of a
Maeterlinckian-Kafkaesque aura of doom that gives way to a Gogolian atmo­
sphere of absurdity; a dark, even tragigrotesque humor; and an extreme, non­
sensical violence of the kind favored by Artaud in the Theater of Cruelty.
Following the disbanding of Oberiu, Kharms limited his published work to
children's stories. In 1931, he was arrested and then exiled on account of his
writing. Kharms was jailed again on August 23, 1941, and he is believed to have
died of starvation in a Ukrainian prison on February 2, 1942. In the late 1960s, his
work began to be rediscovered in Eastern Europe and the West, and, in the wake
of glasnost, the reprinting and translation of his writing have resulted in a re­
newed appreciation of the contributions of Kharms and the Oberiuty to the
dramatic avant-garde.
 T h e Oberiu Manifesto

Daniil Kharms, Aleksandr Vvedensky,

and others

Oberiu (the Association for Real Art) works with the House of the Press and
unites those working in all forms of art who accept its program and apply it in
their work.1
Oberiu is divided into four sections: literature, fine arts, theater, and
cinema. The fine-arts section carries on its work in experimental ways; the
other sections are presented at evening programs, in stage productions, and
in print. At this time Oberiu is organizing a musical section.

The Social Role of Oberiu

The great revolutionary shift in culture and the conditions of everyday
life so characteristic of our age is being impeded in the area of art by many
abnormal phenomena. We have not yet completely understood the undeni­
able truth that the proletariat cannot be satisfied in the area of art with the
artistic method of old schools, that its artistic principles go much deeper and
undermine old art at the roots. It is ridiculous to think that when Repin is
painting in the year 1905, he is a revolutionary artist. It is still more ridicu­
lous to think that all AKHRR'S [Associations of Artists of Revolutionary Russia]
bear within themselves the seeds of a new proletarian art.

Reprinted from The Man with the Black Coat: Russia's Literature of the Absurd—Selected Works
of Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky, ed. and trans. George Gibian (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1971), 245-54. © George Gibian.
1. Oberiu was a word made up out of the initial sounds of the words for Association for Real Art
(Ob'edinenie Real'nogo Iskusstva). The sound u was added at the end just for fun.
 We welcome the demand for a universally intelligible art comprehen­
sible in its form even to a village schoolboy, but the demand for only such
art leads into a maze of the most terrible mistakes. As a result we have
heaps of literary trash overflowing in book warehouses, while the reading
ec public of the first proletarian state reads translations of Western bourgeois
1 writers.
O We understand very well that it is impossible to find a single correct
Q solution for the situation that has developed. But we do not understand at all
< why a number of artistic schools which work tenaciously, honestly, and
>■* persistently in this area are pushed, as it were, to the back alleys of art, at a
u> time when they ought to be supported in every way by the entire Soviet
uj community. We do not understand why the school of Filonov has been
2 pushed out of the Academy, why Malevich cannot carry on his architectural
^ work in the USSR, why Terentev's Inspector General was so badly received.
<o We do not understand why so-called leftist art, which has not a few merits
^ and achievements to its credit, is considered to be hopeless junk and, still
^ worse, charlatanism. How much inner dishonesty, how much artistic bank-
* ruptcy is concealed in such a wild approach.
t Oberiu now comes forward as a new section of leftist revolutionary art.
^ Oberiu does not concern itself only with the subject matter and the high
5! points of artistic work; it seeks an organically new concept of life and ap­
proach to things. Oberiu penetrates into the center of the word, of dramatic
action, and of the film frame.
The new artistic method of Oberiu is universal. It finds a way to represent
any subject. Oberiu is revolutionary precisely by virtue of this method.
We are not so presumptuous as to regard our work as completed. But we
are firmly convinced that a strong foundation has been laid and that we have
enough strength to build further. We believe and know that only the left
course in art will lead us to the highway to the new proletarian artistic
culture.

Poetry of the Oberiuty

Who are we? And why do we exist? We, the Oberiuty, are honest workers
in art. We are poets of a new world view and of a new art. We are not only
creators of a poetic language, but also founders of a new feeling for life and
its objects. Our will to create is universal. It spans all genres of art and
penetrates life, grasping it from all sides. The world covered by the rubbish of
the tongues of a multitude of fools bogged down in the mire of "experiences"
and "emotions" is now being reborn in all the purity of concrete, bold forms.
Some people even now call us zaumniki.2 It is difficult to decide whether
that is because of a complete misunderstanding or a hopeless failure to grasp

2. Zaumniki (from zaurn—"trans-sense"): writers who use made-up syllables and sounds, re­
jecting existing languages and referential meaning.
the principles of literary art. No school is more hostile to us than zaum. We,
people who are real and concrete to the marrow of our bones, are the first
enemies of those who castrate the word and make it into a powerless and
senseless mongreL In our work we broaden the meaning of the object and of
the word, but we do not destroy it in any way. The concrete object, once its
literary and everyday skin is peeled away, becomes a property of art. In poetry
the collisions of verbal meanings express that object with the exactness of
mechanical technology. Are you beginning to complain that it is not the
same object you see in life? Come closer and touch it with your fingers. Look
at the object with naked eyes, and you will see it cleansed for the first time of
decrepit literary gilding. Maybe you will insist that our subjects are "unreal"
and "illogical"? But who said that the logic of life is compulsory in art? We
marvel at the beauty of a painted woman despite the fact that, contrary to
anatomical logic, the artist twisted out the shoulder blade of his heroine and
moved it sideways. Art has a logic of its own, and it does not destroy the
object but helps us to know it.
We broaden the meaning of the object, the word, and the act. This work
proceeds in different directions; each of us has his own creative personality,
and this often confuses people. They talk about an accidental association of
various people. Evidently they assume that a literary school is something like
a monastery in which the monks are all exactly alike. Our association is free
and voluntary. It unites masters, not apprentices; artist-painters, not wall
painters. Everybody knows himself and everybody knows what links him to
the others.

A. VVEDENSKY (at the extreme left of our association) breaks the object
down into parts, but the object does not thereby lose its concreteness.
Vvedensky breaks action down into fragments, but the action does not lose
its creative order. If one were to decode it completely, the result would give
the appearance of nonsense. Why appearance? Because obvious nonsense is
the zaum word, and it is absent from Vvedensky's works. One must be more
curious, not too lazy to examine the collision of word meanings. Poetry is not
porridge that one swallows without chewing and forgets right away.
K. VAGINOV,3 whose world phantasmagoria passes before our eyes as
though clothed in fog and trembling. But through this fog you feel the close­
ness of the object and its warmth; you feel the influx of crowds and the rock­
ing of trees which live and breathe after their own fashion, after Vaginov's
fashion, for the artist has sculptured them with his own hands and warmed
them with his own breath.
IGOR BAKHTEREV, a poet who finds himself in the lyrical coloring of his
object material. The object and the action, broken down into their compo­
nent parts, spring into being again, renewed by the spirit of new Oberiu

3. The author of several books, among which the novel Goat's Song and the volume of verse An
Attempt at Uniting Words by Means of Rhyme are particularly noteworthy.
 lyricism. But lyricism here does not exist for its own sake, it is no more than
the means of displacing4 the object into the field of new artistic perception.
N. ZABOLOTSKY, a poet of naked concrete figures brought close to the
eyes of the spectator. One must hear and read him more with one's eyes and
(/)
5 fingers than with one's ears. The object does not crumble; on the contrary, it
1 becomes tighter and firmer, as though to meet the feeling hand of the
O spectator. The development of action and the setting play a secondary role to
Q that main task.
< DANIIL KHARMS, a poet and dramatist, whose attention is concentrated,
>■* not on a static figure, but on the collision of a number of objects, on their
UJ interrelationships. At the moment of action, the object assumes new con-
UJ crete traits full of real meaning. The action, turned inside out, in its new
2 appearance still keeps a classical touch and at the same time represents a
> broad sweep of the Oberiu worldview.
<zf BOR. LEVIN, 5 a prose writer at present working experimentally.
Z
< Such are the broad outlines of the literary section of our association as a
* whole and of each of us in particular; our poems tell the rest of the story.
t As people of a concrete world, object, and word—that is how we see our
QQ social significance. To cleanse the world by the movements of a hand, to
5 cleanse the object of the rubbish of ancient putrefied cultures—are these not
the real needs of our time? It is for that reason that our association bears the
name Oberiu—Association for Real Art.

O n the Road to a N e w C i n e m a
The film has, up to now, not existed as an independent art. It has been a
combination of old "arts," and at best there have been isolated timid at­
tempts to chart new paths in the search for a real language of the film. That is
how it has been.
Now the time has come for the cinema to find its own real face, its own
means of making an impression, and its own—really its own—language.
Nobody is able to "discover" the cinematography of the future, and we are
not promising to do that. Time will do that for us.

4. Displacing: the Russian word is sdvinut', related to the noun sdvig, both very common in the
terminology of Russian Futurism, Khlebnikov, and the Oberiuty. It is difficult to find an English
word with the same connotations. It means a shift, a change, a push of something into something
else. It is frequently used by the Oberiuty because it expresses for them a violent, decisive meta­
morphosis, a shifting from one plane of being or perception or representation to another—a wrench­
ing or a yanking from one level of semantics or existence to another, a shift from one category of
conventional thinking or living to another. Significantly, it is a word used in Russian for a geological
fault.
5. Probably the same Boris Levin (a.k.a. Doyvber Levin) whom Marshak, according to Har­
rison Salisbury, [gave the epithet] "a Himalayan bear," and who was killed early in World War II in a
Nazi attack during his first night in a dugout. See Harrison E. Salisbury, The 900 Days: The Siege of
Leningrad (New York, 1969), p. 175.
 But to experiment, to search for ways to a new cinema, and to strengthen
some new artistic steps—that is the duty of every honest cinematographer.
And we are doing that.
In a short note there is not space to tell in detail about all our work. Let us
now say only a few words about "Film No. 1," which is already finished. In
the cinema, the time for subjects (themes) is past. Adventure films and
comedies, precisely because they have subjects, are now the most unfilmlike
genres. When the subjects (the action, the plot) are self-sufficient, they
subordinate the material. The finding of autonomous, specific material is in
itself already a key to the finding of the language of the film. "Film No. 1" is
the first stage of our experimental work. The plot is not important to us.
Important to us is the "atmosphere" of the material, of the subject chosen by
us. Separate elements of the film can be completely unconnected as far as
plot and meaning are concerned. They can be antipodal. We repeat, that is
not the point. The whole essence is in the atmosphere peculiar to the given
material—the subject. Our main concern is to bring to light that atmo­
sphere. How we solve this problem can be understood most easily when we
see the films on the screen.
On January 24 of this year, in the House of the Press, we shall give a
program. There we shall show a film and tell in detail about our searches
and orientations. The film was made by the makers of "Film No. 1"—
Alexander Razumovsky and Klementy Mints.

The Oberiu Theater

Suppose two people walk out on the stage, say nothing, but tell each
other something by signs. While they are doing that, they are solemnly
puffing out their cheeks. The spectators laugh. Is this theater? Yes, it is. You
may say it is balagan.6 But balagan is theater.
Or suppose a canvas is let down on the stage. On the canvas is a picture of
a village. The stage is dark. Then it begins to get lighter. A man dressed as a
shepherd walks onstage and plays on a pipe. Is that theater? Yes.
A chair appears on the stage; on the chair is a samovar. The samovar
boils. Instead of steam, naked arms rise up from under the lid.
All these—the man and his movements on the stage, the boiling samovar,
the village painted on the canvas, the light getting dimmer and getting
brighter—all these are separate elements of theater.
Until now, all these elements have been subordinated to the dramatic
plot—to the play. A play has been a story, told through characters, about
some kind of event. On the stage, all have worked to explain the meaning
and course of that event more clearly, more intelligibly, and to relate it more
closely to life.

6. Balagan: Punch and Judy show; booth show at a fair.

 That is not at all what the theater is. If an actor who represents a minister
begins to move around on the stage on all fours and howls like a wolf, or an
actor who represents a Russian peasant suddenly delivers a long speech in
Latin—that will be theater, that will interest the spectator, even if it takes
ec place without any relation to a dramatic plot. Such an action will be a
1 separate item; a series of such items organized by the director will make up a
Q theatrical performance, which will have its plot line and its scenic meaning.
o This will be a plot which only the theater can give. The plots of theatrical
< performances are theatrical, just as the plots of musical works are musical.
>-* All represent one thing—a world of appearances—but depending on the
u> material, they render it differently, after their own fashion.
UJ When you come to us, forget everything that you have been accustomed
2 to seeing in all theaters. Maybe a great deal will seem ridiculous. We take a
^ dramatic plot. We develop it slowly at first; then suddenly it is interrupted by
uf seemingly extraneous and clearly ridiculous elements. You are surprised.
^ You want to find that customary logical sequence of connections which, it
< seems to you, you see in life. But it is not there. Why not? Because an object
* and a phenomenon transported from life to the stage lose their lifelike
♦ sequence of connections and acquire another—a theatrical one. We are not
0 go i n g to explain it. In order to understand the sequence of connections of
^ any theatrical performance, one must see it. We can only say that our task is
to render the world of concrete objects on the stage in their interrelation­
ships and collisions. We worked to solve this task in our production of
Elizabeth Bam.
Elizabeth Bam was written on commission for the theatrical section of
Oberiu by one of the members, D. Kharms. The dramatic plot of the play is
shattered by many seemingly extraneous subjects which detach the object as
a separate whole, existing outside its connection with others. Therefore, the
dramatic plot does not arise before the spectator as a clear plot image; it
glimmers, so to speak, behind the action. The dramatic plot is replaced by a
scenic plot which arises spontaneously from all the elements of our specta­
cle. The center of our attention is on it. But at the same time, separate
elements of the spectacle are equally valuable and important to us. They live
their separate lives without subordinating themselves to the ticking of the
theatrical metronome. Here a corner of a gold frame sticks out—it lives as an
object of art; there a fragment of a poem is recited—it is autonomous in its
significance, and at the same time, independent of its will, it advances the
scenic plot of the play. The scenery, the movement of an actor, a bottle
thrown down, the train of a costume—they are actors, just like those who
shake their heads and speak various words and phrases.
The structure of the performance was worked out by I. Bakhterev, Bor.
Levin, and Daniil Kharms. Staging: I. Bakhterev.
1
1
Ql American Dada and Surrealism

■-■ -» ertrude Stein, poet, novelist, playwright, and theorist, was

m^J born February 3, 1874, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. As a stu-
C ^ % d e n t a t ^adcliffe College from 1893 to 1897, she studied psy-
%m^r chology with William James, a pursuit that influenced her
subsequent experiments with language. Two of her undergraduate re­
search papers focused on automatic writing, a technique later cham­
pioned by Andre Breton and the early Surrealists. From 1897 to 1901,
she studied medicine at Johns Hopkins University, but she did not
complete the degree. Stein moved in 1903 with her partner and per­
sonal secretary, Alice B. Toklas, to Paris, where she became closely
associated with several modernist painters, including Picasso, Matisse, Braque,
and Cezanne. Stein shared their interest in abstraction and was particularly
influenced by Picasso's Cubism and Cezanne's ideas about movement in painting.
Her seventy-seven plays, most notably It Happened, a Play (1913), In Circles
(1920), Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1938), and Yes Is for a Very Young Man
(1946), uniformly reject plot, linearity, and causality—in short, "referentiality"—
in favor of a somewhat cryptic poeticism that stresses the importance of individ­
ual words and the rhythmic motion of language. As she put it in her 1934 lecture
"Plays," she desired "to make a play the essence of what happened" but would do
so by telling "what could be told if one did not tell anything." In other words,
"anything that was not a story could be a play."
One of Stein's operas, Four Saints in Three Acts (libretto by Virgil Thompson),
was acclaimed on Broadway in 1934, and her plays were successfully revived in a
series of productions by the Judson Poets' Theater in New York in the 1960s and
1970s. Many critics have identified Stein's influence on such dramatists as Thorn­
ton Wilder, lonesco, Beckett, and Pinter. And her use of distorted, fragmented
language and repetitive, absurd dialogue has an acknowledged legacy in recent
avant-garde theater work, including the plays and productions of Richard Fore­
man and Robert Wilson. She died on July 27, 1946, in Paris.
Atom and Eve
A Consideration of Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights

" ^
m ore intellectually accessible than much of Gertrude
Stein's early work, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1938)
blends her unique approach to language and structure
with universal themes, which for her included feminist ones. The play
U ^ F * represents a transition between the two periods in Stein's oeuvre that
Donald Sutherland has established: 'The Play as Movement and Landscape,
1922-1932" and "The Melodic Drama, Melodrama and Opera, 1932-1946."' In
Doctor Faustus Stein uses identifiable characters and attributes specific dialogue
to them, but the language exhibits all the idiosyncrasies of her earlier work—lack
of punctuation, multiple identities for major characters, disembodied voices,
punning, non sequiturs, and repetition. As Michael Hoffman writes, Stein's "lan­
guage now focuses on something other than its own structure; she shifts from
[that] concern to such traditional literary problems as those of moral value and
human identity; but she still maintains throughout the play a style readily identi­
fiable as her own."2
Although several essays have been published on Stein's drama in general, and
on Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights in particular, few attempts have been made
to connect her plays with other avant-garde work of the period. Aside from
its formal similarities to the European avant-garde—in particular to the Dadaist
and Surrealist drama being written and produced in early twentieth-century
Paris—and that avant-garde's much smaller dramatic offshoot in the United
States—Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights is important for its explicit violations of
the three fundamental elements of conventional or traditional drama, as de­
scribed in the introduction to this collection: psychology, causality, and morality
or providentiality. Rather than merely mimic the techniques of the Dadaists or
Surrealists, Stein disrupts this triad even further than either E. E. Cummings in
Him (1927) or Thornton Wilder in his allegedly avant-garde Our Town (1938),
thereby establishing herself as the foremost dramatist of the early American
avant-garde.
In Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, not only has Gertrude Stein replaced
spiritual uncertainty about the existence of God with the secular amorality of
modern technology; she has also replaced the psychoscientific certainty about
personality that is integrated yet developing with the inability of humanity either
to comprehend itself or to evolve. In this play, all the characters are reduced to
the same frustrating inability to understand the world or act in it. Marguerite
Ida-Helena Annabel (the central female character, whose dual names and fluc­
tuating identity mark her as a kind of composite woman) cannot defend herself
against the man from over the seas; the devil cannot control Doctor Faustus

By Sarah Bay-Cheng. Published here for the first time.

1 Donald Sutherland, Gertrude Stein: A Bibliography of Her Work, 1951 (Westport, Conn.: Green­
wood, 1976), 207.
2 Michael J. Hoffman, Gertrude Stein (Boston: Twayne, 1976), 85.
(even long enough t o convince him that he has a soul); Faustus cannot regulate
the lights once he has created t h e m , and at the end of the play he fails t o convince
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel t o accompany him t o hell. N e i t h e r t h e dog
nor the boy has any p o w e r over his o w n life; they are manipulated by Faust—and
ultimately killed by him.
Like Wilder's Our Town, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights thus investigates the
triumph of technology and the role of G o d in m o d e r n life. But rather than offer
romantic nostalgia and spiritual redemption t o a Depression-weary and war-
w a r y American public, in t h e f o r m of isolation—and isolationism—in a quaint |
N e w Hampshire t o w n of the t u r n of t h e century, Stein portrays the impotence "i
of human beings w i t h o u t G o d , w i t h o u t morals, and w i t h o u t a real sense of fc
themselves. Indeed, in an almost Absurdist fashion, Stein's characters revel in </>
their o w n frustration and ignorance. Faustus' frustrations w i t h the w o r l d culmi- "2
nate in his desire t o "go t o hell," which neatly returns t h e play t o its theological a
question—does D o c t o r Faustus have a soul? Paradoxically, Mephistopheles in- *
forms Faustus that he cannot enter hell w i t h o u t a soul, and Faustus has sold his. c
A n d , considering Stein's dismissal of traditional Judeo-Christian theology as well .y
as conventional dramatic suspense, it should c o m e as no surprise that she begins |
her play after t h e central religious crisis—Faustus' decision t o sell his soul t o t h e <
devil for knowledge—which in Goethe's o r Marlowe's dramatization of the Faust t
legend serves as the turning point. co
In o r d e r t o enter hell, in any event, Faustus is told that he must c o m m i t a sin. ^
W h e n he asks, " W h a t sin, h o w can I w i t h o u t a soul c o m m i t a sin," Mephistophe­
les peremptorily replies, "Kill anything" ( 1 1 6 ) . Faust then kills his companions,
the boy and the dog, and descends into hell, w h e r e he wants t o go in o r d e r t o
escape t h e reality that he himself has created through his rejection of G o d in
favor of technology. But, for Stein, the t e r m "hell" describes that very techno­
logical reality ( o r nightmare): "Any light is just a light and n o w t h e r e is nothing
m o r e either by day o r by night just a light" (91). T h e unrelenting light can be read
as a m o d e r n analogue t o the eternal fires of hell. This technological light has the
capacity, w i t h its heat and radiance (neither w a r m and nourishing like t h e sun nor
gently haloed like candlelight), t o o v e r w h e l m all o t h e r forms of light and, like the
hell of theology, every type of faith.
Living in Europe during the 1930s, Stein thus reflects the anxiety of a conti­
nent only recently recovered f r o m the first mechanized w o r l d war, yet n o w
poised on t h e brink of a second, w h o s e technological devastation and human
destructiveness w o u l d beggar the imagination. Like o t h e r avant-garde w r i t e r s of
her t i m e , she suggests that life cannot be completely understood, and she avers
that no G o d exists t o create moral o r d e r o r t o prevent humankind f r o m self-
extinction through technology. Again, like so many o t h e r avant-garde w r i t e r s ,
Stein has lost faith in t h e traditional patriarchal G o d , but she has also lost faith
both in unconventional feminine spirituality and, paradoxically, in t h e potential of
any individual without absolute faith. Faust's "individual quest," after all, ends in
murder, despair, and chaos. A n d t h e grim attitude that permeates Stein's Doctor
Faustus will continue after W o r l d W a r II in t h e w o r k s of such w r i t e r s as Jean-Paul
Sartre, A l b e r t Camus, Samuel Beckett, and Eugene lonesco, w h o saw human-
 kind's trust in a higher power as having been betrayed by the human folly—the
hellfire of the Holocaust and atomic obliteration—of the last great war.

_ Select Bibliography on Stein

V)
— Bowers, Jane Palatini. "They Watch Me as They Watch This": Gertrude Stein's Metadrama.
< Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
JJJ Bridgman, Richard. Gertrude Stein in Pieces. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
* Knapp, Bettina L Gertrude Stein. New York: Continuum, 1990.
m Neuman, Shirley. " 'Would a Viper Have Stung Her If She Only Had One Name?': Doctor
Q
Faustus Lights the Lights." In Gertrude Stein and the Making of Literature, ed. Shirley
^ Neuman and Ira D. Nadel, 168-93. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988.
< Pladott, Dinnah. "The Semiotics of Post-Modern Theatre: Gertrude Stein." In Approches
^ de I'opera IApproaches of the Opera, ed. Andre Helbo, 303-14. Paris: Didier, 1986.
Q Ryan, Betsy Alayne. Gertrude Stein's Theatre of the Absolute. Ann Arbor: University of
Z Michigan Press, 1984.
<j Schaefer, James R, Jr. "An Examination of Language as Gesture in a Play by Gertrude
tt Stein." Literature in Performance 3 (1982): 1-14.
^ Shafer, Yvonne. "Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)." In Shafer, American Women Playwrights,
< 1900-1950, 190-202. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.
* Stewart, Allegra. "An American Version of the Faust Myth." In Stewart, Gertrude Stein
* and the Present, 144-87. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.

See also Robinson, in the General Bibliography.

 Doctor Faustus Lights the
Lights

Gertrude Stein

ACT I
Faust standing at the door of his room, with his arms up at the door lintel
looking out, behind him a blaze of electric light.
Just then Mephisto approaches and appears at the door.
Faustus growls out.— The devil what the devil what do I care if the devil is
there.
Mephisto says. But Doctor Faustus dear yes I am here.
Doctor Faustus. What do I care there is no here nor there. What am 1.1
am Doctor Faustus who knows everything can do ev­
erything and you say it was through you but not at all,
if I had not been in a hurry and if I had taken my time I
would have known how to make white electric light
and day-light and night light and what did I do I saw
you miserable devil I saw you and I was deceived and I
believed miserable devil I thought I needed you, and I
thought I was tempted by the devil and I know no
temptation is tempting unless the devil tells you so.
And you wanted my soul what the hell did you want
my soul for, how do you know I have a soul, who says
so nobody says so but you the devil and everybody
knows the devil is all lies, so how do you know how do I
know that I have a soul to sell how do you know Mr.

Reprinted from Gertrude Stein, Last Operas and Plays, ed. Carl Van Vechten (New York:
Rinehart, 1949), 89-118. Peter Owen Ltd., London.
 Devil oh Mr. Devil how can you tell you can not tell
anything and 11 who know everything I keep on hav­
ing so much light that light is not bright and what after
all is the use of light, you can see just as well without it,
you can go around just as well without it you can get
up and go to bed just as well without it, and 11 wanted
to make it and the devil take it yes you devil you do not
even want it and I sold my soul to make it. I have made
it but have I a soul to pay for it
Mephisto coming nearer and trying to pat his arm.
Yes dear Doctor Faustus yes of course you have a soul
of course you have, do not believe them when they say
the devil lies, you know the devil never lies, he de­
ceives oh yes he deceives but that is not lying no dear
please dear Doctor Faustus do not say the devil lies.
Doctor Faustus. Who cares if you lie if you steal, there is no snake to
LU grind under one's heel, there is no hope there is no
H death there is no life there is no breath, there just is
♦ every day all day and when there is no day there is no
♦
CD
day, and anyway of what use is a devil unless he goes
3 away, go away old devil go away, there is no use in a
devil unless he goes away, how can you remember a
devil unless he goes away, oh devil there is no use in
your coming to stay and now you are red at night
which is not a delight and you are red in the morning
which is not a warning go away devil go away or stay
after all what can a devil say.
Mephisto. A devil can smile a devil can while away whatever
there is to give away, and now are you not proud Doc­
tor Faustus yes you are you know you are you are the
only one who knows what you know and it is I the devil
who tells you so.
Faustus. You fool you devil how can you know, how can you tell
me so, if I am the only one who can know what I know
then no devil can know what I know and no devil can
tell me so and I could know without any soul to sell,
without there being anything in hell. What I know I
know, I know how I do what I do when I see the way
through and always any day I will see another day and
you old devil you know very well you never see any
other way than just the way to hell, you only know one
way. You only know one thing, you are never ready for
anything, and I everything is always now and now and
now perhaps through you I begin to know that it is all
 just so, that light however bright will never be other
than light, and any light is just a light and now there is
nothing more either by day or by night but just a light.
Oh you devil go to hell, that is all you know to tell, and
who is interested in hell just a devil is interested in hell
because that is all he can tell, whether I stamp or
whether I cry whether I live or whether I die, I can
know that all a devil can say is just about going to hell
the same way, get out of here devil, it does not interest
me whether you can buy or I can sell, get out of here
devil just you go to hell.
Faustus gives him an awful kick, and Mephisto moves away and the
electric lights just then begin to get very gay.
All right then

THE BALLET

Doctor Faustus sitting alone surrounded by electric lights.

