THE THEATRE IN PARIS
THE French theatre, we are often told, is better than our own. What• ever the quality of the production, there is one element of