His dog comes in and says
Thank you.
One of the electric lights goes out and again the dog says
Thank you.
The electric light that went out is replaced by a glow.
The dog murmurs.
My my what a sky.
And then he says
Thank you.

DOCTOR FAUSTUS'S SONG:

Ifldoit
If you do it
What is it.
Once again the dog says
Thank you.
A duet between Doctor Faustus and the dog about the electric
light about the electric lights.
Bathe me
says Doctor Faustus
Bathe me
In the electric lights
During this time the electric lights come and go
What is it
says Doctor Faustus
 Thank you
says the dog.
Just at this moment the electric lights get brighter and nothing
comes
Was it it
says Doctor Faustus
Faustus meditates he does not see the dog.
Will it
Will it
Will it be
Will it be it.
Faustus sighs and repeats
Will it be it.
A duet between the dog and Faustus
Will it be it
z Just it.
Hi At that moment the electric light gets pale again and in that
</> moment Faustus shocked says
♦ It is it
QQ A little boy comes in and plays with the dog, the dog says
$ Thank you.
Doctor Faustus looks away from the electric lights and then he
sings a song.

LET ME ALONE

Let me alone
Oh let me alone
Dog and boy let me alone oh let me alone
Leave me alone
Let me be alone
little boy and dog
let let me alone
He sighs
And as he sighs
He says
Dog and boy boy and dog leave me alone let me let me be alone.
The dog says
Thank you
but does not look at Faustus
A pause
No words
The dog says
Thank you
I say thank you
 Thank you
The little boy
The day begins today
The day
The moon begins the day
Doctor Faustus
There is no moon today
Dark silence
You obey I obey
There is no moon today.
Silence
and the dog says
I obey I say
Thank you any day
The little boy says
Once in a while they get up.
Doctor Faustus says
I shall not think
I shall not
No I shall not.
Faustus addresses little boy and dog
Night is better than day so please go away
The boy says
But say
When the hay has to be cut every day then there is the devil to pay
The dog starts and then he shrinks and says
Thank you
Faustus half turns and starts
I hear her
he says
I hear her say
Call to her to sing
To sing all about
to sing a song
All about
daylight and night light.
Moonlight and starlight
electric light and twilight
every light as well.
The electric lights glow and a chorus in the distance sings
Her name is her name is her name is Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel.
Faustus sings
I knew it I knew it the electric lights they told me so no dog can know no boy
can know I cannot know they cannot know the electric lights they told me so
I would not know I could not know who can know who can tell me so I know
 you know they can know her name is Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
and when I tell oh when I tell oh when I when I when I tell, oh go away and
go away and tell and tell and tell and tell and tell, oh hell.
The electric lights commence to dance and one by one they go
out and come in and the boy and the dog begin to sing.
Oh very well oh Doctor Faustus very very well oh very well, thank you says
the dog oh very well says the boy her name her name is Marguerite Ida and
Helena Annabel, I know says the dog I know says the boy I know says Doctor
Faustus no no no no no nobody can know what I know I know her name is
not Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel, very well says the boy it is says the
boy her name is Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel, no no no says Doctor
Faustus, yes yes yes says the dog, no says the boy yes says the dog, her name is
not Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and she is not ready yet to sing
about daylight and night light, moonlight and starlight electric light and
twilight she is not she is not but she will be. She will not be says Doctor
z Faustus never never never, never will her name be Marguerite Ida and
w Helena Annabel never never never never well as well never Marguerite Ida
v> and Helena Annabel never Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel.
♦ There is a sudden hush and the distant chorus says
0 It might be it might be her name her name might be Marguerite Ida and
S? Helena Annabel it might be.
And Doctor Faustus says in a loud whisper
It might be but it is not, and the little boy says how do you know and Faustus
says it might be it might not be not be not be, and as he says the last not be the
dog says
Thank you.

SCENE II

I am I and my name is Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel, and then oh

then I could yes I could I could begin to cry but why why could I begin to cry.
And I am I and I am here and how do I know how wild the wild world is
how wild the wild woods are the wood they call the woods the poor man's
overcoat but do they cover me and if they do how wild they are wild and wild
and wild they are, how do I know how wild woods are when I have never ever
seen a wood before.
I wish (she whispered) I knew why woods are wild why animals are wild
why I am I, why I can cry, I wish I wish I knew, I wish oh how I wish I knew.
Once I am in I will never be through the woods are there and I am here and
am I here or am I there, oh where oh where is here oh where oh where is
there and animals wild animals are everywhere.
She sits down.
I wish (says she conversationally) I wish if I had a wish that when I sat
down it would not be here but there there where I could have a chair there
where I would not have to look around fearfully everywhere there where a
chair and a carpet underneath the chair would make me know that there is
there, but here here everywhere there is nothing nothing like a carpet
nothing like a chair, here it is wild everywhere I hear I hear everywhere that
the woods are wild and I am here and here is here and here I am sitting
without a chair without a carpet, oh help me to a carpet with a chair save me
from the woods the wild woods everywhere where everything is wild wild
and 11 am not there I am here oh dear I am not there.
She stands up with her hands at her sides she opens and closes her eyes
and opens them again.
If my eyes are open and my eyes are closed I see I see, I see no carpet I see
no chair I see the wild woods everywhere, what good does it do me to close
my eyes no good at all the woods the woods are there I close my eyes but the
green is there and I open my eyes and I have to stare to be sure the green is
there the green of the woods, I saw it when my eyes were closed I saw the wild
woods everywhere and now I open my eyes and there there is the wild wood
everywhere.
Would it do as well if my name were not Marguerite Ida and Helena
Annabel would it do as well I would give up even that for a carpet and a chair
and to be not here but there, but (and she lets out a shriek,) I am here I am
not there and I am Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and it is not well that
I could tell what there is to tell what there is to see and what do I see and do I
see it at all oh yes I do I call and call but yes I do I see it all oh dear oh dear oh
dear yes I am here.
She says
In the distance there is daylight and near to there is none.
There is something under the leaves and Marguerite Ida and Helena
Annabel makes a quick turn and she sees that a viper has stung her.
In the distance there is daylight and near to there is none.

There is a rustling under the leaves and Marguerite Ida and Helena
Annabel makes a quick turn and she sees that a viper has stung her, she sees
it and she says and what is it. There is no answer. Does it hurt she says and
then she says no not really and she says was it a viper and she says how can I
tell I never saw one before but is it she says and she stands up again and sits
down and pulls down her stocking and says well it was not a bee not a busy
bee no not, nor a mosquito nor a sting it was a bite and serpents bite yes they
do perhaps it was one. Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel sits thinking and
then she sees a country woman with a sickle coming. Have I she says have I
been bitten, the woman comes nearer, have I says Marguerite Ida and
Helena Annabel have I have I been bitten. Have you been bitten answers the
country woman, why yes it can happen, then I have been bitten says Mar­
guerite Ida and Helena Annabel why not if you have been is the answer.
They stand repeating have I and yes it does happen and then Marguerite
 Ida and Helena Annabel says let me show you and the woman says oh yes but
I have never seen anyone who has been bitten but let me see no I cannot tell
she says but go away and do something, what shall I do said Marguerite Ida
and Helena Annabel do something to kill the poison, but what said Mar­
guerite Ida and Helena Annabel, a doctor can do it said the woman but what
doctor said Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel, Doctor Faustus can do it
said the woman, do you know him said Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
no of course I do not know him nobody does there is a dog, he says thank you
said the woman and go and see him go go go said the woman and Mar­
guerite Ida and Helena Annabel went.
As she went she began to sing.
Do vipers sting do vipers bite
If they bite with all their might
Do they do they sting
Or do they do they bite
z All right they bite if they bite with all their might.
w And I am I Marguerite Ida or am I Helena Annabel
</> Oh well
♦ Am I Marguerite Ida or am I Helena Annabel
w Very well oh very well
S? Am I Marguerite Ida very well am I Helena Annabel.
She stops she remembers the viper and in a whisper she says,
was it a sting was it a bite am I all right; was it a sting was it a bite,
all right was it a sting, oh or was it a bite.
She moves away and then suddenly she stops.
Will he tell
Will he tell that I am Marguerite Ida that I am Helena Annabel.
Will he tell
And then she stops again
And the bite might he make it a bite.
Doctor Faustus a queer name
Might he make it a bite
And so she disappears.

SCENE III

Doctor Faustus the dog and the boy all sleeping, the dog dreaming says
thickly
Thank you, thank you thank you thank you thank you, thank you thank you.
Doctor Faustus turns and murmurs
Man and dog dog and man each one can tell it all like a ball with a caress no
tenderness, man and dog just the same each one can take the blame each
one can well as well tell it all as they can, man and dog, well well man and
dog what is the difference between a man and a dog when I say none do I go
away does he go away go away to stay no nobody goes away the dog the boy
they can stay I can go away go away where where there there where, dog and
boy can annoy I can go say I go where do I go I go where I go, where is there
there is where and all the day and all the night too it grew and grew and there
is no way to say I and a dog and a boy, if a boy is to grow to be a man am I a
boy am I a dog is a dog a boy is a boy a dog and what am 11 cannot cry what
am I oh what am I
And then he waits a moment and he says
Oh what am I.
Just then in the distance there is a call
Doctor Faustus Doctor Faustus are you there Doctor Faustus I am here
Doctor Faustus I am coming there Doctor Faustus, there is where Doctor
Faustus oh where is there Doctor Faustus say it Doctor Faustus are you there
Doctor Faustus are you there.
The dog murmurs
Thank you thank you
and the boy says
There is somebody of course there is somebody just there there is somebody
somebody is there oh yes somebody is there.
and all together they say
Where is there nobody says nobody is there. Somebody is there and nobody
says that somebody is not there. Somebody somebody is there somebody
somebody somebody somebody says there is where where is it where is it
where is it where, here is here here is there somebody somebody says where
is where.
Outside the voice says
Doctor Faustus are you there Doctor Faustus any where, Doctor Faustus are
you there.
And then there is a knock at the door.
The electric lights glow softly and Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
comes in.
Well and yes well, and this is yes this is Doctor Faustus Doctor Doctor
Faustus and he can and he can change a bite hold it tight make it not kill not
kill Marguerite Ida not kill Helena Annabel and hell oh hell not a hell not
well yes well Doctor Faustus can he can make it all well.
And then she says in a quiet voice.
Doctor Faustus have you ever been to hell.
Of course not she says of course you have not how could you sell your soul if
you had ever been to hell of course not, no of course not.
Doctor Faustus tell me what did they give you when you sold your soul, not
hell no of course not not hell.
And then she goes on.
11 am Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and a viper bit or stung it is very
well begun and if it is so then oh oh I will die and as my soul has not been
sold I Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel perhaps I will go to hell.
The dog sighs and says
 Thank you
and the little boy coming nearer says
what is a viper, tell me Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel I like you being
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel what is a viper do I know it very well or
do I not know it very well please tell you are Marguerite Ida and Helena
Annabel what is a viper.
Doctor Faustus says
Little boy and dog can be killed by a viper but Marguerite Ida and Helena
Annabel not very well no not very well
(He bursts out)
Leave me alone
Let me be alone
Little boy and dog let me be alone, Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel let
me be alone, I have no soul I had no soul I sold it sold it here there and
everywhere.
Z What did I do I knew
UJ I knew that there could be light not moonlight starlight daylight and can­
to dlelight, I knew I knew I saw the lightening light, I saw it light, I said 111 must
t have that light, and what did I do oh what did I too I said I would sell my soul
^ all through but I knew I knew that electric light was all true, and true oh yes
SS it is true they took it that it was true that I sold my soul to them as well and so
never never could I go to hell never never as well. Go away dog and boy go
away Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel go away all who can die and go to
heaven or hell go away oh go away go away leave me alone oh leave me
alone. I said it I said it was the light I said I gave the light I said the lights are
right and the day is bright little boy and dog leave me alone let me be alone.
The country woman with the sickle looks in at the window and sings
Well well this is the Doctor Faustus and he has not gone to hell he has pretty
lights and they light so very well and there is a dog and he says thank you and
there is a little boy oh yes little boy there you are you just are there yes little
boy you are and there is Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and a viper did
bite her, oh cure her Doctor Faustus cure her what is the use of your having
been to hell if Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel is not to be all well.
And the chorus sings
What is the use Doctor Faustus what is the use what is the use of having been
to hell if you cannot cure this only only this Marguerite Ida and Helena
Annabel.
Doctor Faustus says
I think I have thought thought is not bought oh no thought is not bought I
think I have thought and what have I bought I have bought thought, to think
is not bought but 11 have bought thought and so you come here you come
you come here and here and here where can I say that not today not any day
can I look and see, no no I cannot look no no I cannot see and you you say
you are Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and 11 cannot see I cannot see
Marguerite Ida and I cannot see Helena Annabel and you you are the two
and I cannot cannot see you.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
Do not see me Doctor Faustus do not see me it would terrify me if you did
see do not see me no no do not see me I am Marguerite Ida and Helena
Annabel but do not see me cure me Doctor Faustus do the viper bit the viper
stung his sting was a bite and you you have the light cure me Doctor Faustus
cure me do but do not see me, I see you but do not see me cure me do but do
not see me I implore you.
Doctor Faustus
A dog says thank you but you you say do not see me cure rne do but do not
see me what shall I do.
He turns to the dog
The dog says
Thank you
and the boy says
What difference does it make to you if you do what difference oh what
difference does it make to you if you do, whatever you do do whatever you do
do what difference does it make to you if you do.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
What difference does it make to you if you do what difference does it make to
you but I a viper has had his bite and 11 will die but you you cannot die you
have sold your soul but 11 have mine and a viper has come and he has bitten
me and see see how the poison works see see how I must die, see how little by
little it is coming to be high, higher and higher I must die oh Doctor Faustus
what difference does it make to you what difference oh what difference
but to me to me to me to me a viper has bitten me a bitter viper a viper has
bitten me.
The dog
Oh Thank you thank you all all of you thank you thank you oh thank you
everybody thank you he and we thank you, a viper has bitten you thank you
thank you.
The boy
A viper has bitten her she knows it too a viper has bitten her believe it or not it
is true, a viper has bitten her and if Doctor Faustus does not cure her it will
be all through her a viper has bitten her a viper a viper.
Dog
Thank you
Woman at the window
A viper has bitten her and if Doctor Faustus does not cure her it will be all
through her.
Chorus in the distance
Who is she
She has not gone to hell
 Very well
Very well
She has not gone to hell
Who is she
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
And what has happened to her
A viper has bitten her
And if Doctor Faustus does not cure her
It will go all through her
And he what does he say
He says he cannot see her
Why cannot he see her
Because he cannot look at her
He cannot look at Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
But he cannot cure her without seeing her
2 They say yes yes
ui And he says there is no witness
v> And he says
t He can but he will not
^ And she says he must and he will
S? And the dog says thank you
And the boy says very well
And the woman says well cure her and she says she is Marguerite Ida and
Helena Annabel.
There is silence the lights flicker and flicker, and Marguerite Ida and He­
lena Annabel gets weaker and weaker and the poison stronger and stronger
and suddenly the dog says startlingly
Thank you
Doctor Faustus says
I cannot see you
The viper has forgotten you.
The dog has said thank you
The boy has said will you
The woman has said
Can you
And you, you have said you are you
Enough said.
You are not dead.
Enough said
Enough said.
You are not dead.
No you are not dead
Enough said
Enough said
You are not dead.
 All join in enough said you are not dead you are not dead enough said yes
enough said no you are not dead yes enough said, thank you yes enough said
no you are not dead.
And at the last
In a low whisper
She says
I am Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and enough said I am not dead.

2
Curtain .SP
ACT II |
3
Some one comes and sings "§>
Very =
Very §
Butter better very well ig
Butcher whether it will tell o
Well is well and silver sell o
Sell a salted almond to Nell 4
Which she will accept ♦
And then &
What does a fatty do
She does not pay for it.
No she does not
Does not pay for it.
By this time they know how to spell very
Very likely the whole thing is really extraordinary
Which is a great relief
All the time her name is Marguerite Ida Marguerite Ida
They drift in and they sing
Very likely the whole thing is extraordinary
Which is a great relief
All the time her name is Marguerite Ida
Marguerite Ida.
Then they converse about it.
Marguerite Ida is her name Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel who can
tell if her name is Marguerite Ida or Helena Annabel
Sillies all that is what makes you tall.
To be tall means to say that everything else is layed away.
Of course her names is Marguerite Ida too and Helena Annabel as well.
A full chorus
Of course her names is Marguerite Ida too and Helena Annabel as well.
A deep voice asks
Would a viper have stung her if she had only had one name would he
would he.
How do you know how do you know that a viper did sting her.
How could Doctor Faustus have cured her if there had not been something
the matter with her.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel it is true her name is Marguerite Ida
and Helena Annabel as well and a viper has stung her and Doctor Faustus
has cured her, cured her cured her, he has sold his soul to hell cured her
cured her cured he he has sold his soul to hell and her name is Marguerite
Ida and Helena Annabel and a viper had to bite her and Doctor Faustus had
to cure her cure her cure her cure her.
The curtain at the corner rises and there she is Marguerite Ida and
Helena Annabel and she has an artificial viper there beside her and a halo is
around her not of electric light but of candlelight, and she sits there and
waits.
The chorus sings
There she is
Is she there
Look and see
Is she there
Is she there
Anywhere
Look and see
Is she there
Yes she is there
There is there
She is there
Look and see
She is there.
There she is
There there
Where
Why there
Look and see there
There she is
And what is there
A viper is there
The viper that bit her
No silly no
How could he be there
This is not a viper
This is what is like a viper
She is there
And a viper did bite her
And Doctor Faustus did cure her
And now
And now
And now she is there
Where
Why there
Oh yes there.
Yes oh yes yes there.
There she is
Look and see
And the viper is there
And the light is there
Who gave her the light
Nobody did
Doctor Faustus sold his soul
And so the light came there
And did she sell her soul.
No silly he sold his soul
She had a viper bite her
She is there
Oh yes she is there
Look there
Yes there
She is there.
Marguerite Ida begins to sing
I sit and sit with my back to the sun I sat and sat with my back to the sun.
Marguerite Ida sat and sat with her back to the sun.
The sun oh the sun the lights are bright like the sunset and she sat with her
back to the sun sat and sat
She sits
A very grand ballet of lights.
Nobody can know that it is so
They come from everywhere
By land by sea by air
They come from everywhere
To look at her there.
See how she sits
See how she eats
See how she lights,
The candle lights.
See how the viper there,
Cannot hurt her.
No indeed he cannot.
Nothing can touch her,
She has everything
And her soul,
Nothing can lose her,
 See how they come
See how they come
To see her.
See how they come.
Watch
They come by sea
They come by land
They come by air
And she sits
With her back to the sun
One sun
And she is one
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel as well.
They commence to come and more and more come and they come from
the sea from the land and from the air.
2 And she sits.
m A man comes from over the seas and a great many are around him
</> He sees her as she sits.
t And he says
0 Pretty pretty dear
^ She is all my love and always here
And I am hers and she is mine
And I love her all the time
Pretty pretty pretty dear.
No says the chorus no.
She is she and the viper bit her
And Doctor Faustus cured her.
The man from over seas repeats
Pretty pretty pretty dear
She is all my love and always here
And I am hers and she is mine
And I love her all the time.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel suddenly hears something and says
What is it.
He comes forward and says again
Pretty pretty pretty dear she is all my love and she is always here.
She sings slowly
You do or you do not.
He
Pretty pretty dear she is all my love and she is always here.
Well well he says well well and her name is Marguerite Ida and Helena
Annabel and they all say it was a viper, what is a viper, a viper is a serpent and
anybody has been bitten and not everybody dies and cries, and so why why
say it all the time, I have been bitten I I I have been bitten by her bitten by
her there she sits with her back to the sun and I have won I have won her I
have won her.
She sings a song
You do or you do not
You are or you are not
I am there is no not
But you you you
You are as you are not
He says
Do you do what you do because you knew all the way through that 11 was
coming to you answer me that.
She turns her back on him.
And he says
I am your sun oh very very well begun, you turn your back on your sun, I am
your sun, I have won I have won I am your sun.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel rises. She holds the viper she says
Is it you Doctor Faustus is it you, tell me man from over the sea are you he.
He laughs.
Are you afraid now afraid of me.
She says
Are you he.
He says
I am the only he and you are the only she and we are the only we.
Come come do you hear me come come, you must come to me, throw away
the viper throw away the sun throw away the lights until there are none. I am
not any one I am the only one, you have to have me because I am that one.
She looks very troubled and drops the viper but she instantly stoops and
picks it up and some of the lights go out and she fusses about it.
And then suddenly she starts,
No one is one when there are two, look behind you look behind you you are
not one you are two.
She faints.
And indeed behind the man of the seas is Mephistopheles and
with him is a boy and a
girl.
Together they sing the song the boy and the girl.
Mr. Viper think of me. He says you do she says you do and if you do dear Mr.
Viper if you do then it is all true he is a boy I am a girl it is all true dear dear
Mr. Viper think of me.
The chorus says in the back,
Dear dear Mr. Viper think of them one is a boy one is a girl dear dear viper
dear dear viper think of them.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel still staring at the man
from over the seas and Mephisto behind them.
 She whispers,
They two I two they two that makes six it should be seven they two I two they
two five is heaven.
Mephisto says
And what if I ask what answer me what, I have a will of iron yes a will to do
what I do. I do what I do what I do, I do I do.
And he strides forward,
Where where where are you, what a to do, when a light is bright there is
moonlight, when a light is not so bright then it is daylight, and when a light is
no light then it is electric light, but you you have candlelight, who are you.
The ballet rushes in and out.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel lifts the viper and says
Lights are all right but the viper is my might.
Pooh says Mephisto, I despise a viper, the viper tries but the viper lies. Me they
cannot touch no not any such, a viper, ha ha a viper, a viper, ha ha, no the lights
Z the lights the candle lights, I know a light when I see a light, I work I work all
w day and all night, I am the devil and day and night, I never sleep by any light by
w any dark by any might, I never sleep not by day not by night, you cannot fool
t me by candlelight, where is the real electric light woman answer me.
aj The little boy and girl creep closer, they sing.
3! Mr. Viper dear Mr. Viper, he is a boy I am a girl she is a girl I am a boy we do
not want to annoy but we do oh we do oh Mr. Viper yes we do we want you to
know that she is a girl that I am boy, oh yes Mr. Viper please Mr. Viper here
we are Mr. Viper listen to us Mr. Viper, oh please Mr. Viper it is not true
Mr. Viper what the devil says Mr. Viper that there is no Mr. Viper, please
Mr. Viper please Mr. Viper, she is a girl he is a boy please Mr. Viper you
are Mr. Viper please Mr. Viper please tell us so.
The man from over the seas smiles at them all, and says
It is lovely to be at ease.
Mephisto says
What do you know I am the devil and you do not listen to me I work and I
work by day and by night and you do not listen to me he and she she and he
do not listen to me you will see you will see, if I work day and night and I do I
do I work day and night, then you will see what you will see, look out look out
for me.
He rushes away
And Helena Annabel and Marguerite Ida shrinks back, and says to
them all
What does he say
And the man from over the seas says
Pretty pretty dear she is all my love and she is always here.
and then more slowly
I am the only he you are the only she and we are the only we,
and the chorus sings softly
And the viper did bite her and Doctor Faustus did cure her.
And the boy and girl sing softly.
Yes Mr. Viper he is a boy she is a girl yes Mr. Viper.
And the ballet of lights fades away.
Curtain

ACT III
SCENE I

Doctor Faustus' house

Faustus in his chair, the dog and the boy, the electric lights
are right but the room is dark.
Faustus
Yes they shine
They shine all the time.
I know they shine
I see them shine
And I am here
I have no fear
But what shall I do
I am all through
I cannot bear
To have no care
I like it bright
I do like it bright
Alright I like it bright,
But is it white
Or is it bright.
Dear dear
I do care
That nobody can share.
What if they do
It is all to me
Ah I do not like that word me,
Why not even if it does rhyme with she. I know all the words that rhyme with
bright with light with might with alright, I know them so that I cannot tell I
can spell but I cannot tell how much I need to not have that, not light not
sight, not light not night not alright, not night not sight not bright, no no not
night not sight not bright no no not bright.
There is a moment's silence and then the dog says
Thank you.
He turns around and then he says
Yes thank you.
 And then he says
Not bright not night dear Doctor Faustus you are right, I am a dog yes I am
just that I am I am a dog and I bay at the moon, I did yes I did I used to do it I
used to bay at the moon I always used to do it and now now not any more, I
cannot, of course I cannot, the electric lights they make it be that there is no
night and if there is no night then there is no moon and if there is no moon I
do not see it and if I do not see it I cannot bay at it.
The dog sighs and settles down to rest
and as he settles down he says
Thank you.
The little boy cuddles up close to him and says
Yes there is no moon and if there is a moon then we do not bay at the moon
and if there is no moon then no one is crazy any more because it is the moon
of course it is the moon that always made them be like that, say thank you
doggie and I too I too with you will say thank you.
Z They softly murmur
I Thank you thank you thank you too.
«/> They all sleep in the dark with the electric light all bright,
t and then at the window comes something.
^ Is it the moon says the dog is it the moon says the boy is it the moon do not
^ wake me is it the moon says Faustus.
No says a woman no it is not it is not the moon, I am not the moon I am at the
window Doctor Faustus do not you know what it is that is happening.
No answer.
Doctor Faustus do not you know what is happening.
Back of her a chorus
Doctor Faustus do not you know what is happening.
Still no answer
All together louder
Doctor Faustus do not you know do not you know what it is that is happening.
Doctor Faustus.
Go away woman and men, children and dogs moon and stars go away let me
alone let me be alone no light is bright, I have no sight, go away woman and
let me boy and dog let me be alone I need no light to tell me it is bright, go
away go away, go away go away.
No says the woman no I am at the window and here I remain till you hear it
all. Here we know because Doctor Faustus tells us so, that he only he can
turn night into day but now they say, they say, (her voice rises to a screech)
they say a woman can turn night into day, they say a woman and a viper bit
her and did not hurt her and he showed her how and now she can turn night
into day, Doctor Faustus oh Doctor Faustus say you are the only one who can
turn night into day, oh Doctor Faustus yes do say that you are the only one
who can turn night into day.
The chorus behind says
Oh Doctor Faustus oh Doctor Faustus do say that you are the only one who
can turn night into day.
Faustus starts up confused he faces the woman, he says,
What is it you say.
And she says imploringly,
Oh Doctor Faustus do say you are the only one who can turn night into day.
Faustus slowly draws himself erect and says
Yes I do say I am the only one who can turn night into day.
And the woman and the chorus say,
He is the only one who can turn night into day.
And the dog says
He is the only one who can turn night into day, there is no moon any night or
any day he is the only one to turn night into day,
and the little boy says
Yes he is the only one to turn night into day.
And the woman then says
But come Doctor Faustus come away come and see whether they say that
they can turn night into day.
Who says
says Doctor Faustus
She says
says the woman
Who is she
says Doctor Faustus
The answer
Marguerite Ida or Helena Annabel
She
says Doctor Faustus
Who said I could not go to hell.
She she
says the woman
She she
says the chorus
Thank you
said the dog
Well
said Doctor Faustus
Well then I can go to hell, if she can turn night into day then I can go to hell,
come on then come on we will go and see her and I will show her that I can
go to hell, if she can turn night into day as they say then I am not the only one
very well I am not the only one so Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel listen
well you cannot but 11 can go to hell. Come on every one never again will I
be alone come on come on every one.
They all leave.
 SCENE II

The scene as before, Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel sitting with the
man from over the seas their backs to the sun, the music to express a noonday
hush.
Everybody dreamily saying
Mr. Viper please Mr. Viper,
some saying
Is he is he Doctor Faustus no he isn't no he isn't, is he is he is he all he loves
her is he is he all she loves him, no one can remember anything but him,
which is she and which is he sweetly after all there is no bee there is a viper
such a nice sweet quiet one, nobody any body knows how to run, come any
one come, see any one, some, come viper sun, we know no other any one,
any one can forget a light, even an electric one but no one no no one can
forget a viper even a stuffed one no no one and no one can forget the sun and
no one can forget Doctor Faustus no no one and and no one can forget
5 Thank you and the dog and no one can forget a little boy and no one can
H forget any one no no one.
^ (These words to be distributed among the chorus)
♦ and the man from over seas murmurs dreamily
Pretty pretty pretty dear here I am and you are here and yet and yet it would
^ be better yet if you had more names and not only four in one let it be begun,
forget it oh forget it pretty one, and if not I will forget that you are one yes I
will yes I will pretty pretty one yes I will.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel stiffens a little
Well will you yes I will, no one can know when I do not tell them so that they
cannot know anything they know, yes I know, I do know just what I can
know, it is not there well anywhere, I cannot come not for any one I cannot
say what is night and day but I am the only one who can know anything
about any one, am I one dear dear am I one, who hears me knows me I am
here and here I am, yes here I am.
The chorus gets more lively and says
Yes there she is
Dear me
says the man from over the seas.
Just then out of the gloom appear at the other end of the
stage Faust and the boy and the dog, nobody sees them, just
then in front of every one appears Mephisto, very excited and
sings
Which of you can dare to deceive me which of you he or she can dare to
deceive me, I who have a will of iron I who make what will be happen I who
can win men or women I who can be wherever I am which of you has been
deceiving which of you she or he which of you has been deceiving me.
He shouts louder
If there is a light who has the right, I say I gave it to him, she says he gave it to
her or she does not say anthing, I say I am Mephisto and what I have I do not
give no not to any one, who has been in her who has been in him, I will win.
The boy and girl shrilly sing
She is she and he is he and we are we Mr. Viper do not forget to be. Please
Mr. Viper do not forget to be, do not forget that she is she and that he is he
please Mr. Viper do not forget me.
Faustus murmurs in a low voice
I sold my soul to make it bright with electric light and now no one not I not
she not they not he are interested in that thing and I and 11 cannot go to hell
I have sold my soul to make a light and the light is bright but not interesting
in my sight and I would oh yes I would I would rather go to hell be I with all
my might and then go to hell oh yes alright.
Mephisto strides up to him and says
You deceived me.
I did not
says Faustus
Mephisto.
You deceived me and I am never deceived
Faust, you deceived me and I am always deceived,
Mephisto, you deceived me and I am never deceived.
Faustus
Well well let us forget it is not ready yet let us forget and now oh how how I
want to be me myself all now, I do not care for light let it be however light, I
do not care anything but to be well and to go to hell. Tell me oh devil tell me
will she will Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel will she will she really will
she go to hell.
Mephisto
I suppose so.
Faustus
Well then how dear devil how how can I who have no soul I sold it for a light
how can I be I again alright and go to hell.
Mephisto
Commit a sin
Faustus
What sin, how can I without a soul commit a sin.
Mephisto
Kill anything
Faustus
Kill
Mephisto
Yes kill something oh yes kill anything.
Yes it is I who have been deceived I the devil whom no one can deceive yes it
is 11 who have been deceived.
Faustus
 But if I kill what then will.
Mephisto
It is I who have an iron will.
Faustus
But if I kill what will happen then.
Mephisto
Oh go to hell.
Faustus
I will
He turns he sees the boy and dog he says
I will kill I will I will.
He whispers
I will kill I will I will.
He turns to the boy and dog and he says
Boy and dog I will kill you two I will kill I will I will boy and dog I will kill you
Z kill you, the viper will kill you but it will be I who did it, you will die.
UJ The dog says
</> Thank you, the light is so bright there is no moon tonight I cannot bay at the
t moon the viper will kill me. Thank you,
~> and the boy says
T* And I too, there is no day and night there is no dog tonight to say thank you
the viper will kill me too, good-bye to you.
In the distance the voices of the boy and girl are heard saying Mr. Viper
please listen to me he is a boy she is a girl.
There is a rustle the viper appears and the dog and the boy die.
Faustus
They are dead yes they are dead, dear dog dear boy yes you are dead you are
forever ever ever dead and 11 can because you die nobody can deny later I
will go to hell very well very well I will go to hell Marguerite Ida Helena
Annabel I come to tell to tell you that I can go to hell.
Mephisto
And I, while you cry I who do not deny that now you can go to hell have I
nothing to do with you.
Faustus
No I am through with you I do not need the devil I can go to hell all alone.
Leave me alone let me be alone I can go to hell all alone.
Mephisto
No listen to me now take her with you do I will make you young take her
with you do Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel take her with you do.
Faustus
Is it true that I can be young.
Mephisto
Yes.
Faustus
All right.
He is young he approaches Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel who
wakes up and looks at him. He says
Look well I am Doctor Faustus and I can go to hell.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
You Doctor Faustus never never Doctor Faustus is old I was told and I saw it
with my eyes he was old and could not go to hell and you are young and can
go to hell, very well you are not Doctor Faustus never never.
Faustus
I am I am I killed the boy and dog when I was an old man and now I am a
young man and you Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and you know it
well and you know I can go to hell and I can take some one too and that
some one will be you.
Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel
Never never, never never, you think you are so clever you think you can
deceive, you think you can be old and you are young and old like any one
but never never, I am Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and I know no
man or devil no viper and no light I can be anything and everything and it is
always always alright. No one can deceive me not a young man not an old
man not a devil not a viper I am Marguerite Ida and Helena Annabel and
never never will a young man be an old man and an old man be a young
man, you are not Doctor Faustus no not ever never never
and she falls back fainting into the arms of the man from over
the seas who sings
Pretty pretty pretty dear I am he and she is she and we are we, pretty pretty
dear I am here yes I am here pretty pretty pretty dear.
Mephisto strides up
Always deceived always deceived I have a will of iron and I am always
deceived always deceived come Doctor Faustus I have a will of iron and you
will go to hell.
Faustus sings
Leave me alone let me be alone, dog and boy boy and dog leave me alone let
me be alone
and he sinks into the darkness and it is all dark and the little boy and the
little girl sing
Please Mr. Viper listen to me he is he and she is she and we are we please
Mr. Viper listen to me.
Curtain
 Plays

Gertrude Stein

In a book I wrote called How to Write I made a discovery which I con­

sidered fundamental, that sentences are not emotional and that para­
graphs are. I found out about language that paragraphs are emotional and
sentences are not and I found out something else about it. I found out
that this difference was not a contradiction but a combination and that
this combination causes one to think endlessly about sentences and para­
graphs because the emotional paragraphs are made up of unemotional
sentences.
I found out a fundamental thing about plays. The thing I found out
about plays was too a combination and not a contradiction and it was some­
thing that makes one think endlessly about plays.
That something is this.
The thing that is fundamental about plays is that the scene as depicted
on the stage is more often than not one might say it is almost always in
syncopated time in relation to the emotion of anybody in the audience.
What this says is this.
Your sensation as one in the audience in relation to the play played
before you your sensation I say your emotion concerning that play is always
either behind or ahead of the play at which you are looking and to which you
are listening. So your emotion as a member of the audience is never going on
at the same time as the action of the play.
This thing the fact that your emotional time as an audience is not the
same as the emotional time of the play is what makes one endlessly troubled

Reprinted from Gertrude Stein: Writings and Lectures, 1911-1945 (London: Peter Owen,
1967), 93-131.
about a play, because not only is there a thing to know as to why this is so but
also there is a thing to know why perhaps it does not need to be so.
This is a thing to know and knowledge as anybody can know is a thing to
get by getting.
And so I will try to tell you what I had to get and what perhaps I have
gotten in plays and to do so I will tell you all that I have ever felt about plays
or about any play.
Plays are either read or heard or seen.
And there then comes the question which comes first and which is first,
reading or hearing or seeing a play.
I ask you.
What is knowledge. Of course knowledge is what you know and what you
know is what you do know.
What do I know about plays.
In order to know one must always go back.
What was the first play I saw and was I then already bothered bothered
about the different tempo there is in the play and in yourself and your
emotion in having the play go on in front of you. I think I may say I may say I
know that I was already troubled by this in that my first experience at a play.
The thing seen and the emotion did not go on together.
This that the thing seen and the thing felt about the thing seen not going
on at the same tempo is what makes the being at the theater something that
makes anybody nervous.
The jazz bands made of this thing, the thing that makes you nervous at
the theater, they made of this thing an end in itself. They made of this
different tempo a something that was nothing but a difference in tempo
between anybody and everybody including all those doing it and all those
hearing and seeing it. In the theater of course this difference in tempo is less
violent but still it is there and it does make anybody nervous.
In the first place at the theater there is the curtain and the curtain already
makes one feel that one is not going to have the same tempo as the thing that
is there behind the curtain. The emotion of you on one side of the curtain
and what is on the other side of the curtain are not going to be going on
together. One will always be behind or in front of the other.
Then also beside the curtain there is the audience and the fact that they
are or will be or will not be in the way when the curtain goes up that too
makes for nervousness and nervousness is the certain proof that the emotion
of the one seeing and the emotion of the thing seen do not progress together.
Nervousness consists in needing to go faster or to go slower so as to get
together. It is that that makes anybody feel nervous.
And is it a mistake that that is what the theater is or is it not.
There are things that are exciting as the theater is exciting but do they
make you nervous or do they not, and if they do and if they do not why do
they and why do they not.
 Let us think of three different kinds of things that are exciting and that
make or do not make one nervous. First any scene which is a real scene
something real that is happening in which one takes part as an actor in that
scene. Second any book that is exciting, third the theater at which one sees
an exciting action in which one does not take part.
Now in a real scene in which one takes part at which one is an actor what
does one feel as to time and what is it that does or does not make one
nervous.
And is your feeling at such a time ahead and behind the action the way it
is when you are at the theater. It is the same and it is not. But more not.
If you are taking part in an actual violent scene, and you talk and they or
he or she talks and it goes on and it gets more exciting and finally then it
happens, whatever it is that does happen then when it happens then at the
moment of happening is it a relief from the excitement or is it a completion
of the excitement. In the real thing it is a completion of the excitement, in
z the theater it is a relief from the excitement, and in that difference the
ui difference between completion and relief is the difference between emotion
</> concerning a thing seen on the stage and the emotion concerning a real
t presentation that is really something happening.

§ This then is the fundamental difference between excitement in real life and
on the stage, in real life it culminates in a sense of completion whether an
exciting act or an exciting emotion has been done or not, and on the stage
the exciting climax is a relief. And the memory of the two things is different.
As you go over the detail that leads to culmination of any scene in real life,
you find that each time you cannot get completion, but you can get relief
and so already your memory of any exciting scene in which you have taken
part turns it into the thing seen or heard not the thing felt. You have as I say as
the result relief rather than culmination. Relief from excitement, rather than
the climax of excitement. In this respect an exciting story does the same only
in the exciting story, you so to speak have control of it as you have in your
memory of a really exciting scene, it is not as it is on the stage a thing over
which you have no real control. You can with an exciting story find out the
end and so begin over again just as you can in remembering an exciting
scene, but the stage is different, it is not real and yet it is not within your
control as the memory of an exciting thing is or the reading of an exciting
book. No matter how well you know the end of the stage story it is neverthe­
less not within your control as the memory of an exciting thing is or as the
written story of an exciting thing is or even in a curious way the heard story of
an exciting thing is. And what is the reason for this difference and what does
it do to the stage. It makes for nervousness that of course, and the cause of
nervousness is the fact that the emotion of the one seeing the play is always
ahead or behind the play.
Beside all this there is a thing to be realized and that is how you are being
introduced to the characters who take part in an exciting action even when
you yourself are one of the actors. And this too has to be very much thought
about. And thought about in relation to an exciting real thing to an exciting
book, to an exciting theater. How are you introduced to the characters.
There are then the three ways of having something be exciting, and the
excitement may or may not make one nervous, a book being read that is
exciting, a scene in which one takes part or an action in which one takes part
and the theater at which one looks on.
In each case the excitement and the nervousness and the being behind
or ahead in one's feeling is different.
First anything exciting in which one takes part. There one progresses
forward and back emotionally and at the supreme crisis of the scene the
scene in which one takes part, in which one's hopes and loves and fears take
part at the extreme crisis of this thing one is almost one with one's emotions,
the action and the emotion go together, there is but just a moment of this
coordination but it does exist otherwise there is no completion as one has no
result, no result of a scene in which one has taken part, and so instinctively •§
when any people are living an exciting moment one with another they go on </>
and on and on until the thing has come together the emotion the action the t
excitement and that is the way it is when there is any violence either of loving w
or hating or quarreling or losing or succeeding. But there is, there has to be §
the moment of it all being abreast the emotion, the excitement and the
action otherwise there would be no succeeding and no failing and so no one
would go on living, why yes of course not.
That is life the way it is lived.
Why yes of course and there is a reasonable and sometimes an unreason­
able and very often not a reasonable amount of excitement in everybody's
life and when it happens it happens in that way.
Now when you read a book how is it. Well it is not exactly like that no not
even when a book is even more exciting than any excitement one has ever
had. In the first place one can always look at the end of the book and so quiet
down one's excitement. The excitement having been quieted down one can
enjoy the excitement just as any one can enjoy the excitement of anything
having happened to them by remembering and so tasting it over and over
again but each time less intensely and each time until it is all over. Those
who like to read books over and over get continuously this sensation of the
excitement as if it were a pleasant distant thunder that rolls and rolls and the
more it rolls well the further it rolls the pleasanter until it does not roll any
more. That is until at last you have read the book so often that it no longer
holds any excitement not even ever so faintly and then you have to wait until
you have forgotten it and you can begin it again.
Now the theater has still another way of being all this to you, the thing
causing your emotion and the excitement in connection with it.
Of course lots of other things can do these things to lots of other people
 that is to say excite lots of people but as I have said knowledge is what you
know and I naturally tell you what I know, as I do so very essentially believe
in knowledge.
So then once again what does the theater do and how does it do it.
What happens on the stage and how and how does one feel about it. That
is the thing to know, to know and to tell it as so.
Is the thing seen or the thing heard the thing that makes most of its
impression upon you at the theater. How much has the hearing to do with it
and how little. Does the thing heard replace the thing seen. Does it help or
does it interfere with it.
And when you are taking part in something really happening that is
exciting, how is it. Does the thing seen or does the thing heard affect you and
affect you at the same time or in the same degree or does it not. Can you wait
to hear or can you wait to see and which excites you the most. And what has
either one to do with the completion of the excitement when the excitement
Z is a real excitement that is excited by something really happening. And then
ui little by little does the hearing replace the seeing or does the seeing replace
</> the hearing. Do they go together or do they not. And when the exciting
t something in which you have taken part arrives at its completion does the
^ hearing replace the seeing or does it not. Does the seeing replace the hearing
§ or does it not. Or do they both go on together.
All this is very important, and important for me and important, just
important. It has of course a great deal to do with the theater a great great
deal.
In connection with reading an exciting book the thing is again more
complicated than just seeing, because of course in reading one sees but one
also hears and when the story is at its most exciting does one hear more than
one sees or does one not do so.
I am posing all these questions to you because of course in writing, all
these things are things that are really most entirely really exciting. But of
course yes.
And in asking a question one is not answering but one is as one may say
deciding about knowing. Knowing is what you know and in asking these
questions although there is no one who answers these questions there is in
them that there is knowledge. Knowledge is what you know.
And now is the thing seen or the thing heard the thing that makes most of
its impression upon you at the theater, and does as the scene on the theater
proceeds does the hearing take the place of seeing as perhaps it does when
something real is being most exciting, or does seeing take the place of
hearing as it perhaps does when anything real is happening or does the
mixture get to be more mixed seeing and hearing as perhaps it does when
anything really exciting is really happening.
If the emotion of the person looking at the theater does or does not do
what it would do if it were really a real something that was happening and
they were taking part in it or they were looking at it, when the emotion of the
person looking on at the theater comes then at the climax to relief rather
than completion has the mixture of seeing and hearing something to do with
this and does this mixture have something to do with the nervousness of the
emotion at the theater which has perhaps to do with the fact that the emo­
tion of the person at the theater is always behind and ahead of the scene at
the theater but not with it.
There are then quite a number of things that any one does or does not
know.
Does the thing heard replace the thing seen does it help it or does it
interfere with it. Does the thing seen replace the thing heard or does it help
or does it interfere with it.
I suppose one might have gotten to know a good deal about these things
from the cinema and how it changed from sight to sound, and how much
before there was real sound how much of the sight was sound or how much it
was not. In other words the cinema undoubtedly had a new way of under­
standing sight and sound in relation to emotion and time. «|
I may say that as a matter of fact the thing which has induced a person </>
like myself to constantly think about the theater from the standpoint of sight t
and sound and its relation to emotion and time, rather than in relation to ^
story and action is the same as you may say general form of conception as the !§
inevitable experiments made by the cinema although the method of doing
so has naturally nothing to do with the other. I myself never go to the cinema
or hardly ever practically never and the cinema has never read my work or
hardly ever. The fact remains that there is the same impulse to solve the
problem of time in relation to emotion and the relation of the scene to
the emotion of the audience in the one case as in the other. There is the
same impulse to solve the problem of the relation of seeing and hearing in
the one case as in the other.
It is in short the inevitable problem of anybody living in the composition
of the present time, that is living as we are now living as we have it and now
do live in it.
The business of Art as I tried to explain in Composition as Explanation is
to live in the actual present, that is the complete actual present, and to
completely express that complete actual present.
But to come back to that other question which is at once so important a
part of any scene in real life, in books or on the stage, how are the actors
introduced to the sight, hearing and consciousness of the person having the
emotion about them. How is it done in each case and what has that to do
with the way the emotion progresses.
How are the actors in a real scene introduced to those acting with them
in that scene and how are the real actors in a real scene introduced to you
who are going to be in an exciting scene with them. How does it happen, that
is, as it usually happens.
 And how are the actors in a book scene introduced to the reader of the
book, how does one come to know them, that is how is one really introduced
to them.
And how are the people on the stage that is the people the actors act how
are they introduced to the audience and what is the reason why, the reason
they are introduced in the way that they are introduced, and what happens,
and how does it matter, and how does it affect the emotions of the audience.
In a real scene, naturally in a real scene, you either have already very well
known all the actors in the real scene of which you are one, or you have not.
More generally you have than you have not, but and this is the element of
excitement in an exciting scene, it quite of course is the element of excite­
ment in an exciting scene that is in a real scene, all that you have known of
the persons including yourself who are taking part in the exciting scene,
although you have most probably known them very well, what makes it
exciting is that insofar as the scene is exciting they the actors in the scene
z including yourself might just as well have been strangers because they all act
Hi talk and feel differently from the way you have expected them to act feel or
</> talk. And this that they feel act and talk including yourself differently from
♦ the way you would have thought that they would act feel and talk makes the
^ scene an exciting scene and makes the climax of this scene which is a real
i$ scene a climax of completion and not a climax of relief. That is what a
real scene is. Would it make any difference in a real scene if they were all
strangers, if they had never known each other. Yes it would, it would be
practically impossible in the real scene to have a really exciting scene if they
were all strangers because generally speaking it is the contradiction between
the way you know the people you know including yourself act and the way
they are acting or feeling or talking that makes of any scene that is an exciting
scene an exciting scene.
Of course there are other exciting scenes in peace and in war in which the
exciting scene takes place with strangers but in that case for the purpose of
excitement you are all strangers but so completely strangers, including you
yourself to yourself as well as the others to each other and to you that they are
not really individuals and inasmuch as that is so it has the advantage and the
disadvantage that you proceed by a series of completions which follow each
other so closely that when it is all over you cannot remember that is you can­
not really reconstruct the thing, the thing that has happened. That is some­
thing that one must think about in relation to the theater and it is a very inter­
esting thing. Then in a case like that where you are all strangers in an exciting
scene what happens as far as hearing and seeing is concerned. When in an
exciting scene where you are all strangers you to yourself and you to them and
they to you and they to each other and where no one of all of them including
yourself have any consciousness of knowing each other do you have the
disadvantage of not knowing the difference between hearing and seeing and
is that a disadvantage from the standpoint of remembering. From that stand­
point the standpoint of remembering it is a serious disadvantage.
 But we may say that that exciting experience of exciting scenes where you
have really no acquaintance with the other actors as well as none with
yourself in an exciting action are comparatively rare and are not the normal
material of excitement as it is exciting in the average person's experience.
As I say in the kind of excitement where you have had no normal intro­
duction to the actors of the scene the action and the emotion is so violent
that sight sound and emotion is so little realized that it cannot be remem­
bered and therefore in a kind of a way it has really nothing to do with
anything because really it is more exciting action than exciting emotion or
excitement. I think I can say that these are not the same thing. Have they
anything to do with the way the theater gets you to know or not to know what
the people on the stage are. Perhaps yes and perhaps no.
In ordinary life one has known pretty well the people with whom one is
having the exciting scene before the exciting scene takes place and one of
the most exciting elements in the excitement be it love or a quarrel or a
struggle is that, that having been well known that is familiarly known, they all
act in acting violently act in the same way as they always did of course only «|
the same way has become so completely different that from the standpoint of </>
familiar acquaintance there is none there is complete familiarity but there is t
no proportion that has hitherto been known, and it is this which makes the ^
scene the real scene exciting, and it is this that leads to completion, the §
proportion achieves in your emotion the new proportion therefore it is com­
pletion but not relief. A new proportion cannot be a relief.
Now how does one naturally get acquainted in real life which makes one
have a familiarity with some one. By a prolonged familiarity of course.
And how does one achieve this familiarity with the people in a book or
the people on the stage. Or does one.
In real life the familiarity is of course the result of accident, intention or
natural causes but in any case there is a progressive familiarity that makes
one acquainted.
Now in a book there is an attempt to do the same thing that is, to say, to
do a double thing, to make the people in the book familiar with each other
and to make the reader familiar with them. That is the reason in a book it is
always a strange doubling, the familiarity between the characters in the book
is a progressive familiarity and the familiarity between them and the reader is
a familiarity that is a forcing process or an incubation. It makes of course a
double time and later at another time we will go into that.
But now how about the theater.
It is not possible in the theater to produce familiarity which is of the
essence of acquaintance because, in the first place when the actors are there
they are there and they are there right away.
When one reads a play and very often one does read a play, anyway one
did read Shakespeare's plays a great deal at least I did, it was always necessary
to keep one's finger in the list of characters for at least the whole first act, and
in a way it is necessary to do the same when the play is played. One has one's
 program for that and beside one has to become or has become acquainted
with the actors as an actor and one has one's program too for that. And so the
introduction to the characters on the stage has a great many different sides to
it. And this has again a great deal to do with the nervousness of the theater
excitement.
Anybody who was as I was, brought up and at the time that I was brought
up was brought up in Oakland and in San Francisco inevitably went to the
theater a lot. Actors in those days liked to go out to the coast and as it was
expensive to get back and not expensive to stay there they stayed. Besides that
there were a great many foreign actors who came and having come stayed
and any actor who stays acts and so there was always a great deal to see on the
stage and children went, they went with each other and they went alone, and
they went with people who were older, and there was twenty-five cent opera
to which anybody went and the theater was natural and anybody went to the
theater. I did go a great deal in those days. I also read plays a great deal. I
z rather liked reading plays, I very much liked reading plays. In the first place
Hi there was in reading plays as I have said the necessity of going forward and
</> back to the list of characters to find out which was which and then insensibly
♦ to know. Then there was the poetry and then gradually there were the
QQ portraits.
!§ I can remember quite definitely in the reading of plays that there were
very decidedly these three things, the way of getting acquainted that was not
an imitation of what one usually did, but the having to remember which
character was which. That was very different from real life or from a book.
Then there was the element of poetry. Poetry connected with a play was
livelier poetry than poetry unconnected with a play. In the first place there
were a great many bits that were short and sometimes it was only a line.
I remember Henry VI which I read and reread and which of course I
have never seen played but which I liked to read because there were so many
characters and there were so many little bits in it that were lively words. In
the poetry of plays words are more lively words than in any other kind of
poetry and if one naturally liked lively words and I naturally did one likes to
read plays in poetry. I always as a child read all the plays I could get hold of
that were in poetry. Plays in prose do not read so well. The words in prose are
livelier when they are not a play. I am not saying anything about why, it is just
a fact.
So then for me there was the reading of plays which was one thing and
then there was the seeing of plays and of operas a great many of them which
was another thing.
Later on so very much later on there was for me the writing of plays
which was one thing and there was at that time no longer any seeing of plays.
I practically when I wrote my first play had completely ceased going to the
theater. In fact although I have written a great many plays and I am quite
sure they are plays I have since I commenced writing these plays I have
practically never been inside of any kind of a theater. Of course none of this
has been intentional, one may say generally speaking that anything that is
really inevitable, that is to say necessary is not intentional.
But to go back to the plays I did see, and then to go on to the plays I did
write.
It was then a natural thing in the Oakland and San Francisco in which I
was brought up to see a great many plays played. Beside there was a great
deal of opera played and so all of it was natural enough and how did I feel
about it.
Generally speaking all the early recollections all a child's feeling of the
theater is two things. One which is in a way like a circus that is the general
movement and light and air which any theatre has, and a great deal of glitter
in the light and a great deal of height in the air, and then there are moments,
a very very few moments but still moments. One must be pretty far advanced
in adolescence before one realizes a whole play.
Up to the time of adolescence when one does really live in a whole play
up to that time the theater consists of bright filled space and usually not more •£
than one moment in a play. c/5
I think this is fairly everybody's experience and it was completely mine. t
Uncle Tom's Cabin may not have been my first play but it was very nearly ^
my first play. I think my first play really was Pinafore in London but the !§
theater there was so huge that I do not remember at all seeing a stage I only
remember that it felt like a theater that is the theater did. I doubt if I did see
the stage.
In Uncle Tom's Cabin I remember only the escape across the ice, I
imagine because the blocks of ice moving up and down naturally would
catch my eye more than the people on the stage would.
The next thing was the opera the twenty-five cent opera of San Francisco
and the fight in Faust. But that I imagine was largely because my brother had
told me about the fight in Faust. As a matter of fact I gradually saw more of
the opera because I saw it quite frequently. Then there was Buffalo Bill and
the Indian attack, well of course anybody raised where everybody collected
arrow heads and played Indians would notice Indians. And then there was
Lohengrin, and there all that I saw was the swan being changed into a boy,
our insisting on seeing that made my father with us lose the last boat home to
Oakland, but my brother and I did not mind, naturally not as it was the
moment.
In spite of my having seen operas quite often the first thing that I remem­
ber as sound on the stage was the playing by some English actor of Richelieu
at the Oakland theater and his repeated calling out, Nemours Nemours.
That is the first thing that I remember hearing with my ears at the theater
and as I say nothing is more interesting to know about the theater than the
relation of sight and sound. It is always the most interesting thing about
anything to know whether you hear or you see. And how one has to do with
 the other. It is one of the important things in finding out how you know what
you know.
Then I enormously remember Booth playing Hamlet but there again the
only thing I noticed and it is rather a strange thing to have noticed is his lying
at the Queen's feet during the play. One would suppose that a child would
notice other things in the play than that but that is what I remember and I
noticed him there more than I did the play he saw, although I knew that
there was a play going on there, that is the little play. It was in this way that I
first felt two things going on at one time. That is something that one has to
come to feel.
Then the next thing I knew was adolescence and going to the theater all
the time, a great deal alone, and all of it making an outside inside existence
for me, not so real as books, which were all inside me, but so real that it the
theater made me real outside of me which up to that time I never had been
in my emotion. I had largely been so in an active daily life but not in any
z emotion.
UJ T h e n gradually there came the beginning of really realizing the great
</> difficulty of having my emotion accompany the scene and then moreover I
t became fairly consciously troubled by the things over which one stumbles
0 over which one stumbled to such an extent that the time of one's emotion in
§ relation to the scene was always interrupted. The things over which one
stumbled and there it was a matter both of seeing and of hearing were
clothes, voices, what they the actors said, how they were dressed and how
that related itself to their moving around. Then the bother of never being
able to begin over again because before it had commenced it was over, and
at no time had you been ready, either to commence or to be over. Then I
began to vaguely wonder whether I could see and hear at the same time and
which helped or interfered with the other and which helped or interfered
with the thing on the stage having been over before it really commenced.
Could I see and hear and feel at the same time and did I.
I began to be a good deal troubled by all these things, the more emotion I
felt while at the theater the more troubled I became by all these things.
And then I was relieved.
As I said San Francisco was a wonderful place to hear and see foreign
actors as at that time they liked it when they got there and they stayed and
they played.
I must have been about sixteen years old and Bernhardt came to San
Francisco and stayed two months. I knew a little French of course but really
it did not matter, it was all so foreign and her voice being so varied and it all
being so French I could rest in it untroubled. And I did.
It was better than the opera because it went on. It was better than the
theater because you did not have to get acquainted. The manners and
customs of the french theater created a thing in itself and it existed in and for
itself as the poetical plays had that I used so much to read, there were so
many characters just as there were in those plays and you did not have to
know them they were so foreign, and the foreign scenery and actuality
replaced the poetry and the voices replaced the portraits. It was for me a very
simple direct and moving pleasure.
This experience curiously enough and yet perhaps it was not so curious
awakened in me a desire for melodrama on the stage, because there again
everything happened so quietly one did not have to get acquainted and as
what the people felt was of no importance one did not have to realize what
was said.
This pleasure in melodrama and in those days there was always one
theater in a theatrically inclined town that played melodrama, this pleasure
in melodrama culminated for me in the Civil War dramas of that period and
the best of them was of course Secret Service. Gillette had conceived a new
technique, silence stillness and quick movement. Of course it had been
done in the melodrama already by the villains particularly in such plays as
the Queen of Chinatown and those that had to do with telegraph operators.
But Gillette had not only done it but he had conceived it and it made the
whole stage the whole play this technique silence stillness and quick move­
ment. One was no longer bothered by the theater, you had to get acquainted
of course but that was quickly over and after that nothing bothered. In fact
Gillette created what the cinema later repeated by mixing up the short story
and the stage but there is yet the trouble with the cinema that it is after all a
photograph, and a photograph continues to be a photograph and yet can it
become something else. Perhaps it can but that is a whole other question. If
it can then some one will have to feel that about it. But to go on.
From then on I was less and less interested in the theater.
I became more interested in opera, I went one went and the whole
business almost came together and then finally, just finally, I came not to
care at all for music and so having concluded that music was made for
adolescents and not for adults and having just left adolescence behind me
and besides I knew all the operas anyway by that time I did not care any more
for opera.
Then I came to Paris to live and there for a long time I did not go to the
theater at all. I forgot the theater, I never thought about the theater. I did
sometimes think about the opera. I went to the opera once in Venice and I
liked it and then much later Strauss's Electra made me realize that in a kind
of a way there could be a solution of the problem of conversation on the
stage. Beside it was a new opera and it is quite exciting to hear something
unknown really unknown.
But as I say I settled down to Paris life and I forgot the theater and almost
forgot opera. There was of course Isadora Duncan and then the Russian
ballet and in between Spain and the Argentine and bullfights and I began
once more to feel something about something going on at a theater.
And then I went back, not in my reading but in my feeling to the reading
 of plays in my childhood, the lots of characters, the poetry and the portraits
and the scenery which was always of course and ought always to be of course
woods that is forests and trees and streets and windows.
And so one day all of a sudden I began to write Plays.
I remember very well the first one I wrote. I called it "What Happened, a
Play," it is in Geography and Plays as are all the plays I wrote at that time. I
think and always have thought that if you write a play you ought to announce
that it is a play and that is what I did. What Happened. A Play.
I had just come home from a pleasant dinner party and I realized then as
anybody can know that something is always happening.
Something is always happening, anybody knows a quantity of stories of
people's lives that are always happening, there are always plenty for the
newspapers and there are always plenty in private life. Everybody knows so
many stories and what is the use of telling another story. What is the use of
telling a story since there are so many and everybody knows so many and tells
z so many. In the country it is perfectly extraordinary how many complicated
ui dramas go on all the time. And everybody knows them, so why tell another
w one. There is always a story going on.
t So naturally what I wanted to do in my play was what everybody did not
^ always know nor always tell. By everybody I do of course include myself by
5$ always I do of course include myself.
And so I wrote What Happened, A Play.
Then I wrote Ladies Voices and then I wrote a Curtain Raiser. I did this
last because I wanted still more to tell what could be told if one did not tell
anything.
Perhaps I will read some of these to you later.
Then I went to Spain and there I wrote a lot of plays. I concluded that
anything that was not a story could be a play and I even made plays in letters
and advertisements.
I had before I began writing plays written many portraits. I had been
enormously interested all my life in finding out what made each one that
one and so I had written a great many portraits.
I came to think that since each one is that one and that there are a
number of them each one being that one, the only way to express this thing
each one being that one and there being a number of them knowing each
other was in a play. And so I began to write these plays. And the idea in
"What Happened, a Play" was to express this without telling what happened,
in short to make a play the essence of what happened. I tried to do this with
the first series of plays that I wrote.

I have of course always been struggling with this thing, to say what you
nor I nor nobody knows, but what is really what you and I and everybody
knows, and as I say everybody hears stories but the thing that makes each one
what he is is not that. Everybody hears stories and knows stories. How can
they not because that is what anybody does and what everybody tells. But in
my portraits I had tried to tell what each one is without telling stories and
now in my early plays I tried to tell what happened without telling stories so
that the essence of what happened would be like the essence of the portraits,
what made what happened be what it was. And then I had for the moment
gone as far as I could then go in plays and I went back to poetry and portraits
and description.
Then I began to spend my summers in Bilignin in the department of the
Ain and there I lived in a landscape that made itself its own landscape. I
slowly came to feel that since the landscape was the thing, I had tried to write
it down in Lucy Church, Amiably and I did but I wanted it even more really,
in short I found that since the landscape was the thing, a play was a thing and
I went on writing plays a great many plays. The landscape at Bilignin so
completely made a play that I wrote quantities of plays.
I felt that if a play was exactly like a landscape then there would be no
difficulty about the emotion of the person looking on at the play being
behind or ahead of the play because the landscape does not have to make •§
acquaintance. You may have to make acquaintance with it, but it does not «J5
with you, it is there and so the play being written the relation between you at t
any time is so exactly that that it is of no importance unless you look at it. ^
Well I did look at it and the result is in all the plays that I have printed as 5$
Operas and Plays.

The landscape has its formation and as after all a play has to have forma­
tion and be in relation one thing to the other thing and as the story is not the
thing as anyone is always telling something then the landscape not moving
but being always in relation, the trees to the hills the hills to the fields the
trees to each other any piece of it to any sky and then any detail to any other
detail, the story is only of importance if you like to tell or like to hear a story
but the relation is there anyway. And of that relation I wanted to make a play
and I did, a great number of plays.

The only one of course that has been played is Four Saints. In Four Saints
I made the saints the landscape. All the saints that I made and I made a
number of them because after all a great many pieces of things are in a
landscape all these saints together made my landscape. These attendant
saints were the landscape and it the play really is a landscape.
A landscape does not move nothing really moves in a landscape but
things are there, and I put into the play the things that were there.
Magpies are in the landscape that is they are in the sky of a landscape,
they are black and white and they are in the sky of the landscape in Bilignin
and in Spain, especially in Avila. When they are in the sky they do something
that I have never seen any other bird do they hold themselves up and down
and look flat against the sky.
 A very famous French inventor of things that have to do with stabilization
in aviation told me that what I told him magpies did could not be done by
any bird but anyway whether the magpies at Avila do do it or do not at least
they look as if they do do it. They look exactly like the birds in the Annuncia­
tion pictures the bird which is the Holy Ghost and rests flat against the side
sky very high.
There were magpies in my landscape and there were scarecrows.
The scarecrows on the ground are the same thing as the magpies in the
sky, they are a part of the landscape.
They the magpies may tell their story if they and you like or even if I like
but stories are only stories but that they stay in the air is not a story but a
landscape. That scarecrows stay on the ground is the same thing it could be a
story but it is a piece of the landscape.
Then as I said streets and windows are also landscape and they added to
my Spanish landscape.
2 While I was writing the Four Saints I wanted one always does want the
ui saints to be actually saints before them as well as inside them, I had to see
<o them as well as feel them. As it happened there is on the Boulevard Raspail a
t place where they make photographs that have always held my attention.
^ They take a photograph of a young girl dressed in the costume of her ordi-
^ nary life and little by little in successive photographs they change it into a
nun. These photographs are small and the thing takes four or five changes
but at the end it is a nun and this is done for the family when the nun is dead
and in memoriam. For years I had stood and looked at these when I was
walking and finally when I was writing Saint Therese in looking at these
photographs I saw how Saint Therese existed from the life of an ordinary
young lady to that of the nun. And so everything was actual and I went on
writing.
Then in another window this time on the rue de Rennes there was a
rather large porcelain group and it was of a young soldier giving alms to a
beggar and taking off his helmet and his armor and leaving them in the
charge of another.
It was somehow just what the young Saint Ignatius did and anyway it
looked like him as I had known about him and so he too became actual not
as actual as Saint Therese in the photographs but still actual and so the Four
Saints got written.
All these things might have been a story but as a landscape they were just
there and a play is just there. That is at least the way I feel about it.
Anyway I did write Four Saints an Opera to be Sung and I think it did
almost what I wanted, it made a landscape and the movement in it was like a
movement in and out with which anybody looking on can keep in time. I
also wanted it to have the movement of nuns very busy and in continuous
movement but placid as a landscape has to be because after all the life in a
convent is the life of a landscape, it may look excited a landscape does
sometimes look excited but its quality is that a landscape if it ever did go away
would have to go away to stay.
Anyway the play as I see it is exciting and it moves but it also stays and that
is as I said in the beginning might be what a play should do.
Anyway I am pleased. People write me that they are having a good time
while the opera is going on a thing which they say does not very often
happen to them at the theater.
So you do see what I have after all meant.
And so this is just at present all I know about the theater.
c

The Theater of the Absurd

Qi

a rthur Adamov, playwright and translator, was born on

August 23, 1908, in Baku, Azerbaijan, the son of wealthy Ar­
menian parents. Following the Russian Revolution, his family
moved to Geneva, Mainz, and eventually Paris, where he settled in
1924. In the 1930s, he was associated with the French Surrealists,
including Cocteau and Artaud, and his first writings were Surrealist
poems. Adamov did not begin to write plays until he was almost forty
years old. His first play, The Parody (1947), depicts the futility of human­
kind's search for meaning in life. His next seven plays, produced at small
experimental theaters in Paris, display the influence of Strindberg's
dream plays (particularly evident in The Invasion [1950]) and of German Expres­
sionism, and they are some of the earliest examples of the Theater of the
Absurd. Following Artaud's lead, he developed a theory of "literality" in the
theater, where the physical literality of the stage event could express the inter-
penetration of the conscious and the unconscious.
In the mid-1950s Adamov began to write more overtly and topically political
plays that exhibit a strong Brechtian influence, such as Paoli Paoli (1957).
Throughout the fifties and sixties, he translated and adapted plays by Gorky,
Chekhov, Gogol, Strindberg, Buchner, and Kleist. Although his work has rarely
been professionally produced in America, he remains popular in France. Adamov
never had a major public success to match that of lonesco or Beckett, but he is
still admired, especially in the theatrical profession, as an experimental writer
who never tired of seeking new directions. He died in Paris on March 15, 1970,
of an overdose of barbiturates.
Deciphering the Indecipherable
[.'invasion (The Invasion)
r^^m ^ p ^ damov's second play, Uinvasion (The Invasion), was written in
Uw^ ^ J 1948-1949 and published along with his first play The Parody
in0» % ^ / (written between 1945 and 1947), in 1950. It was Jean Vilar
who recommended to the young author that he use the publication of
0 8 ^ the two works as a means of making a reputation for himself. The
strategy worked and Adamov's name began to be known in literary circles.
Through the patronage of wealthy benefactors, two of his plays were presented
at the same time in Paris: directed by Vilar, The Invasion was performed at the
Studio des Champs-Elysees on November 14, 1950, three days after the presen­
tation of La grande et la petite manoeuvre, [Adamov's] third work.
With his second play, Adamov made a decided attempt to create characters
who were more human and less schematic. The inspiration for the play may have
come from a number of sources. The basic subject, that of a man trying to
decipher the manuscript of a friend who has died, could very well have come
from the death of Adamov's close acquaintance, Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. Ac­
cording to Roger Blin, Adamov had tried to gather together Gilbert-Lecomte's
papers after his death but had found the task perplexing and, eventually, impossi­
ble.1 It is also significant that Adamov was writing this play at the time of the
death of Antonin Artaud, and this, too, may have provided some of the inspira­
tion. Or, as Genevieve Serreau suggests, Adamov may have thought of the case of
Max Brod, who took charge of the writings of Kafka after he died.2
In this second work, the playwright is still pursuing the themes of The Par-
ody, stressing again the lack of communication between people in this alien
world, pointing out that the quest for meaning in life is hopeless and that any
search for a sense of direction is a waste of time. Just as The Parody shows that
all paths lead to failure, The Invasion takes up a variation on the theme, demon­
strating that any specific effort by man to understand his existence ends as an
absurd act. This second play, richer and more human than the first work, is, as a
result, more accessible also. Whereas The Parody is an abstract, almost lifeless
presentation of an idea, The Invasion is a more direct, more immediate expres­
sion of the playwright's feelings. In an obvious self-criticism, Adamov emphasizes
the destructiveness of man's obsessions, which take hold of his life and make him
useless. And the author individualizes the play more by limiting his subject to
the family circle and underlining the plight of the writer who is rendered cre­
atively and psychologically impotent by the "invasion" into his life of relatives
and friends.
In The Invasion, Adamov follows a more traditional dramatic technique. The
plot has a sense of progression and the characters are more substantial, although

Excerpted from John H. Reilly, "Deciphering the Indecipherable: Uinvasion (The Invasion)" in
Arthur Adamov (New York: Twayne, 1974), 44-50.
1. Rene Gaudy, Arthur Adamov (Paris: Theatre Ouvert, 1971), 32.
2. Genevieve Serreau, Histoire du "nouveau theatre" (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), 71.
the dramatist makes no attempt to give them the solidity which they might
possess in psychologically motivated drama. The action centers on the members
of a family and the disruption in their lives caused by the manuscript of a writer,
Jean, who has recently died. Jean has left his papers to Pierre, the husband of his
sister, Agnes. It is Pierre's responsibility to decipher the manuscript, but the task
proves impossible: much of the writing is illegible or has simply faded with the
passage of time. In addition, Tradel, Pierre's friend, who is also working on the
project, does not mind inventing whatever he cannot understand, leaving the real
interpretation more hopelessly jumbled than ever. While Pierre is entangled in
this insurmountable project, his personal life has become a nightmare because of
the never-ending "invasion" by others. His household is a series of disorders,
seemingly caused by his wife who is in constant conflict with his mother.
In the midst of all this, a man appears, looking for someone in the apartment
next door. This man, identified only as "the first one who comes along," stays in
the room, invading Pierre's privacy even more. In an attempt to work in quiet,
Pierre retreats first to a cafe, then to a room in the back of the house. At this
point, Agnes leaves her husband, setting out with "the first one who comes
along." With the departure, order has been reestablished and the mother has
become the dominant figure. However, Pierre has now decided to abandon his
work. In an effort to show the complete futility of all that he has been doing, he
tears up the manuscript and returns to his room, once again withdrawing from
society. As he does so, Agnes reappears, asking to borrow his typewriter in
addition to mentioning that her life with her lover has not worked out well, for
he has fallen sick and she cannot manage his business. The mother refuses to
allow Agnes to take the typewriter and she leaves. Tradel, in search of Pierre,
finds him dead in his room, a suicide.
Like Lili, who acted as the axis in The Parody, the dead writer's manuscript
remains the center around which the characters of The Invasion revolve. In
essence, the manuscript is the image of the tragic situation of man, a symbol of
what Richard Sherrell calls "the indiscernible meaning which invades life at its
core."3 Jean's papers represent the vain, disheartening quest for meaning in life.
Pierre cannot determine what the man wrote, for the handwriting is unclear, and
even if a sentence can be deciphered, it must be placed in the total context of the
complete disorder of the papers. There is even the strong suggestion that if
Pierre were to make some sense of the manuscript, the final answer might be
absurd or meaningless.
In addition, these papers have become an invasion of Pierre's own life. In his
determination to understand their meaning, he is spending his time on what has
become an unreasonable project, an obsession. Adamov implies that the work is
not meant to be deciphered and, more significantly, Pierre does not even plan to
publish his results if he were able to complete the task. Thus, the playwright
expresses the total futility of an exaggerated devotion to an idea which harms
the individual involved and which is of no benefit to others. The idea of being
obsessed with something to the point of not functioning adequately as a human

3. Richard E. Sherrell, "Arthur Adamov and Invaded Man " Modern Drama 7.4 (1965): 402.
 being (a topic most pertinent to Adamov's own life) would be repeated by the
dramatist in later plays, notably in Le ping-pong. At one moment, Pierre himself
refers to this when he indicates his wish to lead a normal human existence again.
Adamov thus seems to be pointing out that this quest for meaning (i.e., the
obsession to decipher the manuscript) becomes a means of escape rather than a
way of living one's life. It is a flight from reality, an attempt to cover up the
Q difficulties of existence.
3 The playwright also suggests that the manuscript's invasion of Pierre's life is
a reciprocated in turn by Pierre's own violation of Jean's past existence through his
^ persistence in understanding the words of the dead writer. Jean wanted to
I destroy his own manuscript because it reminded him of what he had suffered.
£ And it is in this context that we can understand Pierre's comment at the end of
O The Invasion, while tearing up the manuscript: "Pardon me for not having under-
u stood you earlier" (Theatre, vol. 1, 93). It is also possible to interpret the sen-
Jj tence as an indication of Pierre's realization of the message which Jean might have
!J! wished to convey: the meaninglessness of everything, including the manuscript.
I- Pierre's work on the manuscript has been a series of frustrations and defeats,
X even more so because his life has been invaded on all levels, for all reasons: by his
*~ wife, who brings disorder; by his mother, who struggles with the wife for domi-
* nation; by Tradel, who only adds imprecision to the difficult task of deciphering
o the manuscript; by the relatives of the dead man, who are suing over the use of
^ the papers; by "the first one who comes along," who takes Agnes away. The
audience is meant to see, in a concrete, physical manner, this intrusion into
Pierre's personal world and the disorder that it has created. Following Artaud's
concept of filling up space and Adamov's own desire to express verbal concepts
through visual means, the playwright has indicated that the first sight the au­
dience will see on stage is the complete untidiness and disarray of items, the
visual aspect expressing the disorder in the situation and in the mind of Pierre.
This confusion is then reflected in the use of language, which itself becomes
more and more incomprehensible, seemingly disintegrating before Pierre's eyes,
as he is unable to make any sense of what he is doing: "Why does one say, 'It
happens'? Who is this 4it,' what does it want of me? Why does one say 'on' the
ground, rather than 'at' or 'over'? I have lost too much time thinking about these
things" (Theatre, vol. 1, 86).
Yet, in this quest for normalcy, it is clear that order is not going to bring
Pierre the peace of mind which he needs. With order comes the visible control
of his mother, a control suggested on stage by her "voluminous" armchair, which
becomes, little by little, the dominant, all-enveloping piece of furniture. Once the
mother has rid the family of Agnes, the social fabric of the country has also rid
itself of all of the "immigrants" who are crossing the border, an ironical twist
which Adamov must have inserted while thinking of his own days as an immigrant
and meditating on the narrow-mindedness of those people who are afraid of
others who are different. And with order comes a sense of sterility and hope­
lessness, perhaps even more agonizing than that associated with disorder. Now
that Agnes no longer has any use for him, and now that he discovers that the
manuscript can no longer be used as a basis for deciphering some sort of sense
in life, existence holds not even a minimal sort of meaning, and his only response
is suicide.
In this respect The Invasion reflects Adamov's ambivalence about his own life.
While seeking a rational, stable, day-by-day life, the writer also recognized that
the very elements which might cause the disorder and seemingly stifle creativity
were those which were also most needed for an artist's development. To a great
extent, Pierre needs Agnes in spite of the chaos which she may bring with her,
because she also represents the very difficult, but necessary, world of human
relationships. To attempt to be free of her, to rid oneself of human contact,
particularly with a woman, is to deform the nature of the real world, in a sense to
reenter the mother's womb. Such a situation is a flight from maturity, and for
Pierre, like Adamov himself, this can only be a frightening experience. Indeed,
much of the power of The Invasion comes from the combination of fear and
frustration, adding up to despair, that Adamov created in Pierre—a despair that
reflected the playwright's own tortured response to life.

Works Cited
Adamov, Arthur, [.'invasion. In Adamov's Theatre, vol. I. Paris: Gallimard, 1953. All transla­
tions from the French in this excerpt are by the author, John H. Reilly.

Select Bibliography on Adamov

Cismaru, Alfred. "The Plays of Arthur Adamov." Serif: Quarterly of Kent State University 5.1
(1968): 11-16.
McCannJohn J. The Theater ofArthur Adamov. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina,
Department of Romance Languages, 1975.
Sherrell, Richard E. "Arthur Adamov and Invaded Man." Modern Drama 7.4 (1965): 399-
404.

See also Bradby; Cohn; Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd; Gaensbauer; Guichamaud; and
Pronko, in the General Bibliography.
 T h e Invasion
A Play in Four Acts

Arthur Adaznov

CAST
(in order of appearance)

PIERRE
AGNES
THE MOTHER
THE WOMAN FRIEND
TRADEL
THE FIRST CALLER
MADAME TRADEL
THE CHILD

ACT I
Total darkness
MAN'S VOICE: Agnes, I'm speaking to you. Do you hear me?
WOMAN'S VOICE (sleepily): Yes, what is it?
MAN'S VOICE: I can't find them. Where did you put them now? You promised
me you wouldn't touch them again.
(The scene grows gradually lighter. In the shadows PiERRE—tall, thin, and
nervous—can he seen pacing back and forth in the center of a room which is in
complete disorder.
Reprinted from Modem International Drama, 2, no. 1 (September 1968), 59-75. Trans.
Robert J. Doan.
 Sheets of paper are laid out like card hands in two different places on the
floor.
A lamp hangs from the ceiling by a complicated system of pulleys.
In the left foreground, AGNES is lying on a couch. At the head of the couch,
two chairs, with their backs against the end of the couch. Nearby, a night table
covered with papers.
At right, and slightly forward, facing left at an angle, a huge armchair
upholstered in velvet: THE MOTHER'S chair.
Upstage, left, a window. Near the window, a table, on which is a typewriter
and more papers. Upstage, right, a chest of drawers also covered with papers,
and an overloaded coat rack.
Along almost all the walls are bookshelves which contain some books, but
mostly just more piles of paper.
Here and there, chairs, almost all of which are covered with papers, laun-
dry, or clothes. §
Three doors: at the right, left and center of the stage.) g
AGNES: You musfve left them at the foot of the bed. Have you looked there? "j
PIERRE (bending down): I can't see anything. h-
AGNES (raising herself on one elbow): Then open the curtains, (PIERRE goes to i
the window and tries awkwardly to open the curtains.) They're caught in £2
the window. Pull them from the top. You're tall enough to reach them.
(PIERRE tries again, without success.) Wait a minute, I'm coming.
(AGNES throws off the covers, gets up and puts on a housecoat. She is a graceful
young woman, somewhat sickly looking. She takes a chair, drags it to the
window, climbs up and opens the curtains. The room is filled with a morning
light which grows brighter as the scene progresses.
AGNES sits down on the couch, PIERRE stops before one of the piles of paper
arranged on the floor and kneels down to examine it.)
PIERRE: They're not here. I didn't put them on the floor. (He gets up.) You
know, it was on the letterhead from that hotel where you two lived. I
don't remember its name. (Goes to the chest of drawers and looks through
the papers there.)
AGNES (getting up, in an almost joyous tone of voice): Yes, one day, you were
looking for a room, but there weren't any more. Then we walked as far as
the boulevard, but the wind began to blow so strongly that we weren't
able to go any farther, (Laughing) and we stayed there.
PIERRE (taking some papers from the night table): You've messed everything
up again. When will you learn that I can't afford to lose any time, not even
a minute? (AGNESgoes to the typewriter and begins to type slowly, jerkily.)
I've spent the whole night trying to find those penciled notes. (Pause.) It
would've been better if I hadn't put them in chronological order, perhaps.
But if I hadn't started with the more faded sections, I wouldn't be able to
read them at all now. Who knows if the writing would not have disap­
peared completely? If I could only find the missing word in this passage!
 AGNES: You've been working too hard. You can hardly see straight.
PIERRE: I wouldn't be this tired if you were more helpful. (Sits on the couch
and begins to work, placing the papers on the night table.)
AGNES: Why did you take those papers from me? You know very well that I
find all sorts of things when you're with me. Together we could have
worked it out. No one knew him as we did. After all, I was his sister, and
you were his best friend. (Pause.) Sometimes I misread a word, but I can
feel Jean's presence on every page. (Pause.) What hurts me the most is
those pages where the pencil breaks, or the lines slant. It's in those poor
pages that I see him best!
(THE MOTHER enters, a newspaper and an iron in her hand. She is a woman of
about fifty, strong and dominating. She goes straight to PIERRE and kisses
him.)
THE MOTHER: Well, working already? You could at least take time out
O to sleep. I'll bet you didn't even go to bed last night. (Going toward
J AGNES.) I brought you the iron. You can iron Pierre's shirts . . . after
Q you've laundered them. (To AGNES.) Agnes, see that Pierre doesn't tire
^ himself out so much. You know very well that his eyes aren't good.
♦ Working as he has been for the past two years, he'll go blind. (She goes to
^ her chair, sits down and unfolds the newspaper, AGNES types.) It's un-
^ believable! This business about immigration has been going on for
months, and they haven't come up with a solution yet. It's always the
same thing: no one is capable of reacting, of taking the initiative. (Pause.)
Naturally, the others take advantage of it; since there's no work down
there, why not come looking for it here?
AGNES: Who else would work under such conditions? They're paid less than
half of what the others get.
THE MOTHER: You just don't understand: the harm comes from their laziness
toward everything, no matter what.
PIERRE (getting up and going toward AGNES): I found it!
AGNES: What? The word you were looking for?
PIERRE: Better than that—I found the whole sentence! I had made up my
mind to get that word, and to do so, I tried to see the word that was
underneath, but that one was just as illegible. Then, suddenly, with
amazing clarity, I could read everything that was to the left and right of
the word, and the whole sentence finally came to me. (Pause.) If only
Tradel had had half my patience . . .
THE MOTHER: It was my idea to let him try it. But after seeing him at work, I
realized that it wasn't such a good idea after all.
PIERRE: He does it the easy way. When he comes to a word he can't read, he
makes one up. As long as he gets across an approximate meaning, he's
happy. I could never make him understand that he has no right to do
something like that. (He goes to pick up a notebook from the chest of
 drawers.) If he's satisfied with an approximate word, it's because an idea is
never clear enough to him. (Opening the notebook.) Look, for example,
here's a passage that he "thought" was disconnected: two sentence frag­
ments side by side. So, he simply added a "because." Oh, I know very
well how tempting it is, but it's dangerous. Who's to say that the so-called
carelessness, the oversights, the omissions and errors, aren't due to some
hidden intention, a scruple . . . Or even a fear? No one can say, of course.
And even if it is just drudgery!
THE MOTHER: You know very well that Tradel can't work alone. Remember,
even in high school he was lost when Jean or you weren't there to guide
him . . . and listen to what he had to say. (Pause.) After all, there's nothing
wrong with your being concerned about the personal value of his work.
AGNES: He's surely going to come! Just so he doesn't stay all day the way he
did yesterday! c

PIERRE: I wonder if it wasn't a mistake to give him one of the later notebooks? 'g
In a way, they're easier to read, but they've got to be completely rear- J
ranged. If only Jean had told us exactly what he was trying to d o . . . But we .£
didn't see much of him those last few months. (He goes back to his papers.)
THE MOTHER: I never understood why Agnes couldn't do a better job than ♦
you since she was always so close to her brother, (AGNES types faster.) £
PIERRE: I thought so! It should be "heavier," not "however." I would be more
patient if my time weren't so limited. (Pause.) I can't go on, I can hardly
see. Agnes, turn on the lights, will you? (AGNES gets up, turns on the
lights, and goes back to the typewriter. She pulls out the finished page, but
sees that she has put the carbon in backward. She becomes exasperated,
laboriously puts the papers in order, and puts them back into the machine.
THE WOMAN FRIEND enters, a briefcase under her arm. She is tall, dry,
affected, gossipy. She is wearing a flounced dress, and a plumed hat with a
raised veil. She goes casually toward THE MOTHER.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND (to THE MOTHER): I've just come from the meeting. All
our friends were asking for you. (Pause.) I knew I'd find you at Pierre's.
THE MOTHER: My, but you're clever!
THE WOMAN FRIEND: We decided to meet before noon, to write up the protest
I was telling you about. Now is the time to act, if we don't want the others
to get the best places. Once they do, we'll never be able to get them out.
THE MOTHER: I shouldn't think your protest will do any good.
PIERRE: If I could've made a mistake like that, I could've made others else­
where, everywhere!
THE WOMAN FRIEND (going toward PIERRE): Things not going too well today,
Pierre? (She waits vainly for an answer, takes a step toward AGNES, then
thinks better of it and goes to THE MOTHER.) I see that Agnes has adapted
very well to her new work.
 THE MOTHER: She had no choice, {AGNES types faster.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND: Mind if I sit down? I want to get this project under way.
{She sits down, takes a folder from her briefcase, places it on her lap, and
begins to write.)
AGNES {going toward PIERRE with a sheet of paper): This word has me
stumped. What did you mean here? You should try to write more care­
fully.
PIERRE: Listen. When I asked you not to work on the editing, it was because
it was beyond you. But now, all you have to do is type the pages IVe
already copied. You should be capable of doing that much by yourself. Of
course the pages that you're typing now aren't entirely to the point. If they
were, I wouldn't have anything to worry about. It isn't that hard to recopy
something intelligently! {Pause.) You know that I've got to have several
versions, so I can look at the manuscript more objectively. {Gets up and
O lowers the lamp, tying the string to a nail just above the night table. He
^ kneels down under the lamp and examines his papers.)
^ THE MOTHER: Tell me, Agnes, didn't your brother ever write to you?
♦ AGNES: No, we were never separated, really. When he left, I followed him.
^ THE WOMAN FRIEND: His death must've been a terrible blow to you.
^H THE MOTHER: It's a shame that you don't know his handwriting any better.
AGNES: He hated writing, {PIERRE looks up.) I know better than anyone.
{Pause.) There were times, toward the end, when even holding a pencil
was torture for him.
PIERRE {straightening up): He must've done some writing from time to time.
{Pointing to the papers strewn about the room.) Look at that!
THE MOTHER: Agnes can tell you how badly he wanted to destroy all his
writings.
AGNES {getting up): Exactly! He hated them. They reminded him too much
of what he had been through.
PIERRE {getting up and pacing the floor): In any case, he didn't destroy them,
that's for sure, {AGNES sits down again.) What's the use of talking about it?
{Stopping in front of AGNES.) YOU can well imagine that before beginning
this job, I faced up to what had to be done. I think that I've settled that
{Emphatically) once and for all. Of course, he often spoke of destroying
his papers. But only at times when everything seemed hopeless and futile
to him. If he hadn't felt that way from time to time, I wonder if he would
ever have written at all. As long as I'm here, these papers will be neither
destroyed nor published.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: Death presents such cruel dilemmas {THE WOMAN
FRIEND gets up, picks up her gloves, and takes a few steps while fixing her
hat PIERRE goes to the chest of drawers and looks over the papers that he
has been carrying in his hands, TRADEL enters. He is to some degree a
caricature of PIERRE, even in certain mannerisms. He speaks very fast and
 usually directly at the person to whom he is speaking. He is dressed rather
poorly, PIERRE continues to work, AGNES begins typing again, THE WOMAN
FRIEND looks at TRADEL, then comes back to where she was sitting. She
snickers, her eyes all the while following TRADEL.)
TRADEL: Well, it looks as if I was right after all. IVe seen this coming for a long
time. The family has decided to take us to court. TheyVe already begun
the proceedings.
PIERRE: There isn't a thing they can do to me.
TRADEL: But IVe seen their lawyer. He's the one who told me what was going
on. He's not at all sure that we're within our rights.
PIERRE: We'll have time to worry about that when we have more of the
details. Of course, right now, you haven't any.
TRADEL: All I know is that we're going to have to defend ourselves. What's
preventing them from coming to take the papers, today, tomorrow, any­
time at all . . . ? And once they have them, we'll never know what hap­
pened to them. How will we know that they haven't destroyed them . . . or
even sold them?
AGNES: They'd never sell them!
THE MOTHER: Agnes is right. What parents would sell their dead son's be­
longings?
THE WOMAN FRIEND: Let's not exaggerate things. They're not in the poor-
house yet.
TRADEL (to PIERRE): We've got to do something right now.
PIERRE (pacing): Well, it looks as if I've wasted another day. As if I could
afford to let myself be interrupted at every turn. (Pause.) I don't dare even
open the suitcases. There's so much still to be done, I can't say I've even
scratched the surface yet. (To AGNES.) YOU know, I found so many mis­
takes that I've decided to do it all over. Right from the beginning.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: Nothing holds so many surprises for us as work! (She
goes back to her work.)
PIERRE (getting ready to leave, to TRADEL): I'm going to see the lawyer. (He
looks once again at his papers.)
TRADEL (going toward Pierre): Did you find time to go over what I got done?
PIERRE: Just barely. Not enough to talk to you about it.
TRADEL: Please examine it very carefully. But first, there are some things I
have to explain to you. It's absolutely necessary . . . I'm sure that we will
agree on the essentials, (PIERREgoes to the door, TRADEL follows him.) I'll
come with you. We can talk on the way.
PIERRE: Please, I just want to be left alone. (He looks around again at his
papers.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND (getting up, to THE MOTHER): HOW about we get down to
business too?
 THE MOTHER: Yes, just a second. (To TRADEL.) Tradel, why don't we take
advantage of Pierre's absence to settle the question of these tablecloths?
(TRADEL helplessly watches PIERRE going out the door, then looks at THE
MOTHER.)
AGNES (to PIERRE): Don't be too late, (PIERREgoes out.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND: I've known Pierre for . . . twenty years, and he still
amazes me. (AGNES takes her work and leaves by the door at upstage
center, THE MOTHER gets up and goes to get the tablecloths folded on a
chair, THE WOMAN FRIEND is still standing, waiting, TRADEL, his arms
dangling, has not moved.)
THE MOTHER (giving the tablecloths to TRADEL): YOU can take them back. If
you don't find anyone who wants them, bring them back to me. It really
makes no difference, since this was all my idea anyway.
THE WOMAN FRIEND (going to TRADEL and feeling the tablecloths): How
>
6 delightful! Your wife sews very well. (She sits down near THE MOTHER.
< TRADEL puts the tablecloths down.)
Q THE MOTHER: You shouldn't have any trouble selling them. Besides, you'll
<
♦ have more time now, since your work here is finished. (Pause.) By the way,
* Pierre spoke to me about certain things that he wasn't very satisfied with.
5J TRADEL: What did he say?
THE MOTHER: Oh, nothing serious. Simply that he didn't agree with your
method of editing, (THE WOMAN FRIEND becomes more interested.) It's
nothing to worry about. (Pause.) You don't really understand him, but
you're not the only one. His ideas are so difficult, so deep .. .
TRADEL: But just what is it he doesn't like about my work?
THE MOTHER: He objects to your suppressing . . . or adding . . . or in­
venting . . . or something....
TRADEL: He can't understand that we'll never finish this if we don't re-create
what's missing, what we can't make out. How many times have I tried to
explain to him . . .
THE MOTHER: Re-create?
TRADEL: Well, no, not exactly re-create. But sometimes you come across
passages that are simply incomprehensible. I had no choice but to . . .
bridge the gap.
THE MOTHER: I would never have believed that there was so much in his
notes that wasn't clear.
TRADEL: To be sure, everything is perfectly clear to me. However, I'm not
working just for myself.
THE MOTHER: That's true. You're interested, above all, in publishing the
notes.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: If it's of any help, I know a publisher. Only, these notes
are very special, aren't they?
TRADEL: Until now I haven't given much thought to the idea of treating
Jean's notes as a whole. But to say either that or nothing at all... .
THE MOTHER: If you want to publish fragments of the notes, I advise you to
speak to Pierre.
TRADEL: That's exactly what I wanted to do today. But you saw how busy he
was. (Pause.) Besides, we have lots of time to think about that. . . .
Assuming that we're going to follow up on this idea. . . . (Pause.) What
matters most is what Pierre thinks of the work I've just finished.
THE MOTHER: I doubt if he'll want to talk to you about it. It hurts him . . . to
disagree with you, even over details.
TRADEL: Yes, my alleged mistakes. If only I knew where Pierre put my
notebook, I could show you, one by one, all the passages, you would
understand . . . .
THE MOTHER (pointing out the chair where TRADEL'S notebook is lying): It's |
over there. ( TRADEL looks, but does not see it.) On that chair. ( TRADEL goes g
quickly to the chair, picks up the notebook, and returns, examining the ^
book.) fS
THE WOMAN FRIEND (getting up, to THE MOTHER): Are you coming, Blanche? ♦
They're probably dying with impatience waiting for us. (She laughs, ^
checks her make-up, and goes to the door at right.) ^
THE MOTHER: Yes, I guess we can go now. (She gets up and prepares to go out.
THE WOMAN FRIEND waits at the door.)
TRADEL (his notebook in hand, he follows THE MOTHER as she prepares to
leave): I haven't betrayed the text... I didn't really add anything personal
to it . . . I might have modified it here and there, but it was nothing
arbitrary . . . I am guided by an infallible intuition . . . Besides, this
intuition can be verified on every page, with the most basic logic . . .
(Opening the notebook.) Here, for example, I read "apparent" and beside
it "illusory." I'm sure that between the two he meant to place a "there­
fore." If Jean had had the time to reread, he would never have left a hole
like that. . . . (THE MOTHER continues to ignore TRADEL. TRADEL stops
suddenly, notebook in hand, THE WOMAN FRIEND laughs and makes a sign
pointing out TRADEL to THE MOTHER, TRADEL is striding back and forth
across the stage, THE MOTHER laughs also. The two women get ready to
leave, AGNES enters by upstage-center door, in street clothes, her housecoat
over her arm.)
THE MOTHER (turning her head toward AGNES): It's too bad that the furniture
hasn't been delivered yet. Believe me, things would be much better if
you could be finally moved in. (THE WOMAN FRIEND laughs, AGNES
stands helplessly in the middle of the stage, TRADEL continues to pace, THE
WOMAN FRIEND bows ceremoniously before THE MOTHER, allowing her to
leave first)
Curtain
 ACT II
Same scene, but the room is now crowded with various pieces of furniture: one
or two small tables, a card table, several chairs. Somewhere, a cabinet. On all
the furniture, papers.
THE MOTHER'S armchair is still in the same place: downstage right
AGNES takes a few steps and looks around. She seems to be looking for
something.
THE MOTHER, sitting in her chair, is reading a newspaper, TRADEL, wearing
an overcoat, paces back and forth across the room. He will stop only long
enough to speak his lines, then resume his pacing.
THE MOTHER (without lifting her eyes from the newspaper): If you're looking
for the broom, it's behind you.
AGNES (taking the broom): I wouldVe never found it by myself. (She sweeps,
> sometimes the floor, then the walls, and even the ceiling.)
2 THE MOTHER (laying the paper on her knees): Of course, after stagnation
< comes panic. They shut their eyes for years to avoid facing reality. Now
< that the others are destroying everything in their paths, our leaders have
♦ finally woken up, and are talking about closing the frontiers. But that's
0 absurd, they're well aware that it can't be done.
^ TRADEL (going toward THE MOTHER): Pierre is extraordinary. Since he asked
me to come, he must need me again. Then why isn't he here? He makes
me wait on him every time!
THE MOTHER: We're all waiting for him. (Pause.) You see, Pierre is a little
disorganized right now. (Pause.) To tell you the truth, I don't know how
he can stand the responsibility of so much work all alone.
TRADEL: It's his own fault if he has to work by himself. He must've realized
that, since he asked me to go over it with him again. But this time I'm
going to make him do it my way.
THE MOTHER: The man who can get his way with Pierre hasn't been born yet.
(Pause.) Between the two of us, I doubt if he'll let you work at your place
this time. Things have changed in the last two years. (Pause.) Pierre has
never forgotten t h a t . . . fragment he found by chance in that newspaper.
It was you who published it, wasn't it? And without telling anyone... .
TRADEL: Pierre knew all along that I was planning to do it. It's useless to keep
bringing up the past all the time. The important thing is to get back to
work right away.
THE MOTHER: In any case, Agnes won't be of any more help. Before writing to
you, Pierre asked her to work again, and she refused.
AGNES (she stops sweeping): What could I do? Since I'm not even capable of
typing well enough for him!
TRADEL: Then, if I understand correctly, Pierre didn't call me until after
Agnes refused him.
THE MOTHER: Yes. (Pause.) I suppose he wants to try again with you. Try to do
a little better this time. I doubt if you'll get another chance after this.
(AGNES hits a rubber ball with her broom.) Well, well, a ball. Your little
boy must've dropped it here, Tradel. (To AGNES.) YOU don't sweep very
often, Agnes, (AGNES, annoyed, goes to the window and opens it
Sound of an elevator. The FIRST CALLER enters, dressed in a sports
jacket, with a briefcase in his hand. He gives the impression of being a man
of the world, a mixture of successful businessman and physical education
instructor.)
FIRST CALLER: Good day, ladies. Fm looking for Mr. Weisenhauer.
TRADEL: Fm afraid there's been a misunderstanding. There's no one here by
that name.
FIRST CALLER: You don't say!
THE MOTHER: Anyway, Mr. Weisenhauer is dead. g
FIRST CALLER: Are you sure? I was to see him about his apartment. (He has §
noticed AGNES, who is still at the window. He takes a step toward her.) -5
TRADEL (going toward THE MOTHER): YOU seem to know more about this than £
you're letting on. Please don't keep me in suspense . . . ♦
THE MOTHER (ignoring TRADEL, to the FIRST CALLER): You want to rent the ^
apartment across the hall? ^
FIRST CALLER (seriously): Is it big enough for me to put in a few desks?
THE MOTHER: Ah . . . you're the head of a large corporation?
FIRST CALLER (mysteriously): Possibly . . . But, tell me, Weisenhauer died
rather suddenly, didn't he? Wasn't he well taken care of?
AGNES (turning around): His wife let him die without taking care of him,
although he loved her very much. (The FIRST CALLER, very interested,
starts toward AGNES. He will not take his eyes off her until the end of the
act.)
THE MOTHER: Agnes, watch what you're saying. That was very inconsiderate.
(To the FIRST CALLER.) There was never any hope that he would live.
TRADEL (to THE MOTHER): Well then, what do you think his letter meant?
(Pointing to his pocket.) Fm not dreaming? He did write it, didn't he?
FIRST CALLER: I am interested in the apartment. But, tell me, do all the
rooms open onto the corridor?
TRADEL: Why don't you go over there and see?
THE MOTHER: There's no one there. (To the FIRST CALLER.) I just saw the
day nurse. She's the one who took over the apartment. She went out to
get a newspaper. (Pause.) I think it's raining; why don't you wait here?
(Pause.) Please sit down. (She points out a chair for him. He sits down,
then leans toward AGNES, who is still at the window, THE MOTHER smiles
indulgently.)
 TRADEL (to THE MOTHER): Well, did Pierre say anything to you, really? (The
FIRST CALLER gets up, goes behind the chair, and begins to rock it back and
forth.)
FIRST CALLER (to AGNES): You have a very beautiful view from here, (AGNES
suddenly closes the window and begins to pace the floor, obviously looking
for something. She finds the iron, and takes it to the table, but continues to
look around.
The FIRST CALLER watches AGNES. At every move she makes, he spins on
his heels.
TRADEL has taken some papers from the typewriter table, and is examin-
ing them, THE MOTHER is striking the arm of her chair, TRADEL, after a
moment's hesitation, puts down the papers and begins once again to pace
the floor nervously.
AGNES, who has not found what she was looking for, leaves by the door at
> upstage center. The FIRST CALLER, who had turned toward her, remains
Z with his back to the audience.)
Q THE MOTHER (she gets up and moves toward the FIRST CALLER): Well, isn't
* that the Croix de Guerre?
♦ FIRST CALLER (proudly): No, that is the Award for Civil Merit.
oo THE MOTHER: We need more men like you. (Pause.) What do you think is
going to happen? Are we finally going to do something definite?
FIRST CALLER: I hope SO.
TRADEL (stopping a second, angrily): You know as well as I do that nothing
will be done, (AGNES comes back, a pair of trousers over her arm. She plugs
in the iron, then kneels and begins to iron the trousers on the floor, down-
stage left.
The FIRST CALLER, turning on his heels to follow the slightest move-
ments of AGNES, takes a step toward her.
THE MOTHER goes back to sit down in her chair, TRADEL stops and
watches AGNES and the FIRST CALLER from across the room.)
FIRST CALLER (to AGNES): What? You mean you don't even have an ironing
board? That's no way to live! (Pause.) You weren't cut out for . . . such
gymnastics.
AGNES (ironing): I wonder what I was cut out for? (She starts, and acciden-
tally pulls out the plug. The FIRST CALLER goes to replace it, then returns to
his place, AGNES nods her thanks and continues ironing.)
FIRST CALLER (to AGNES): Why are you so sad? As pretty as you are . . . you
must have something on your mind. Tell me what!
AGNES (lifting her head): I never talk about myself.
FIRST CALLER: But why not? To me, a woman's secrets are always sacred.
(Pause.) Who has hurt you?
AGNES (ironing): The pain that someone else causes you matters no more
 than the pain you cause someone else. That's the trouble, no one can be
blamed for anything that happens. {Pause.) I have no right to complain
about Pierre.
FIRST CALLER: Pierre?
AGNES {looking up again): That's my husband. I don't like to talk about him.
FIRST CALLER: W h y not?
AGNES {looking up): Because no one has a right to judge him, least of all me.
FIRST CALLER: Ah! He's really that unusual, is he? I get the impression that
you're the one who is different. {He laughs.)
AGNES: I'm no different from anyone else.
TRADEL {going toward THE MOTHER, in a low voice): She's talking about
Pierre to the First Caller.
THE MOTHER: See here, Tradel, we can speak of Pierre to anyone we wish. c
What's it got to do with him? {Sound of an elevator. Pause, PIERRE enters 5
feverishly. He goes over to kiss THE MOTHER, then AGNES, still on her knees, £
who turns away from him. jj
The FIRST CALLER, frightened, moves away upstage left, where he finds *""
the ball. He takes it between his feet and dribbles it a bit, almost without }
moving. From his position, he watches everyone.) go
PIERRE {to TRADEL, coldly): It was nice of you to come, {TRADEL notices the "*
tone of voice.) I'm sorry, but I can't be familiar with anyone any more.
{Pause.) Except Agnes, of course. {He begins to pace back and forth.)
THE MOTHER: Agnes, you haven't introduced our guest. {She makes a motion
to the FIRST CALLER, who lets go of the ball and comes over.) This man has
come to see Mr. Weisenhauer. Since no one was there, we asked him to
stay for a while, {PIERRE stops; the FIRST CALLER goes to meet him. They
shake hands.)
FIRST CALLER {to PIERRE): But I haven't told you my name . . . {He searches
for something in his pockets, but finds nothing, PIERRE goes toward
TRADEL.)
PIERRE {to TRADEL): Did you read my letter carefully? I hope you under­
stood. The work is done, at least, well, it's as good as done . . . But I'm
getting bored . . . I'm being swallowed up by my own methods . . . I'm
becoming entangled in my own discoveries... I can't even see straight
any more.
TRADEL: I understand . . . That's exactly what happened to me, two years ago,
when I was doing the green notebook . . . I ended with the realization that
I could no longer see anything.
PIERRE: What has that got to do with me? I haven't lost track of my starting
point. {Changing his tone.) You could never know what sort of questions
come up when everything is finished, and looking back you see that you
really haven't accomplished much.
 TRADEL: But why look back? I don't know, myself, I see things much more
clearly... (AGNESgets up, takes a few steps, then goes and sits down on the
couch and takes a book which she leafs through aimlessly. The FIRST
CALLER wants to follow her, hut thinks better of it, and remains where he is.
AGNES throws the book on the couch. The FIRST CALLER moves toward her.)
PIERRE (to TRADEL): Listen to me. I have now come to the point where I have
at my disposal several hypotheses for each doubtful word. Until today, I
didn't want to make a choice. But, now, the right word has got to come
out.
FIRST CALLER (moving toward PIERRE): Excuse me. Fm not really familiar
with what you're doing, but it seems to me . . . (THE MOTHER makes a sign
to the FIRST CALLER to come away. He obeys slowly, and goes to stand
behind AGNES, trying in vain to attract her attention by whistling. He takes
the book from the couch and leafs through it, all the while watching
Q AGNES, who still doesnt take any notice of him.)
J PIERRE (to TRADEL): Unfortunately, Fve become too familiar with all the
Q hypotheses. The right word is buried, it can't get out. By working with
^ you, I can once again become indifferent to each of the possible words.
♦ It's the only way for me to be sure.
oo TRADEL: I knew we could work together again.
PIERRE: Nothing has been done. We still have a lot of work before us. For
once, I ask you to try to be patient. (He goes to the chest of drawers and
looks among the papers piled there, TRADEL paces up and down. The FIRST
CALLER holds the book toward AGNES.)
FIRST CALLER (to AGNES): Fve heard about this book. It's supposed to be very
good.
AGNES: I haven't read it. (The FIRST CALLER looks discouraged, then begins to
file his nails. He will keep himself occupied in various ways: fixing his
clothes, his tie, etc.
PIERRE takes out a sheet of paper from the chest of drawers and goes to
show it to TRADEL.)
PIERRE: Look, here's just one example. I'm not even going to ask myself why
this particular one has given me so much trouble. I never thought I'd find
it. But, I managed to get it down to four possibilities. (Pause.) Is it "suffer­
ing"? Is it "summoning"? . . .
TRADEL (bending over the paper): Wait.. . That looks familiar. Of course .. .
It's that page that's all spotted with ink at the top. Yes, I remember . . .
There's no problem there. (Pause.) Give me a little time, and I could
reconstruct the whole sentence, perhaps even the entire conversation
that we had on this topic, which left such an impression on me t h a t . . .
PIERRE: It's not a question of reminiscence, or "perhaps," or "more or less." I
have to have the exact word.
TRADEL: But who could know it? Who cares about recognizing it? And then,
who would dare condemn us for errors which can't even be proved to be
such? Besides, what counts most of all for the reader is the beauty of the
lines.
THE MOTHER: The reader? Do you still think that someone is going to read
that?
PIERRE {wearily): Then, after all my work, we're back to arguing about some­
thing that's already been settled once and for all. We are not going to
publish. At least, not as long as there is no one who is equipped to
understand this work that I'm responsible for.
FIRST CALLER {leaning toward AGNES): Your husband is right. In life, you've
got to know what you want, {AGNES gets up, takes a few steps, hesitates,
then goes to the window. The FIRST CALLER follows her. PIERRE watches
them both.)
TRADEL {to PIERRE, shouting): Right, it is your responsibility. And what if you
missed your chance to reach this reader you were talking about, who does
perhaps exist... How do you know he doesn't? In any case, I won't follow
you up this blind alley. {He strides to the door at right, then turns around.)
Basically, you're just like the rest of the family: you're afraid. {He exits.)
THE MOTHER: Poor Tradel! This time, I have the feeling that he has said too
much.
FIRST CALLER {walking toward PIERRE, swinging his arms): Your friend is a
little excited.
PIERRE {he hesitates, then goes toward AGNES, who is still at the window):
Have you thought about going to buy some paper?
AGNES: N o .
PIERRE: You still don't want to work with me?
AGNES {she turns around, hesitant): No.
PIERRE: I guess that means I'll have to go get the paper myself.
THE MOTHER: Pierre, since you're going out, will you bring me the
newspaper?
PIERRE: All right. {Rather than leave, he goes to the chest of drawers.)
THE MOTHER: You're not going out without a coat in this weather? {THE
MOTHER goes to look for an overcoat hung on the coat rack, and comes hack
and hands it to PIERRE. He wants to put it over his shoulders, hut she makes
him put it on, while pushing him toward the door at right, AGNES takes a
step toward PIERRE. THE MOTHER turns toward AGNES.)
PIERRE {his coat on, at the door): Thanks. {He goes out. THE MOTHER stays by
the door, AGNES doesnt move.)
FIRST CALLER {triumphantly going toward AGNES, juggling the ball): I feel
sorry for you. You didn't tell me your life was so complicated. {He puts his
hand on AGNES7 shoulder. She moves away.)
 AGNES: I'm going with him. I can still catch him.
THE MOTHER (preventing her from leaving): Be reasonable. You're just getting
better. You're not going out in that cold, (AGNES hesitates, then turns
suddenly as if to go toward the door at left, and finds herself face to face
with the FIRST CALLER. He begins to laugh, THE MOTHER laughs in turn.
AGNES is surrounded.)
Curtain

ACT HI
Same scene, but the papers are no longer scattered all over the furniture: they
are piled neatly on the chest of drawers.
Upstage, at left, AGNES stands on a stepladder cleaning the window, which
is open. The FIRST CALLER, in his shirtsleeves, stands behind AGNES, his feet
^ spread, his hands behind his back.
Z THE MOTHER is sitting in her chair reading the newspaper.
Q FIRST CALLER (with one foot on the ladder, to AGNES): YOU shouldn't be doing
4 that. (In a low voice.) Since we're both going to be leaving... (AGNEStums,
♦ and hesitates for a moment, her arm raised, a sponge in her hand.)
oo FIRST CALLER: You'll see, at my place you won't have to worry about things
like this. You'll have all your time to yourself.. . and me. (He laughs.)
AGNES: I don't understand. Pierre should be back by now. (She looks out the
window, the FIRST CALLER steps down from the ladder.)
THE MOTHER: He stopped at a cafe to get some work done. As usual. (Pause.)
I imagine people are getting to know him by now. I'm sure that he takes
up at least three tables for himself. (She laughs.)
FIRST CALLER (once again putting his foot on the ladder, in a low voice, to
AGNES): It's just as well that he hasn't come back yet. You don't want him
to come now. It's still too soon.
AGNES: I don't know what I want.
FIRST CALLER: Fortunately, I know for you. (He shrugs his shoulders and
comes away from the ladder, going toward the right)
THE MOTHER (lowers the paper, to the FIRST CALLER): Just between the two of
us, what do you think is going to happen?
FIRST CALLER (mysteriously): I'd rather not say.
THE MOTHER: But you're in a good position to tell us.
FIRST CALLER: Uh . . . Exactly.
THE MOTHER: If you want my opinion, nothing's going to happen. In the end,
they won't have the courage to resort to force. And that's all that's neces­
sary, really, to get things back into normal working order.
FIRST CALLER: If it only depended on me! (He turns his head toward AGNES,
who has not moved: she is still looking out the window, THE MOTHER gets
 up and taps the FIRST CALLER on the shoulder, pointing out AGNES and
laughing. The FIRST CALLER nods and laughs, then, feeling more sure of
himself, he takes AGNES by the waist and lifts her down from the ladder.
THE MOTHER sits down again, still laughing.)
AGNES {to the FIRST CALLER): What's gotten into you?
FIRST CALLER: I just didn't want you to catch cold, that's all. . . {He leans on
the ladder and watches AGNES, triumphantly, AGNES takes several hesitant
steps, then goes back to the window and presses her nose against the glass.
The FIRST CALLER struts around the room, TRADEL comes in from the right,
takes a few steps and stops.)
THE MOTHER: Agnes, Tradel has come to get Pierre's old overcoat. You know,
the one he put aside for him. {The FIRST CALLER laughs.)
AGNES {turning, casually): What overcoat? I don't know what you're talking
about.
THE MOTHER {to TRADEL): The fact is that these last few days, there's been so
much going on. {TRADEL makes a gesture of irritation meaning: "Don't
bother, it's not that at all")
TRADEL {going toward THE MOTHER): I came to warn Pierre. We've got to
hide the papers right away. No matter what they do, we're helpless. The
law is on their side.
FIRST CALLER {putting his hand on TRADERS shoulder, paternally): Don't get
upset. You'll see, everything will work out fine!
TRADEL {moving away, to THE MOTHER): Isn't Pierre here?
THE MOTHER: You can see he isn't. {The FIRST CALLER laughs.)
TRADEL {to THE MOTHER): I'm sorry I got so upset the other day. But, after all
this time, Pierre knows me well enough to know that my fits of temper
don't mean anything . .. Of course, I haven't changed my position . ..
THE MOTHER: You've come too late. Not that it really matters. Thank God,
Pierre has managed to finish the work all by himself, and, I might add, to
his complete satisfaction.
AGNES: You're always satisfied with everything!
THE MOTHER: Ah, yes! I often say I'm satisfied before I really am.
TRADEL {approaching AGNES): In any case, his absence doesn't seem to
bother you too much.
FIRST CALLER {to TRADEL): We've done all we could in that respect. (Pause.)
Does it bother you? {He moves menacingly toward TRADEL.)
TRADEL {backing off): I don't have to answer to the First Caller. {The FIRST
CALLER moves toward TRADEL once again, but then quickly goes back,
shrugging his shoulders, TRADEL begins to pace the floor.)
AGNES {turning): What a fuss you're all making! {She nervously takes a few
steps. The FIRST CALLER goes toward her.)
 THE MOTHER: You ought to go for a little walk, Agnes. The air will do you
good. But don't go out alone. The streets are full of soldiers. Unless you're
not afraid of them . . . {The FIRST CALLER laughs.
Sound of an elevator, AGNES and TRADEL stop, PIERRE enters. He
walks slowly, his head down, TRADEL and the FIRST CALLER rush to meet
him. AGNES stays where she is and watches PIERRE. THE MOTHER does
the same.)
TRADEL {who has reached PIERRE before the FIRST CALLER, to PIERRE): I'm
sorry about the other day. I shouldn't have gotten angry. It would've been
so simple to explain right away.
FIRST CALLER {to PIERRE, eagerly): Did you have a nice walk, Mr. Pierre?
{PIERRE absently continues to walk slowly, TRADEL following him. The
FIRST CALLER watches AGNES.)
AGNES {she goes toward PIERRE, stammering): Our friend came to keep us
0 company. He was afraid that the news had frightened us. {Pause.) Some-
J one told him about i t . . . You know, people haven't begun to talk yet, but
Q the negotiations are under way. {The FIRST CALLER extends his hand to
PIERRE, who continues to pace without paying any attention to him. He
♦ then assumes a disinterested pose, his hands in his pockets, AGNES starts
§8 toward PIERRE, then toward the FIRST CALLER. )
TRADEL {coming face to face with PIERRE): The news that I have is not very
reassuring. This time, it seems, they have decided to act. {To AGNES.) I'm
convinced that it was your father who started things going again . . . You
should've been able to keep us posted.
AGNES: You know very well that I never see him any more, {PIERRE goes and
takes AGNES by the hand and leads her toward THE MOTHER, who is
still in her chair, AGNES does not resist, TRADEL follows PIERRE. The
FIRST CALLER looks to THE MOTHER for a reaction. She is ignoring
him. He reverts to Dhis usual position: hands on hips, chest thrust out,
etc.)
PIERRE {to AGNES and THE MOTHER): I must speak to the two of you.
TRADEL {to PIERRE): Am I being excluded for some reason?
PIERRE {continuing): I've come to a very serious decision. I would like to give
you my reasons, but that is impossible for the time being. You've got to
have confidence in me. I'm sure that later everything will be fine for all
of us. {Pause.) I can't continue working under these conditions. I've got to
go away, that is, I've got to go somewhere where I can be alone for a
while . .. I've got to . . .
AGNES: But you're always alone as it is. Do you call this living together? {THE
MOTHER takes PIERRE'S hand and holds it in her own.)
TRADEL: So you're running away. I figured this would happen. It had to.
{The FIRST CALLER, from the back of the room, seems to be listening
carefully.)
PIERRE (wearily): You wouldn't understand. And I don't have the energy to
go back over each step of the work, and show you every obstacle, and all
the problems I had to solve, and which I did solve. I can only say this
much: everything that I have brought to light remains desperately life­
less. Flat. (He repeats several times the word "flat" like a man who
no longer understands the meaning ofwords7 but is hypnotized by their
sound, as if he had never heard them before.) Do you know exactly
what that means? Flattened? Suddenly removed from space? (THE
MOTHER lets go of PIERRE'S hand. The audience must feel that PIERRE'S
words have caused a general consternation.)
TRADEL: But that's crazy! You're insulting Jean as if you were a . . . common
critic.
PIERRE: I won't be satisfied until these things have got their meaning back
again.
TRADEL: But there's nothing for them to get back. They are what they are,
and that's that. If you're disappointed it's because you no longer have
faith in your own work.
PIERRE: It wasn't so long ago that I couldn't even get to the end of a sentence;
I used to torture myself for hours with the simplest questions. (Separating
his words.) Why does one say: "He is coming"? Who is this "he"—what's
he got to do with me? Why does one say: "on time," rather than "at the
time"? I've lost too much time thinking about such things. (Pause.) What
I must find is not the meaning of a word, but its shape, its movement.
(Pause.) I'm not going to look for anything any more. (Pause.) I'll just
wait, patiently, in a vacuum. I'll become very attentive. (Pause.) I've got
to leave as soon as possible.
AGNES: But not right away.
TRADEL: You're not going to leave now, when the papers can be taken from us
at any moment.
THE MOTHER: Will you be gone long?
PIERRE: Don't worry, I won't be going far. I just want to spend a few days in
there (pointing to the door at upstage center), in the back room.
AGNES: But you can't live in there. You'll suffocate.
THE MOTHER: We could make it more liveable.
TRADEL: Where will you keep the papers in there?
PIERRE: I'm not going to take them. It's the only way I can keep from
breaking down again.
TRADEL (rushes toward PIERRE and seizes his arm): Stop! I beg you to stay
here! I feel, no, I'm sure that between the two of us we can work some­
thing out. (PIERRE listens to TRADEL and begins to pace the floor again.
TRADEL stands speechless where he was. AGNES goes to PIERRE as if she were
going to speak to him, but the FIRST CALLER comes toward her. PIERRE
stops and watches the two of them.)
 FIRST CALLER (low, to AGNES): Is there still something you want to tell him?
AGNES {half-turning, in a low voice): No, everything has been said. {She goes
back to sit down, PIERRE watches her for a second. The FIRST CALLER goes
toward AGNES, but THE MOTHER signals for him to move away. He goes to
the window, opens it, and leans out.)
PIERRE: If anything else is going to happen, it's going to have to happen in
there, {AGNES stands up. PIERRE goes to kiss THE MOTHER, and then
AGNES, who pulls away. He goes toward the door at upstage center.)
TRADEL {preventing PIERRE from leaving): You don't know what you're doing!
AGNES {she goes to PIERRE and places her hands on his shoulders; he hesi-
tates): Don't go. {The FIRST CALLER turns and slams the window shut.
TRADEL is still standing by the door.)
PIERRE {separating himself slowly from AGNES'S arms): Don't worry about me.
> {AGNES moves away.)
^ THE MOTHER: I'll see to it that the room is heated.
^ PIERRE: Not now, please. We'll see about that later on.
^ THE MOTHER: I'll bring you your meals at the usual hours.
i PIERRE: I must ask you especially never to talk to me. {He goes to the chest of
§ drawers and points to the papers.) I'm leaving these here. I know you'll
^ take good care of them.
THE MOTHER: Don't worry.
TRADEL {exploding): You know what you're risking. You've been warned. I've
done all I could to keep you here. {He goes to the door.) O.K. Let them
take them. Let them take everything you've got, that's what you'd like!
{He goes out.)
FIRST CALLER {he moves toward PIERRE, swinging his arms): At least we're
finally rid of that creep!
AGNES {to PIERRE): Will I be able to come and see you?
PIERRE (still at the chest of drawers, obviously undecided): We'll see, later.
AGNES: Very well, (PIERRE goes quickly to the door at upstage center and
leaves, AGNES buries her face in her hands and doesnt move.
The FIRST CALLER is questioning THE MOTHER in sign language, THE
u
MOTHER answers him with a gesture meaning you can leave now." The
FIRST CALLER goes toward AGNES.)
FIRST CALLER (going to AGNES, arms open): And what about me, who dreams
only of you?
AGNES (uncovering her face, distressed): You're very kind.
THE MOTHER: I didn't want to go against Pierre's will. Besides, no one could,
even if he had a right to. (The lights suddenly go out. Total darkness. First,
only whispers can be heard, then low voices. They become more and more
distinct, until at the end they are perfectly clear.)
AGNES: No, not now. I can't leave just like that, without anything.
FIRST CALLER: We can find your things. I'll help you.
AGNES: I'll never be able to write a letter in this darkness. I want to leave a
note, at least.
FIRST CALLER: You can write to him tomorrow. (Good-naturedly.) You'll feel
better.
AGNES: I can't leave without my notebook.
FIRST CALLER: What notebook?
AGNES: The one that Jean gave me. He made me promise always to keep it
with me. That's one promise I want to keep, at least.
FIRST CALLER: Remember mine, Agnes. (A long silence.)
AGNES: That raincoat's still there. Have you got it?
FIRST CALLER (laughing): Yes, and you with it.
AGNES (in one breath): You're taking me far away from here, aren't you? We'll
be going near the Nive River. I've only been there once, with Pierre, just
after we met. . . The whole length of it was fenced off, but I was able to
see anyway. (Pause.) It was raining, and we got soaked. (She laughs
nervously.) I wonder why they're always working around there? (Pause.) I
would like so much to see it again, but, at the same time, I'm afraid.
FIRST CALLER: Not of me, I hope.
AGNES: No, with you, I won't be afraid. You can lift me up in your arms. I'll
be able to see it easily. You're so tall. ..
FIRST CALLER: And you so small!
AGNES: Hold me in your arms. (A very harsh light fills the room. We see the
FIRST CALLER, AGNES in his arms, going toward the door at right, AGNES is
dragging a raincoat. The FIRST CALLER is carrying two overcoats.
THE MOTHER bursts into a vulgar laugh, slapping her hips.)
Curtain

ACT IV
Same scene, but now everything is in complete order. The furniture is very
neatly distributed; there are no papers anywhere in sight. There are curtains on
the window and doilies on all the furniture.
THE MOTHER'S armchair is now downstage center, facing the audience.
The typewriter is no longer in the same place and is now covered. On the
chest of drawers, a hot plate and a tea kettle. Beside it is a serving cart, on
which is a tea service. At the back of the room, a little to the left, a large mirror.
The floor is completely carpeted.
THE MOTHER is sitting in her armchair. She is without her newspaper. She
is wearing an impressive housecoat. One must get the idea, as soon as the
curtain goes up, that she is now mistress of the house.
 THE WOMAN FRIEND, standing before the mirror, is looking approvingly
at herself from head to foot She has just come to visit, and is still wearing
her hat.
THE MOTHER {gets up and goes to the chest of drawers to prepare some tea): I
haven't felt this happy in a long while.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: In any case, we had a narrow escape.
THE MOTHER: I knew that everything would turn out all right. {She pours tea
into the cups.) The only thing was, I couldn't tell just when things would
fall into place.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: We didn't let up once.
THE MOTHER {pushing the serving cart toward the front of the stage): I never
liked the idea of preserving peace at any price. What I've always looked
for is ordered justice. {Pause.) You know, you won't believe this, but yes-
> terday, when I learned that this immigration, which was really becoming
O an obsession with me, was finally stopped, it was such a relief—more than
< a relief: a kind of joy. {She hands a cup to THE WOMAN FRIEND, who has
^ moved over to her. THE WOMAN FRIEND sits down, cup in hand.)
♦ THE MOTHER {sitting down in her chair): Pierre is coming back today.
02 THE WOMAN FRIEND: I don't believe it! Really? {She gets up.) I really must
^H congratulate you. {She leans toward THE MOTHER and kisses her, then sits
down again.)
THE MOTHER: He just told me, when I took him something to eat. He should
be out any minute now.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: I don't know how he's been able to stand being cooped
up in there for two weeks!
THE MOTHER: Two weeks! As a matter of fact, it has only been two weeks.
Somehow it's seemed much longer than that to me.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: And Agnes? Have you heard from her?
THE MOTHER: From what I've heard, it gets worse every day.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: What do you mean? Didn't her friend work out?
THE MOTHER: But that was inevitable. After all, all you had to do was look at
him . . .
THE WOMAN FRIEND: He was handsome enough, but so ill-bred! {She laughs
knowingly.) Naturally, Pierre doesn't know anything about it?
THE MOTHER {more serious): Not yet. {PIERRE enters from the back, very tired-
looking; his mind seems to be elsewhere. His clothes are wrinkled, and he
has a two-week-old beard. He takes several steps, looking all around. He is
obviously looking for something.)
THE MOTHER {getting up): Oh, I'm so glad this is finally all over with! Come
here so I can kiss you. {PIERRE goes toward THE MOTHER and kisses her,
mechanically.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND {leaning toward him): How about me? {PIERRE doesnt
seem to notice THE WOMAN FRIEND; he is pacing up and down.)
THE MOTHER: Promise me that from now on you'll try to conserve your
strength.
PIERRE: Don't worry. There's no longer any question of research or work.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: But . . . {THE MOTHER makes a sign to her not to say
anything.)
PIERRE: You will be very happy to know that I have decided to live like
everyone else. What I learned in there {pointing at the door) is that I'll
never get anywhere until I can learn to live a completely ordinary life.
{He looks around once more, takes a step toward THE MOTHER as if
he wants to speak to her, hut thinks better of it. The lights begin to grow
dim.)
THE MOTHER: Are you looking for your papers? I piled them in a chest. {She
points to a huge object covered with a red curtain.) There, behind you;
just lift the curtain. {To THE WOMAN FRIEND.) Turn the lights on, will
you? The electricity must be back on by now. {THE WOMAN FRIEND gets
up and goes to the right.)
PIERRE: I see, you've put everything in order, {PIERRE goes to the chest, opens
it, and stands there in front of it. THE WOMAN FRIEND turns on the light
switch.).
THE WOMAN FRIEND: Perhaps we'll be able to see, at least! {She goes back and
sits down.
PIERRE stands for a second before the open chest, his back to the au-
dience. He kneels down, slowly takes the papers from the chest, looks at
some of them, and sets them all on the floor. He contemplates them for at
least a minute, then takes several of them and tears them, first very quickly,
then more and more slowly. The scraps begin to accumulate, PIERRE ap-
pears to be drowning in the middle of them.
Since PIERRE has come in, THE MOTHER has not taken her eyes off him.
THE WOMAN FRIEND, who is also watching him, suddenly gets up and tries
the light switch again. The light still doesnt come on.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND: Still no light. This can't go on!
PIERRE {stops tearing the papers for a second, almost to himself): Forgive me
for not having understood sooner. {He takes the last few pages and gets
up, tearing them as he walks across the room, almost in a trance. The torn
papers now take up a good part of the room.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND {to THE MOTHER): I would like so much to stay. But
you must excuse me. I'm already very late. {She goes toward the door at
right.)
THE MOTHER: Of course, of course, {THE WOMAN FRIEND gets ready to
leave.)
 PIERRE (sits in a chair, in a corner, to the left of the stage): Where is Agnes? I
want to see her. (THE WOMAN FRIEND stops at the door, and comes back to
the window, from where she watches PIERRE.)
THE MOTHER (she stands, her hands resting on the back of her chair): Pierre,
it's time you knew the truth. Agnes is gone.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: With the First Caller!
PIERRE: What do you mean, gone? You mean she has gone out?
THE MOTHER: No. She left, right after you did.
PIERRE: Right away!
THE MOTHER (laughing): There was some trouble. I guess she took advantage
of it. (PIERRE tries to get up, but cannot.)
PIERRE: There was nothing else she could do, of course. Where would she
have found the energy to put up with such disorganization?
£ THE MOTHER (going toward PIERRE): But she was the one responsible for all
Z the disorder. She brought it into our lives.
Q PIERRE: She left too late, or too soon. If she had had a little more patience, we
could've begun again.
♦ THE MOTHER: Then, it's perfect. You're so easy-going, you won't mind being
a> alone. And then . . . you can get back to your work, (PIERRE gets up and
goes toward the back room.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND (to PIERRE): Did you forget something, in there?
PIERRE: Yes. (He goes out. THE MOTHER goes back slowly and sits down in her
chair. Pause.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND (to THE MOTHER): You have always been too indul­
gent with her. (She takes a few steps, THE MOTHER doesnt move. The
stage gets darker. Then suddenly, the sound of hurried footsteps, TRADEL
appears at the door at left, a suitcase in his hand, THE WOMAN FRIEND
is once again very much at ease. She will continuously circle TRADEL,
sneering.)
TRADEL: Didn't anyone come? (THE MOTHER makes an evasive movement.
TRADEL motions toward the wings as if to invite someone to come
in.
MME TRADELenters, a very thin and pale woman, followed by THE
CHILD,an ordinary-looking boy of about seven. Both are poorly dressed
and carry canvas bags rolled under their arms.)
TRADEL (quickly): They'll be here any minute now. Don't you understand? I
know, since I was the one who told them to come. Yes, it's a rendezvous,
but I won't be there. Nor will they find what they're looking for. (Pause.)
What have I done? All this, just because of a moment's aberration.
(Pause.) Where is Pierre? Where are all the papers?
THE MOTHER: There—right under your feet. You're walking on them.
(TRADEL jumps, then bends down and feverishly gathers the scraps of
 paper. He sees some others farther on, then still others. He panics, runs to
gather them all, and ends up almost crawling on all fours.
THE WOMAN FRIEND laughs loudly. MME TRADEL Watches TRADEL with-
out moving, THE CHILD sits down on the floor.)
THE MOTHER: You shouldVe c o m e five minutes ago . . . Pierre has just
finished tearing t h e m u p . {TRADEL and MME TRADEL gather the scraps of
paper and push them into the suitcase and the bags. They put one of the
bags on a chair at left, the other bag and the suitcase at the foot of the
chair.)
T H E WOMAN FRIEND (to THE MOTHER): W h y don't you stop t h e m ? {THE
MOTHER makes a gesture meaning: "What do I care? There's nothing I can
do.yy)
TRADEL {handing a bag to MME TRADEL): YOU go on, Fll be with you
shortly.
MME TRADEL {putting the bag down): But what'll I do if I meet them? I'd §
c
rather wait for you. {Sound of an elevator, TRADEL grabs the curtain that
covered the chest and throws it over the suitcase and the bags. The chair ?c
also disappears under the curtain. The lights come back on.) +
T H E WOMAN FRIEND: At last! {She goes and sits down near THE MOTHER. *
AGNES appears at the door at right. She is wearing her raincoat, MME s>
TRADEL starts toward AGNES, then stops.)
T H E MOTHER {turning her head toward AGNES): Well, c o m e in, Agnes.
AGNES {she comes over timidly, looking around as if lost): Nothing has
changed. {Pause.) Yes, it is a little brighter. {She takes a few steps toward
the back, THE MOTHER gets up suddenly, but AGNES changes direction, and
THE MOTHER sits back down, TRADEL has noticed this action. He paces
back and forth.)
AGNES {she walks, hesitatingly, aimlessly): I don't see the typewriter. {To THE
MOTHER.) I'm sorry I mentioned that, b u t I was so used to seeing it there.
{She looks at where the machine used to be.) Anyway . . . I just came to
borrow it from you . . . I've been trying to rent one, b u t . . .
THE MOTHER: I know, they're hard to find.
AGNES {stammering): Yes. . . We're having so m u c h trouble, that I thought I
m i g h t . . . I know Pierre uses it quite a lot. But we won't keep it long. Only
a few days. . .
THE WOMAN FRIEND: We didn't think we'd be seeing you again. {She gets up
and goes to look at herself in the mirror.)
MME TRADEL {going to kiss AGNES): I've thought about you a lot since you
left.
THE MOTHER (to AGNES): Yes, Pierre was just talking about you.
AGNES: How is he? {THE WOMAN FRIEND sneers, MME TRADEL moves away.
AGNES begins to walk around.)
 THE MOTHER: He was asking for you. (AGNES starts.) But not all that much.
(AGNES wants to speak.) To tell the truth, the typewriter isn't in very good
condition. It will have to be repaired. I think that would cost you less than
getting another, though.
AGNES (stammering): Thank you.
THE WOMAN FRIEND (still in front of the mirror, turning): Does your friend
still have his job?
AGNES (to THE MOTHER): There is something else I wanted to ask Pierre. Do
you think he'll be back soon? I can't wait. I have very little time.
THE MOTHER (getting up): You know as well as I do that Pierre never tells
anyone whether he's coming or going. (She takes a step toward AGNES.)
You risk waiting for nothing, and since you are in a hurry . . . (She takes
another step toward AGNES, who still does not move.)
> MME TRADEL (to AGNES): Promise me that you'll come and see us.
^ AGNES (vaguely): I'll come. (She starts toward the door at right, THE MOTHER,
< still standing, doesnt move, THE WOMAN FRIEND goes toward AGNES. )
< THE WOMAN FRIEND: Do you have a minute?
^ AGNES: Oh! No, I've got to be going. I must get back before the doctor gets
<o there . . . The nurse is sick, and I have to give him his s h o t s . . .
"* THE WOMAN FRIEND: What, your friend is sick? Such a strong fellow . . .
AGNES: He took sick all of a sudden. He didn't even feel it coming on.
THE WOMAN FRIEND: That's terrible. Who takes care of his business?
AGNES: No one at present. I can't do it. I was never able to learn accounting.
For me, numbers are a complete mystery . . .
THE MOTHER (she goes toward AGNES, forcing her back to the door at right):
You were always full of good wishes. (She takes AGNES by the arm and
pushes her outside, closing the door after her. THE WOMAN FRIEND cackles.)
MME TRADEL (almost to herself): Poor Agnes! (THE WOMAN FRIEND, snicker-
ing, taps THE MOTHER on the shoulder, THE MOTHER pulls away and goes
back to her chair with some difficulty. She sits down and places her hands
on the arms of the chair.
THE CHILD has grown tired of sitting still and has lifted a corner of the
curtain that was covering the chair and the bags. He takes from the bag on
the floor some scraps of paper that he scatters about him. TRADEL is still
pacing the floor.)
TRADEL (stopping suddenly, to THE MOTHER): YOU lied. (Pointing to the door,
upstage center.) I have a feeling that Pierre is in there.
THE MOTHER: Yes, he's in there, (TRADEL bounds toward the door and goes
out. THE MOTHER doesnt move, MME TRADEL starts, as if to follow Tradel,
but stops, THE WOMAN FRIEND puts her ear to the door at upstage center.
THE CHILD continues to empty the bag at the foot of the chair and to scatter
the papers around him.)
TRADEL {he reappears suddenly at the door, upstage center, practically knock-
ing over THE WOMAN FRIEND): Pierre . . . Pierre is dead. I'll never forgive
myself! {MME TRADEL buries her head in her hands, THE WOMAN FRIEND
stands completely still, her mouth hanging open: she is seen in profile, THE
MOTHER slowly leans her head on the back of the chair, her hands still
holding on to the arms of the chair, THE CHILD continues to play with the
scraps of paper, TRADEL, after a moment's hesitation, leaves quickly by the
door at right, MME TRADEL follows him, dragging THE CHILD, who resists at
first, then follows. He has had time to gather several pieces of paper, which
he takes with him. THE WOMAN FRIEND goes to THE MOTHER.)
THE WOMAN FRIEND {putting her arms around THE MOTHER'S shoulders, and
in a voice falser than ever): I know just how you feel, {THE MOTHER doesnt
move.)
CURTAIN
" ^
0 ^ ^
m artin Julius Esslin, critic, writer, producer, and professor,
was born on June 8, 1918, in Hungary. He was raised in
Vienna, where he attended Vienna University and stud-
ied directing at the Reinhardt Seminar of Dramatic Art. From 1940 to
1962, he worked as a producer and scriptwriter of radio drama for the
BBC, and he served as Head of Radio Drama there from 1963 to 1977. His
seminal book, The Theatre of the Absurd (1961), was the first to analyze the plays
of the Theater of the Absurd in the context of their historical predecessors in
the avant-garde. Indeed, Esslin's book, which evoked Camus's Myth of Sisyphus
(1951) as the philosophical touchstone of the new drama, essentially established
the term "Absurd" in English-language criticism. From 1977 to 1988, he was
professor of drama at Stanford University. Esslin has written and lectured exten­
sively on modern drama, and in particular on the works of Harold Pinter, An-
tonin Artaud, and Bertolt Brecht.
 T h e Theater of the Absurd

Martin Esslin

The reception of Waiting for Godot at San Quentin, 1 and the wide acclaim
given to plays by Ionesco, Adamov, Pinter, and others, testify that these
plays, which are so often superciliously dismissed as nonsense or mysti­
fication, have something to say and can be understood. Most of the in­
comprehension with which plays of this type are still being received by
critics and theatrical reviewers, most of the bewilderment they have caused
and to which they still give rise, come from the fact that they are part of a
new, and still developing, stage convention that has not yet been generally
understood and has hardly ever been defined. Inevitably, plays written in this
new convention will, when judged by the standards and criteria of another,
be regarded as impertinent and outrageous impostures. If a good play must
have a cleverly constructed story, these have no story or plot to speak of; if a
good play is judged by subtlety of characterization and motivation, these are
often without recognizable characters and present the audience with almost
mechanical puppets; if a good play has to have a fully explained theme,
which is neatly exposed and finally solved, these often have neither a begin­
ning nor an end; if a good play is to hold the mirror up to nature and portray
the manners and mannerisms of the age in finely observed sketches, these
seem often to be reflections of dreams and nightmares; if a good play relies
on witty repartee and pointed dialogue, these often consist of incoherent
babblings.
But the plays we are concerned with here pursue ends quite different

Reprinted from Martin Esslin, preface, The Theatre of the Absurd (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday Anchor, 1969), 668-72. © Martin Esslin
1. Given by the San Francisco Actor's Workshop in 1957.
 from those of the conventional play and therefore use quite different meth­
ods. They can be judged only by the standards of the Theater of the Absurd,
which it is the purpose of his book to define and clarify.
It must be stressed, however, that the dramatists whose work is here
discussed do not form part of any self-proclaimed or self-conscious school of
movement. On the contrary, each of the writers in question is an individual
who regards himself as a lone outsider, cut off and isolated in his private
world. Each has his own personal approach to both subject matter and form;
his own roots, sources, and background. If they also, very clearly and in spite
of themselves, have a good deal in common, it is because their work most
sensitively mirrors and reflects the preoccupations and anxieties, the emo­
tions and thinking of many of their contemporaries in the Western world.
This is not to say that their works are representative of mass attitudes. It is
an oversimplification to assume that any age presents a homogeneous pat­
tern. Ours being, more than most others, an age of transition, it displays a
5 bewildering stratified picture: medieval beliefs still held and overlaid
M by eighteenth-century rationalism and mid-nineteenth-century Marxism,
iu rocked by sudden volcanic eruptions of prehistoric fanaticisms and primitive
♦ tribal cults. Each of these components of the cultural pattern of the age finds
0 its own artistic expression. The Theater of the Absurd, however, can be seen
§ as the reflection of what seems to be the attitude most genuinely representa­
tive of our own time.
The hallmark of this attitude is its sense that the certitudes and unshak­
able basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have
been tested and found wanting, that they have been discredited as cheap and
somewhat childish illusions. The decline of religious faith was masked until
the end of the Second World War by the substitute religions of faith in
progress, nationalism, and various totalitarian fallacies. All this was shattered
by the war. By 1942, Albert Camus was calmly putting the question why,
since life had lost all meaning, man should not seek escape in suicide. In one
of the great, seminal heart-searchings of our time, The Myth of Sisyphus,
Camus tried to diagnose the human situation in a world of shattered beliefs:
A world that can be explained by reasoning, however faulty, is a familiar
world. But in a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man
feels a stranger. His is an irremediable exile, because he is deprived of memories
of a lost homeland as much as he lacks the hope of a promised land to come.
This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes
the feeling of Absurdity.2
"Absurd" originally means "out of harmony," in a musical context.
Hence its dictionary definition: "out of harmony with reason or propriety;
incongruous, unreasonable, illogical." In common usage, "absurd" may
simply mean "ridiculous," but this is not the sense in which Camus uses the

2. Albert Camus, he Mythe de Sisyphe (Paris: Gallimard, 1942), p. 18.

word, and in which it is used when we speak of the Theater of the Absurd. In
an essay on Kafka, Ionesco defined his understanding of the term as follows:
"Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. . . . Cut off from his religious,
metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become
senseless, absurd, useless."3
This sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the human con­
dition is, broadly speaking, the theme of the plays of Beckett, Adamov,
Ionesco, Genet, and the other writers discussed in this book. But it is not
merely the subject matter that defines what is here called the Theater of the
Absurd. A similar sense of the senselessness of life, of the inevitable devalua­
tion of ideals, purity, and purpose, is also the theme of much of the work of
dramatists like Giraudoux, Anouilh, Salacrou, Sartre, and Camus himself.
Yet these writers differ from the dramatists of the Absurd in an important
respect: they present their sense of the irrationality of the human condition
in the form of highly lucid and logically constructed reasoning, while the
Theater of the Absurd strives to express its sense of the senselessness of the
human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open :=
abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought. While Sartre or UJ
Camus expresses the new content in the old convention, the Theater of the ♦
Absurd goes a step further in trying to achieve a unity between its basic ^
assumptions and the form in which these are expressed. In some senses, the §
theater of Sartre and Camus is less adequate as an expression of the philoso-
phy of Sartre and Camus—in artistic, as distinct from philosophic, terms—
than the Theater of the Absurd.
If Camus argued that in our disillusioned age the world has ceased to
make sense, he did so in the elegantly rationalistic and discursive style of an
eighteenth-century moralist, in well-constructed and polished plays. If
Sartre argues that existence comes before essence and that human person­
ality can be reduced to pure potentiality and the freedom to choose itself
anew at any moment, he presents his ideas in plays based on brilliantly
drawn characters who remain wholly consistent and thus reflect the old
convention that each human being has a core of immutable, unchanging
essence—in fact, an immortal soul. And the beautiful phrasing and argu­
mentative brilliance of both Sartre and Camus in their relentless probing
still, by implication, proclaim a tacit conviction that logical discourse can
offer valid solutions, that the analysis of language will lead to the uncovering
of basic concepts—Platonic ideas.
This is an inner contradiction that the dramatists of the Absurd are trying,
by instinct and intuition rather than by conscious effort, to overcome and
resolve. The Theater of the Absurd has renounced arguing about the absurd­
ity of the human condition; it merely presents it in being—that is, in terms of
concrete stage images. This is the difference between the approach of the

3. Eugene Ionesco, "Dans les armes de la ville," Cahiers de la Compagnie Madeleine Renaud-
Jean-Louis Barrault, Paris, no. 20, October 1957.
 philosopher and that of the poet; the difference, to take an example from
another sphere, between the idea of God in the works of Thomas Aquinas or
Spinoza and the intuition of God in those of St. John of the Cross or Meister
Eckhart—the difference between theory and experience.
It is this striving for an integration between the subject matter and the
form in which it is expressed that separates the Theater of the Absurd from
the Existentialist theater.
It must also be distinguished from another important, and parallel, trend
in the contemporary French theater, which is equally preoccupied with the
absurdity and uncertainty of the human condition: the "poetic avant-garde"
theater of dramatists like Michel de Ghelderode, Jacques Audiberti, Georges
Neveux, and, in the younger generation, Georges Schehade, Henri Pichette,
and Jean Vauthier, to name only some of its most important exponents. This
is an even more difficult dividing line to draw, for the two approaches overlap
a good deal. The "poetic avant-garde" relies on fantasy and dream reality as
5 much as the Theater of the Absurd does; it also disregards such traditional
M axioms as that of the basic unity and consistency of each character or the
iii need for a plot. Yet basically the "poetic avant-garde" represents a different
♦ mood; it is more lyrical, and far less violent and grotesque. Even more impor-
w tant is its different attitude toward language: the "poetic avant-garde" relies to
§ a far greater extent on consciously "poetic" speech; it aspires to plays that are
in effect poems, images composed of a rich web of verbal associations.
The Theater of the Absurd, on the other hand, tends toward a radical
devaluation of language, toward a poetry that is to emerge from the concrete
and objectified images of the stage itself. The element of language still plays
an important part in this conception, but what happens on the stage tran­
scends, and often contradicts, the words spoken by the characters. In Io-
nesco's Chairs, for example, the poetic content of a powerfully poetic play
does not lie in the banal words that are uttered but in the fact that they are
spoken to an ever-growing number of empty chairs.
 .a
IS
This bibliography covers articles and books relating to avant-garde drama that was
written between 1890 and 1950. In selecting works for the comprehensive bibliogra­
phy, we excluded any criticism dedicated to individual dramatists or theater artists
that is listed in the selected bibliographies at the end of each section. Instead, we
have focused on sources that examine avant-garde theatrical movements or national
traditions, or on the contributions of particular theater artists to the development of
avant-garde theater as a whole.

Ahrends, Giinter. "The Nature and Function of Cruelty in the Theatre of Artaud and
Foreman." Forum Modemes Theater 9.1 (1994): 3-12.
, and Hans-Jurgen Diller. Chapters from the History of Stage Cruelty. Tubingen:
Narr, 1994.
Apollonio, Umbro, ed. Futurist Manifestos. New York: Viking, 1973.
Ashmore, Jerome. "Interdisciplinary Roots of the Theater of the Absurd." Modern Drama
14 (1971): 72-83.
Aycock, Wendell M., ed. Myths and Realities of Contemporary French Theater: Compara-
tive Views. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1985.
Baer, Nancy Van Norman. Theatre in Revolution: Russian Avant-Garde Stage Design,
I9J3-35. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991.
Bakshy, Alexander. The Path of the Modern Russian Stage and Other Essays. London:
Cecil Palmer, 1916.
Balakian, Anna. "Dada-Surrealism: Fundamental Differences." In Proceedings of the
Comparative Literature Symposium III, "From Surrealism to the Absurd." Lubbock:
Texas Tech University Press, 1970.
. Surrealism: The Road to the Absolute. 1959. Rev. ed. New York: Dutton, 1970.
. The Symbolist Movement: A Critical Appraisal. 1967. New York: New York Univer­
sity Press, 1977.
 Barooshian, Vahan D. Russian Cubo-Futurism 1910-1930: A Study in Avant-Gardism.
The Hague: Mouton, 1974.
Benedikt, Michael, and George E. Wellwarth, eds. Modern French Theatre: The Avant-
Garde, Dada, and Surrealism; An Anthology of Plays. New York: Dutton, 1964.
, eds. Modem Spanish Theatre: An Anthology of Plays. New York: Dutton, 1968.
, eds. and trans. Postwar German Theatre: An Anthology of Plays. New York: Dutton,
1967.
Benson, Renate. German Expressionist Drama: Ernst Toller and Georg Kaiser. New York:
£ Grove, 1984.
Bentley, Eric, ed. The Theory of the Modern Stage. 1968. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin,
1976.
Berg, Christian, Frank Durieux, Geert Lernout, and Walter Gobbers, eds. The Turn of
the Century: Modernism and Modernity in Literature and the Arts. Berlin: De Gruyter,
2 1995.
j Berghaus, Giinter. "Dada Theatre of: The Genesis of Anti-Bourgeois Performance Art."
< German Life and Letters 38 (1988): 293-312.
. "Fulvia Giuliani: Portrait of a Futurist Actress." New Theatre Quarterly 10.38 (May
1994): 117-21.
. Futurism and Politics: Between Anarchist Rebellion and Fascist Reaction, 1909-
1944. Providence, R.I.: Berghahn, 1996.
T* . Italian Futurist Theatre, 1909-1944. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
10
. "A Theatre of Image, Sound, and Motion: On Synaesthesia and the Idea of a Total
Work of Art." Maske und Kothum: International Beitrage zur Theaterwissenschaft
32.1-2 (1986): 7-28.
Bergman, Gosta M. "Strindberg and the Intima Teatern." Theatre Research 9 (1967): 14-
47.
Bigsby, C. W. E. Dada and Surrealism. London: Methuen, 1972.
Bishop, Thomas. Pirandello and the French Theater. New York: New York University
Press, 1966.
Block, Haskell M. "Symbolist Drama: Villiers de FIsle-Adam, Strindberg, and Yeats."
New York Literary Forum 4 (1980): 43-48.
. Mallarme and the Symbolist Drama. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963.
Borovsky, V. "The Origins of Symbolist Theatre in Russia: Theory and Practice." Irish
Slavonic Studies 14 (1993): 41-68.
Bowlt, John E., and Olga Malick, eds. Laboratory of Dreams: The Russian Avant-Garde
and Cultural Experiment. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1996.
Bradby, David. Modem French Drama, 1940-1990. 1984. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cam­
bridge University Press, 1991.
Brandt, George W., ed. Modern Theories of Drama: A Selection of Writings on Drama and
Theatre. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Brater, Enoch, and Ruby Cohn, eds. Around the Absurd: Essays on Modem and Postmod-
ern Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990.
Braun, Edward. The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. New York:
Holmes and Meier, 1982.
Breton, Andre. Manifestoes of Surrealism. Trans. Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane.
1969. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972.
Brockett, Oscar, a n d Robert R. Findlay. Century of Innovation: A History of European
Drama and Theatre Since the Late Nineteenth Century. 1973. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn
and Bacon, 1991.
Brown, John Mason. The Modern Theatre in Revolt. N e w York: Norton, 1929.
Brustein, Robert. The Theatre of Revolt: An Approach to the Modem Drama. 1964.
Chicago: Elephant Paperbacks, 1991.
Burger, Peter. Theory of the Avant-Garde. Trans. Michael Shaw. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1989.
Carlson, Marvin. Chaps. 1 6 - 1 9 in Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical
Survey from the Greeks to the Present. 1984. Rev. ed. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1993.
Carter, Huntly. The New Spirit in the European Theatre, 1914-1924. London: Ernest £
Benn, 1925. §■
. The New Spirit in the Russian Theatre, 1917-1928. London: Bretano's, 1929. g>
Caws, Mary Ann. "(E)ada and Surrealist) Film and Theatre." Dada/Surrealism 3 (1973): 3
7-42. 2
Chandler, Frank Wadleigh. Aspects of Modem Drama. New York: Macmillan, 1914. Jj
. The Contemporary Drama of France. 1920. Boston: Little, Brown, 1925. <u
Cheshire, David F. "Futurism, Marinetti, a n d t h e Music Hall." Theatre Quarterly 1.3 ♦
(July-Sept.
Chiari, Joseph. 1971): 53-59.
The Contemporary French Theatre: Flight from Naturalism. London: g
Rockliff, 1958. *>
. Modem Continental Playwrights. 1931. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.
Clark, Barrett H., ed. "French Dramatic Criticism of the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries," in European Theories of the Drama, 392-407. New York: Crown, 1947.
Rev. ed. Henry Popkin.
, and George Freedly, eds. A History of Modem Drama. New York: Appleton-
Century, 1947.
C o h n , Ruby. From Desire to Godot: Pocket Theatre of Postwar Paris. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1987.
Cornwell, Neil, Robin Milner-Gulland, and Julian Graffy, eds. Daniil Kharms and the
Poetics of the Absurd. Houndmills, England: Macmillan, 1991.
Daniels, May. The French Drama of the Unspoken. 1953. Westport, C o n n . : Greenwood,
1977.
Dashwood, Julie R. " T h e Italian Futurist Theatre." In Drama and Society, ed. James
Redwood, 1 2 9 - 4 6 . Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1979.
Deak, Frantisek. Symbolist Theater: The Formation of an Avant-Garde. Baltimore, Md.:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
, Jacques F. Hovis, P. N . Roinard, Leonora C h a m p a g n e , a n d N o r m a Jean Deak.
"Symbolist Staging at the Theatre d'Art." Drama Review 20.3 (1976): 1 1 7 - 2 2 .
Demastes, William W. Theatre of Chaos: Beyond Absurdism, into Orderly Disorder. C a m ­
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Dickinson, T h o m a s H. The Theater in a Changing Europe. N e w York: Henry Holt, 1937.
Diethe, Carol. Aspects of Distorted Sexual Attitudes in German Expressionist Drama:
With Particular Reference to Wedekind, Kokoschka, and Kaiser. N e w York: Peter Lang,
1988.
 Dobrez, Livio A. C. The Existential and Its Exits: Literary and Philosophical Perspectives
on the Works of Beckett, lonesco, Genet, and Pinter. London: Athlone, 1986.
Docherty, Brian, ed. Twentieth-Century European Drama. New York: St. Martin's, 1994.
Donahue, Thomas J. "Fernando Arrabal: His Panic Theory and Theatre and the Avant-
Garde." Journal of Spanish Studies 3 (1975): 101-13.
Drain, Richard, ed. Twentieth-Century Theatre: A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge,
1995.
Dukore, Bernard F., and Daniel C. Gerould, eds. Avant-Garde Drama: A Casebook.
►" Originally published as Avant-Garde Drama: Major Plays and Documents, Post World
J War I, 1969. New York: Crowell, 1976.
£ , eds. Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greeks to Grotowski. New York: Holt, Rinehart,
2 and Winston, 1974.
O
3 . "Explosions and Implosions: Avant-Garde Drama Between World Wars." Educa-
£ tional Theatre Journal 21 (1969): 1-16.
j Eaton, Katherine. The Theater ofMeyerhold and Brecht. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood,
< 1985.
Ellmann, Richard, and Charles Feidelson, Jr., eds. The Modem Tradition: Backgrounds of
Modem Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Eng, Jan van der, ed. Avant-Garde: Interdisciplinary and International Review. Amster­
dam: Rodopi, 1991.
co Erickson, John D. "Apocalyptic Mind: The Dada Manifesto and Classic Anarchism."
S French Literature Series 7 (1980): 98-109.
. Dada: Performance, Poetry, and Art. Boston: Twayne, 1984.
Eskin, Stanley G. "Theatricality in the Avant-Garde Drama: A Reconsideration of a
Theme in the Light of The Balcony and The Connection." Modem Drama 7 (1964):
213-22.
Esslin, Martin. "Modernist Drama: Wedekind to Brecht." 1976. In Modernism, 1890-
1930, ed. Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane, 527-60. Atlantic Highlands,
N.J.: Humanities Press, 1978.
. The Theatre of the Absurd. 1961. Rev. ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1989.
Evans, Calvin. "Mallarmean Antecedents in the Avant-Garde Theater." Modem Drama
6(1963): 12-19.
Finter, Helga. "Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theatre: The Legacy of the Theatre
of Cruelty." Trans. Matthew Griffin. TDK 41 (Winter 1997): 15-40.
Fitch, Andrew. "A Fusion Avant-Garde." Drama Survey 5 (1966): 53-59.
Fomm for Modem Language Studies. Special issue: "The International Avant-Garde,
1905-1924," 32.2 (April 1996).
Fowlie, Wallace. "Antitheatre." In Climate of Violence: The French Literary Tradition
from Baudelaire to the Present, 219-34. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
Gaensbauer, Deborah B. The French Theater of the Absurd. Boston: Twayne, 1991.
Garten, H. F. Modem German Drama. London: Methuen, 1959.
, trans. Seven Expressionist Plays: Kokoschka to Barlach. London: Calder & Boyars,
1968.
Gassner, John. Directions in Modem Theatre and Drama. Expanded ed. of Form and Idea
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Gerould, Daniel, ed. Twentieth-Century Polish Avant-Garde Drama: Plays, Scenarios,
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 , ed. Doubles, Demons, and Dreamers: An International Collection of Symbolist
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, and Jadwiga Kosicka. "The Drama of the Unseen: Turn-of-the-Century Paradigms
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Gibian, George. Russian Modernism: Culture and the Avant-Garde. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
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Gilman, Richard. "The Idea of the Avant-Garde." Partisan Review 29.3 (1972): 382-96.
. The Making of Modern Drama: A Study of Biichner, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov,
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Glover, J. Garrett. The Cubist Theatre. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research, 1983. §"
Goldberg, Isaac. The Drama ofTransition. Cincinnati: Stewart Kidd, 1922. o
Goldberg, Roselee. Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. Rev. ed. Originally 5
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Gordon, Mel. "The Control of Ecstasy: German Expressionist Acting." Drama Review 4)
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Gordon, R. S. "The Italian Futurist Theatre: A Reappraisal." Modern Language Review
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Graver, David. The Aesthetics of Disturbance: Anti-Art in Avant-Garde Drama. Ann Ar­
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Grossvogel, David I. Twentieth Century French Drama. Originally published as The Self-
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 Homan, Sydney. The Audience as Actor and Character: The Modern Theater of Beckett,
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♦
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 9

a Aron, Robert, 327, 373

Arrabal, Fernando, 80-82, 374
Absurdism, 3 Uarresto (Marinetti), 191
Adamov, Arthur, 80, 374,467,499, 501; La Artaud, Antonin, 2-3,18, 35, 373-77,498;
grande et la petite manoeuvre, 468; The The Burnt Belly, or The Crazy Mother,
Invasion, 32,467; The Parody, 467-69; Le 373-74; The Cenci, 373, 375, 376; collab­
ping-pong, 470 orations with Roger Vitrac, 327-28, 332;
Aestheticism, 3, 20 influence on avant-garde, 23, 33,467-68,
Akara (Weingarten), 81 470; influence of Jarry, 77, 80-82; The Phi-
Akimov, Nikolai, 22 losopher's Stone, 373; The Spurt of Blood,
Albee, Edward: The American Dream, 33 373, 376; The Theater and Its Double, 322,
The American Dream (Albee), 33 373, 375; Theater of Cruelty, 24, 322, 373-
Ancients and Moderns, Quarrel of the, 13 77,414; To End God's Judgment, 376
Andreyev, Leonid, 8, 202; The Life of Man, Uartiste, le savant et I'industriel (Saint-
182 Simon), 12
Angels in America: Millennium ApproachesAuden,W.H.,4
(Kushner), 34 Audiberti, Jacques, 502
Anouilh,Jean,31,327,501 Augier, Emile, 7,123
Antichrist (Sorge), 207 automatic writing, 19, 327, 364,421
Apollinaire, Guillaume, 3, 369-70; The avant-garde: and evolutionism, 13; definition
Breasts ofTiresias, 23; The Color of Time, of, 12-13; relation to Christianity of, 15;
36 uses of language in, 17-19
Appia, Adolphe, 79 LAvant-Garde (journal), 12
Aquinas, Thomas, 502
Aragon, Louis, 3, 23
Arcadia (Stoppard), 31-32 b
Arcana Coelestia (Swedenborg), 161-67 Bakhterev, Igor, 417,420
Aristophanes, 29,123 Bakunin, Mikhail, 12
Aristotle, 76; unities of, 127
 The Bald Soprano (Ionesco), 32, 82, 380 Briusov, Valery, 8
Balla, Giacomo: Per comprendere il pianto, Brod, Max, 468
193 Brook, Peter, 36, 81, 374; and London The­
Barlach, Ernst: The Poor Cousin, 36 atre of Cruelty, 376
Barrieres (Breton and Soupault), 372 Biichner, Georg, 6,467
he hasi (Marinetti), 192 Bulgakov, Mikhail, 393
Bateau-Lavoir, 38 The Burned House (Strindberg), 128,130
Baty, Gaston, 80 The Burnt Belly, or The Crazy Mother
Baudelaire, Charles, 124 (Artaud), 373-74
Bauhaus, 3,169-70 Buzzi, Paolo: II pesce d'aprile, 193
Beckett, Samuel, 80-81, 393,467; absurdism
of, 501; affinities with Stein, 421,423;
affinities with Witkiewicz, 292; Endgame,
c
82; influence of Artaud, 374; Waiting for cabalism, 131
Godot, 32,499 Cabaret Voltaire, 24, 38,265-66
Bely, Andrei, 8 Caccia allusignolo (Govoni), 192
Benedikt, Michael, 2 Caesar-Antichrist (Jarry), 19
X Bergson, Henri, 14 Camille (Ludlam), 34
g Bernhardt, Sarah, 460 Camus, Albert, 31,423, 50\;The Myth of Sis-
Z Berti, Ettore, 206 yphus, m~500
™ The Birth of Tragedy (Nietzsche), 6 Cangiullo, Francesco, 188; Non c'e un cane,
4 Bjornson, Bjornstjerne, 59 193; Detonation, 188,192-93; Decisione,
co Black and White (Kandinsky), 169, 171 193
3 The Black Glove (Strindberg), 128 Carli, Mario: Stati d'animo, 192
Blau, Herbert, 37 TheCenci (Artaud), 373-76
DerBlaueReiter, 169 Cezanne, Paul, 28, 285,421
Blin, Roger, 468 The Chairs (Ionesco), 502
The Blind (Maeterlinck), 41 chamber theater. See Intimate Theater
Blok, Aleksandr, 8 Die Chaplinade (Go\\), 261
Blooded Thought (Blau), 37 chaos theory, 32
The Blue Bird (Maeterlinck), 42 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 267
Bluebeard (Ludlam), 34 Chekhov, Anton, 467; Ivanov, 6; The Seagull,
Boccioni, Umberto, 187; II corpo che sale, 72; Uncle Vanya, 74-75
193; Futurist Painting and Sculpture, 187; Un chiaro di luna (Marinetti), 192
Genius and Culture, 187; Kultur, 191; Chirico, Giorgio de, 369
"Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting," Chiti, Remo, 206
187 Chong, Ping, 33
Bocklin, Arnold, 131 Churchill, Caryl, 36
Bonnard, Pierre, 77 Claudel, Paul, 15,202
Booth, Edwin, 460 Cocteau, Jean, 3, 5,467; Parade, 36
Braque, Georges, 29,421 The Color of Time (Apollinaire), 36
Bread and Puppet Theatre, 33 Colon (Depero), 192
The Breasts ofTiresias (Apollinaire), 23 communism, 21-22
Brecht, Bertolt, 467,498; and alienation Comte, Auguste, 14
effect, 1 - 2 ; The Life of Galileo, 1-2; Concerning the Spiritual in Art (Kandinsky),
Mother Courage and Her Children, 1 - 2 169
Breton, Andre, 3, 8, 265, 328, 364, 373; and The Connection (Gelber), 33
automatic writing, 19, 421; First Surrealist Constructivism, 209
Manifesto, 19, 327, 364; IfYou Please, Copeau, Jacques, 321; theatrical innovations
329-30, 364; The Magnetic Fields, 19, 364, of, 23
372 Copenhagen (Frayn), 31-32
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 13
Coriolanus (Shakespeare), 268
II corpo che sale (Boccioni), 193
Corra, Bruno, 191-92, 206; Passatismo, 193;
Verso la conquista, 193; Dalla finestra, 193
Correspondences, 169-86
Country Passions (Briusov), 62
Craig, Edward Gordon, 79-80; Uber-
marionette, 7, 77
The Crazy Locomotive (Witkiewicz), 291
Cremieux, Benjamin, 321
Cricot II, 292-93
Critique of Judgment (Kant), 28
Critique of Practical Reason (Kant), 28
Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 29
Cubism, 285, 293,421; multiple points of
view, 28
Cummings, E. E., 23; Him, 422
Curtain Raiser (Stein), 462
The Cuttlefish (Witkiewicz), 291
Dada, 2, 5, 22,172, 261,265-89; American,
421-65; and formal similarities to Stein,
422; influence of Jarry on, 77, 81; and
influence on performance art, 37-38; lib­
ertarian individualism of, 8; origin of, 10-
12; and pacificism, 11; Surrealism's break
with, 364; use of enigmatic titles in, 295;
use of language in, 18
Dada Manifesto, 1918 (Tzara), 265
Dalla finestra (Corra and Settimelli), 193
The Dance of Death (Strindberg), 128, 209
D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 9; Piu che VAmore,
204; La Figlia di Jorio, 204
Dante (Alighieri), 166
Daphnis and Chloe (Kandinsky), 171
Darwin, Charles: evolutionary theory, 14
Deafman Glance (Wilson), 34
DeAngelis, Rudolfo, 188
Debussy, Claude: Pelleas and Melisande
(opera), 42
Decisione (Cangiullo), 193
Depero, Fortunato: Colori, 192
Descartes, Rene, 13
Desire Caught by the Tail (Picasso), 36
Desnos, Robert, 5, 368
Detonation (Cangiullo), 188,192-93
Deutsches Theater, 209-10
Diderot, Denis, 14
Dissonanza (Corra and Settimelli), 191
Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (Stein), 421
The Double Garden (Maeterlinck), 41
A Dream Play (Strindberg), 24-25,128
Duchamp, Marcel: "ready-mades," 11
Dullin, Charles, 23, 373
Dumas, Alexandre, fils, 7, 59, 123
Duncan, Isadora, 461
The Earth (Briusov), 62
Einstein, Albert: theory of relativity, 27
Eisenstein, Sergei, 38
Electra (Strauss), 461
Eliot, T. S., 4; The Waste Land, 130
Elizabeth Bam (Vvedensky), 393,414,420
Emerson, Ralph Waldo: Representative Men,
164 2
Endgame (Beckett), 82
Enlightenment, 13-17
Entree libre (Vitrzc), 328, 331 ♦
environmental theater, 37
Erdman, Nikolai, 393
esperpentos, 32
Esslin, Martin, 30-32,498
Euripides, 263
Evreinov, Nikolai: Introduction to Mono-
drama, 62
existentialism, 31, 502
Expressionism, 1-2, 5, 207-63, 266; acting
style for, 25; and the machine age, 29; epi­
sodic dream structure of plays, 25; influ­
ence of film on, 3; and influence on Ada-
mov, 467; and influence on Kandinsky,
171; and relation to communism, 24;
Strindberg's influence on, 127-29; use of
dreams in, 24-25; Witkiewicz's affinities
with, 292
Falck, August, 128
The Father (Strindberg), 127
Faulkner, William, 4
Ferdinand, Franz (archduke), 20
La Figlia di Jorio (D'Annunzio), 204
Figural Cabinet I and II (Schlemmer), 36
film: influence on avant-garde drama, 2-3
"Film No. 1" (Razumovsky and Mints), 419
Filonov, Pavel, 416
 First Celestial Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine Gorky, Maxim, 467
(Tzara), 265 Govoni, Corrado: Caccia alVusignolo, 192
First Surrealist Manifesto (Breton), 19, 327, Grabbe, Christian Dietrich, 6, 28
364 Grand Union, 37
Fischer, Samuel, 209 La grande et la petite manoeuvre (Adamov),
Les Flaireurs (Van Lerberghe) 124 468
The Flies (Sartre), 31 The Green Sound (Kandinsky), 169, 171
Foreman, Richard, 421 Grosz, Georg, 261
"Fountain" (Duchamp), 11 Grotesque, 263. See also Pirandello, Luigi
Four Saints in Three Acts (Stein), 421,463-64 Grotowski, Jerzy, 36, 374
Frayn, Michael: Copenhagen, 31-32 guignol, 80
Freud, Sigmund, 14,17, 365-66, 369; influ­
ence on the avant-garde, 24-26; The Inter-
pretation of Dreams, 25
h
Futurism, 2-5, 22,182,187-206, 265, 285, Hamlet (Shakespeare), 56, 74,167,460
379; and Fascism, 10; and the machine Hamsun, Knut, 369
age, 21; artistic expansionism of, 8; audi- Handke, Peter: The Ride Across Lake Con-
X ence response to, 10; and influence on per- stance, 33
JJJ formance art, 37-38; and obsession with happenings, 36-37. 189
2 war, 24 Hardt, Ernst, 208
™ Futurist Painting and Sculpture (Boccioni), Hartmann, Thomas von, 169
i 187 Hasenclever, Walter, 25, 209-11
oo "Futurist Variety Theater" (Marinerti), 3 Hassan, Ihab, 3 5
Hauptmann, Gerhart, 42, 59, 208

s Heaven and Hell (Swedenborg), 130-31

Hebbel, Friedrich, 5
Galilei, Galileo, 13 Hegel, Friedrich, 14, 370
Garcia Lorca, Federico, 30 Heisenberg, Werner: indeterminacy (uncer­
The Gas Heart (Tzara), 265 tainty) principle, 130
Gas Masks (Tretyakov), 38 Henry VI (Shakespeare), 458
Gelber, Jack; The Connection, 37 Hernani (Hugo), 77
Gemier, Fermin 124 Heym, Georg, 211
Genet, Jean, 81, 374, 501; The Maids, 32 Him (Cummings), 422
Genius and Culture (Boccioni), 187 H.M.S. Pinafore (Gilbert and Sullivan), 459
Geography and Plays (Stein), 462 Hoddis, Jakob von, 211
George, Lloyd, 333-34 Hoffman, Michael, 422
George, Stefan, 208 Hofmannstahl, Hugo von, 209
Gesamtkunstwerk, 8, 171 Hollaender, Felix, 209
Ghelderode, Michel de, 80, 502 Huelsenbeck, Richard, 266
The Ghost Sonata (Strindberg), 24,29, 376 Hugo, Victor: Hernani, 11
Ghosts (Ibsen), 182
Gilbert-Lecomte, Roger, 468 •
Gillette, William, 461
1
Giraudoux, Jean, 31, 501 Ibsen, Henrik, 42,59-61, 76, 202, 204;
The Glass Menagerie (Williams), 1 Ghosts, 182; realistic plays of, 1; social-
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 28, 31; problem plays of, 5; When We Dead
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, 210 Awaken, 74
Gogol, Nikolai, 414,467 Ich-drama, 208
Goll, Yvan, 261: Die Chaplinade, 261; The If You Please (Breton and Soupault), 329-30,
Immortals, 261; Methusalem, oderDer 364
ewige Burger, 261 The Immortals (Goll), 261
Impressionism, 209 Kierkegaard, S0ren, 31
In Circles (Stein), 421 King Lear (Shakespeare), 56
The Inspector General (Terentev), 416 King Ubu (Jarry), 189
Interior (Maeterlinck), 41 Kleist, Heinrich von, 31,467; "On the Mario­
The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud), 25 nette Theater," 7; Penthesilea, 28; Prince
Intimate Theater, 128, 129 Friedrich ofHomburg, 28
Introduction to Monodrama (Evreinov), 62 Kokoschka, Oskar, 38; Sphinx und
An Introduction to the Theory of Pure Form in Strohmann, 266
the Theater (Witkiewicz), 321 Komfeld,Paul,25,209
The Intruder (Maeterlinck), 41 Ki//ri/r (Boccioni), 191
The Invasion (Adamov), 32,467 Kushner, Tony: Angels in America: Millen-
Ionesco, Eugene, 33, 80-81, 393,467,499; nium Approaches, 34
absurdism of, 501; affinities with Stein,
421,423; affinities with Witkiewicz, 292;
The Bald Soprano, 32, 82, 380; The Chairs,
1
502; influence of Artaud, 374; influence Labiche, Eugene, 23,123
on Vitrac, 327; Macbett, 80 Ladies Voices (Stein), 462
It [What] Happened, a Play (Stein), 421 The Larry Sanders Show, 35
Ivanov (Chekhov), 6 Lauckner, Rolf, 209 g
Lautreamont, comte de, 384 "§
Laverdant, Gabriel, 12 ~
J Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 164 ^
Jameson, Fredric, 35 Lenin, V. L, 22, 24 o>
Janco, Marcel, 266 LePage, Robert, 36 *o
Janulka, Daughter of Fizdejko (Witkiewicz), Leprince de Beaumont, Marie, 124
291 Levin, Boris, 418,420
Jarry, Alfred, 2,4,6, 33, 38,414; Caesar- The Life of Galileo (Brecht), 1
Antichrist, 19; King Ubu, 189; Messaline, The Life of Man (Andreyev), 182
81; he surmdle, 8\;Ubu Bound, 77; Ubu Lig/zts (Cangiullo), 188
Cuckolded, 11 Linnaeus, Carolus, 164
Jouvet, Louis, 23 The Lion King, 35
Joyce, James, 4; Ulysses, 130 liturgical drama, 207
Judson Poets' Theater, 421 Living Theater, 33, 374
Jung, Carl: Psychology of the Unconscious, 27 Lohengrin (Wagner), 459
London Theatre of Cruelty, 376

k Lorca, Federico Garcia. See Garcia Lorca,

Federico
Kafka, Franz, 414,468, 501 Loti, Pierre, 125
Kaiser, Georg, 23, 25 The Lucky Hand (Schonberg), 36
Kandinsky, Wassily, 8-9; Black and White, Lucy Church, Amiably (Stein), 463
169, 171; Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Ludlam, Charles: Bluebeard, 34; Camille,
169; Daphnis and Chloe, 171; The Green 34
Sound, 169,171; "On Stage Composition," Ludmilla (Pitoeff), 373
169,171; Violet, 169,171 Lugne-Poe, Aurelien, 7,42,77,124, 373
Kant, Immanuel: Critique of Judgment, 28
Critique of Practical Reason, 28; Critique of
Pure Reason, 28
m
Kantor, Tadeusz, 36,292-93 Mabou Mines, 33, 37
Kaprow, Allan, 36 Macbeth (Shakespeare), 56, 77
Kharms, Daniil, 22-23, 379, 393,414,418, Macbett (Ionesco), 80
420 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 13
 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 7,62, 76-77,182, mystery plays. See medieval mystery plays
202,414; The Blind, 41; The Blue Birdy The Myth of Sisyphus (Camus), 498-500
42; Interior, 41; The Intruder, 41; Pelleas
and Melisande, 6-7, 124; Princess Mal-
eine, 41
n
The Magnetic Fields (Breton and Soupault), Nadja (Breton), 328-29, 332
19, 364, 372 Naturalism, 1,4-6,18, 20; acting style of the
The Maids (Genet), 32 Moscow Art Theater, 62; of early Strind­
Malevich, Kasimir, 209,416 berg plays, 127-28; principles and tradi­
Mallarme, Stephane, 4, 8, 62, 124 tions of, 79
Maly Theater, 72 neo-Romanticism, 20, 208
Le mani (Marinetti and Corra), 192 Nerval, Gerard de, 370
Mann, Thomas, 4 Neveux, Georges, 502
Marc, Franz, 169 The New Deliverance (Witkiewicz), 294
Marcel, Gabriel, 321 New Futurist Theatre, 188
Marinetti, Filippo (F. T.), 8, 10, 187-89, 192, Newton, Sir Isaac, 164; theory of causality,
206; Uarresto, 191; "Futurist Variety The- 29
X ater," 3; Vengono, 205 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 14, 25, 207, 296; The
J" Marowitz, Charles, 81 Birth of Tragedy, 6; concept of superman, 9
2 Marx, Karl, 14 Non ce un cane (Cangiullo), 193
"" Marxism, 500 Le nouveau monde (Adam), 73
4 Masson, Andre, 21
O
to
Matisse, Henri, 421
Mayakovsky, Vladimir, 393; Mystery-Bouffe,
o
22,29 Oberiu, 22-23, 389-420
medieval mystery plays, 29, 207 Odysseus (Sorge), 207
Mendes, Catulle, 124 Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), 382
Messaline (Jarry), 81 "On the Marionette Theater" (Kleist), 7
Methusalem, oder Der ewige Burger (Goll), O'Neill, Eugene, 23
261 "On Stage Composition" (Kandinsky), 169,
Meyerhold, Vsevolod, 22 171
Mikhoels, Schlomo, 22 Open Theatre, 33
Miss Julie (Strindberg), 123,127 Operas and Plays (Stein), 463
"The Modern Drama" (Maeterlinck), 41 Orton, Joe, 32
Modernism, 3-6, 34; and thematic preoc­ Othello (Shakespeare), 56
cupation with the city, 4; versus "Moder­ Our Town (Wilder), 422-23
nity," 3 Overboard (Vinaver), 33-34
Moliere, 62 Oxtiem, ou Les Malheurs du libertinage
monodrama, 62 (Sade), 14
Montaigne, Michel de, 13
Montesquieu, Charles de, 14
Moscow Art Theater, 62, 72-75 P
Mother Courage and Her Children (Brecht), Paoli Paoli (Adamov), 467
1-2 Parade (Cocteau), 36
Mrozek, Slawomir, 393 The Parody (Adamov), 467
MTV, 35 Pascal, Blaise, 13
Muller, Heiner, 36 Passatismo (Corra and Settimelli), 193
Musset, Alfred de, 124 Pataphysics, 77-125. See also Jarry, Alfred
Mussolini, Benito, 189, 333-34 The Paunch of the Vase (Cangiullo), 188
The Mysteries of Love (Vitrac), 327, 373 Peer Gynt (Ibsen), 124
Mystery-Bouffe (Mayakovsky), 22, 29 The Pelican (Strindberg), 128
Pelleas and Melisande (Maeterlinck), 6-7;
opera form, 42,124
Penthesilea (Kleist),.28
Per comprendere ilpianto (Balla), 193
Peret, Benjamin, 23
performance art, 36-37
II pesce d'aprile (Buzzi), 193
Petrolini, Ettore, 206
The Philosopher's Stone (Artaud), 373
Picabia, Francis, 265
Picasso, Pablo, 28, 323-34,421; Desire
Caught by the Tail, 36
Pichette, Henri, 502
Piedigrotta (Cangiullo), 188
Le ping-pong (Adamov), 470
Pinter, Harold, 393,421,498,499
Pirandello, Luigi, 4, 33; Six Characters in
Search of an Author, 23, 373
Pitoeff, Georges, 23; Ludmilla, 373
Piu che VAmore (D'Annunzio), 204
Pixerecourt, Rene Charles Guibert de, 23
Poggioli, Renato, 4, 30
The Poor Cousin (Barlach), 36
postmodernism, 34-35, 37
Pound, Ezra, 4
Poupees electriques (Marinetti), 189
Pratella, Balilla, 206
Prince Friedrich ofHomburg (Kleist), 28
Princess Maleine (Maeterlinck), 41
problem plays, 1. See also social-problem
plays
Prometheus (Scriabin), 169,181
Prometheus (Sorge), 207
Proust, Marcel, 4
psychoanalysis, 25-27
Psychology of the Unconscious (Jung), 27
puppet theater, 7
Pythagoras, 164
r Verso la conquista, 193; Dalla finestra, 193
Rabelais, Franc, ois, 123
Radiks, 379
Realism, 1,4-6,18, 20,79, 263,414
Reinhardt, Max, 209-10
Repin, Elias, 415
Representative Men (Emerson), 164
Revolution, Russian, 21, 22, 24, 26,62,467
The Ride Across Lake Constance (Handke),
33
Ridiculous Theater, 34
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 4
Rimbaud, Arthur, 4,62,124, 364, 384
Rodrigues, Olinde, 12
Le Roi Bombance (Marinetti), 189
Romanticism, 22, 25, 31, 56, 60, 77, 270; and
Modernism, 3; subjectivity of, 28
Romashov, Boris, 393
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 56
Rousseau, Henri, 14; A Visit to the Paris
Exposition of1889, 36
Rozewicz, Tadeusz, 393
s
Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von, 14
Sade, marquis de: Oxtiern, ou Les Malheurs
du libertinage, 14
Saint-Pol-Roux, 368
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de: L'artiste, le
savant et Vindustriel, 12
Salacrou, Armand, 31, 501
Sardou, Victorien, 23
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 423, 501; The Flies, 31
Schechner, Richard, 37
Schehade, Georges, 502
Schelling, Friedrich, 25
Schiller, Friedrich, 28, 31
Schlemmer, Oskar, 209; Figural Cabinet I
and II, 36
Schbnberg, Arnold: The Lucky Hand, 36
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 25
Scriabin, Alexander: Prometheus, 169, 181
Scribe, Augustin, 7, 23
The Seagull (Chekhov), 72
Second Surrealist Manifesto (Breton), 364
Sellars, Peter, 36
Serban, Andrei, 36
Serreau, Genevieve, 468
Settimelli, Emilio, 191, 206; Passatismo, 193;
Shakespeare, William, 123-24, 204, 210,
263, 326, 384,457; Coriolanus, 268; Ham-
let, 56, 74,167,460; King Lear, 56; Mac-
beth, 56, 77; Othello, 56; Romeo and Juliet,
56
Shaw, George Bernard, 202
Shepard, Sam: Suicide in B-Flat, 29
Sherrell, Richard, 469
Simultaneity (Marinetti), 192
Six Characters in Search of an Author (Piran­
dello), 23, 373
 Slowacki, Juliusz, 326
socialist realism, 22, 292, 379, 393
social-problem play, 5. See also problem
plays
Sokel, Walter, 2
Solarljou (Poetic, or Elder, Edda), 131-32
Sophocles, 210, 383
Sorge, Reinhard, 15, 25; Odysseus, 207; Pro-
metheus, 207; Antichrist, 207
Soupault, Philippe, 23, 369, 370; If You
Please, 329-30, 364; The Magnetic Fields,
19
Sphinx und Strohmann (Kokoschka), 266
Spinoza, Baruch, 502
Spring Awakening (Wedekind), 209
The Spurt of Blood (Artaud), 373, 376
ing of, 26; and relation to communism, 24;
Sorge's influence on, 209; Strindberg's
influence on, 128-29
Sutherland, Donald, 422
Symbolism, 2 - 3 , 5, 8, 20, 33,41-76; and
interest in mysticism, 26; Jarry's influence
on, 79; Marinetti's early association with,
189; Strindberg's affinities with, 129; sub­
jectivity in, 6; and synesthesia, 36; and the­
ory of correspondences, 171
Symbolist drama: acting style for, 7
Symbolist theater: design for, 7
Synge, John Millington, 42
Swedenborg, Emanuel, 130-32, 370; Arcana
Cozlestia, 161-67

X
Stanislavksy, Konstantin, 42
Stati d'animo (Carli), 192
t
S Stein, Gertrude, 18, 23,421; Curtain Raiser, Taine, Hippolyte, 14
Q Tairov, Aleksandr, 22
Z 462; Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, 421; Taymor, Julie; The Lion King, 35
~ Four Saints in Three Acts, 421,463-64; Teatrino delVamore, 192
I Geography and Plays, 462; In Circles, 421; "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting"
Oi It Happened, a Play, 421; Ladies Voices, (Boccioni), 187
*n> 462; Lucy Church, Amiably, 463; Operas Terentev, Igor, 389
and Plays, 463; "What Happened, a Play," Theater of the Absurd, 32-33,42,77,128,
462 292,327,380,423,467-502
Stevens, Wallace, 4 The Theater and Its Double (Artaud), 322,
Stoppard, Tom: Arcadia, 31-32 373, 375
Storm Weather (Strindberg), 128 Theater Cricot, 293
Strindberg, August, 2, 34,42; The Black Theater of Cruelty, 24, 322, 373-77,414
Glove, \2S; The Burned House, 128,130; Theater of Pure Form, 291-326
The Dance of Death, 128, 209; A Dream "The Theater of Surprise" (Marinetti), 188
Play, 24-25, 128; dream plays of, 24-25, Theater of Surprise Company, 188
467; The Father, 127; The Ghost Sonata, Theatre Alfred-Jarry, 327, 373
24, 29, 376; Miss Julie, 123,127; naturalis­ Theatre d'Art, 42
tic plays of, 1; The Pelican, 128; Storm Theatre Michel, 265
Weather, 128; To Damascus, 24, 127, 208 Theatre de l'Oeuvre, 7-8,42,124,189, 265
Studio des Champs-Elysees, 468 theosophy, 131
Suicide in B-Flat (Shepard), 29 Tieck, Ludwig, 6, 28
supernaturalism, 370. See also Surrealism To Damascus (Strindberg), 24,127,208
Le surmale (Jarry), 81 To End God's Judgment (Artaud), 376
Surrealism, 2 - 3 , 5, 22-23, 292-93, 295-96, Toklas, Alice B., 421
327-72 (see also Breton, Andre; super- Toller, Ernst, 23, 25, 211
naturalism); Adamov's association with, Der Tor und der Tod (Hofmannstahl), 209
467; American, 421-65; birth of, 265; and total theater, 41,44
collages and objects, 17; definition of, 23; Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 77
dreams and madness in, 17; film's influ­ The Treasure of the Humble (Maeterlinck),
ence on, 3; and formal similarities to Stein, 41
422; and influence of Jarry, 77, 81; and Tretyakov, Sergei: Gas Masks, 38
influence on performance art, 37-38; and Tzara, Tristan, 8, 10,18, 265, 364
the machine age, 29; psychological prob­
u w
Ubermarionette. See Craig, Edward Gordon Wagner, Richard, 182-84; Gesamtkunstwerk,
Ubu Bound (Jarry), 77 8,171
Ubu Cuckolded (]any), 77 Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 32,499
Ulysses (Joyce), 130 The Waste Land (Eliot), 130
Uncle Tom's Cabin (Stowe), 459 The Water Hen (Witkiewicz), 291
Uncle Vanya (Chekhov), 74-75 The Wayfarer (Briusov), 62
Unruh, Fritz von, 211 Wedekind, Frank, 38; Spring Awakening,
209
v "Weights, Measures, and Prices of Artistic
Genius" (Futurist manifesto), 205
Vache, Jacques, 364 Weil, Simone, 14
Vaginov, Konstantin, 417 Weingarten, Romain; Akara, 81
Vakhtangov, Evgeny, 22 well-made play, 20-21
Valery, Paul, 364 Wellwarth, George, 2
Valle-Inclan, Ramon Maria del, 32 Weston, Jessie L., 130
"The Variety Theater" (Marinetti), 189, 205 What Is Surrealism? (Breton), 364
"Variety Theater Manifesto" (Marinetti), 188 When We Dead Awaken (Ibsen), 74
Vauthier,Jean,81,502 Wilde, Oscar, 42,62 -g
Vengono (Marinetti), 192 Wilder, Thornton, 421; Our Town, 422-23 £
Verhaeren, Emile, 125 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Goethe), 210 ♦
Verlaine, Paul, 62,124 Williams, Tennessee: The Glass Menagerie, 1 *
Verso la conquista (Corra and Settimelli), 193Wilson, Robert, 421; Deafman Glance, 34 c3
Vian, Boris, 81-82 Witkiewicz, Stanislaw Ignacy (Witkacy), 22-
Victor, or The Children Take Over (Vitrac), 23; The Crazy Locomotive, 291; The Cut-
327,333,373 tlefish, 291; Janulka, Daughter of Fizdejko,
Vilar, Jean, 468 291; The Water Hen, 291
Villiers de l'lsle Adam, Auguste, 73; he Woolf, Virginia, 4
nouveau monde, 73 Wooster Group, 33
Vinaver, Michel: Overboard, 33-34
Vio/er(Kandinsky), 169,171
y
A Visit to the Paris Exposition of 1889 (Rous­
seau), 36 Yeats,W.B.,4,42
Vitrac, Roger, 23, 327, 373; The Mysteries of Yes Is for a Very Young Man (Stein), 421
Love, 327, 373; Victor, or The Children
Take Over, 327, 333,373
Voltaire, 14
z
Vuillard, Edouard, 77 Zabolotsky,Nikita,418
Vvedensky, Aleksandr, 22-23, 389, 392-93, Zoncada, Luigi, 206
414,417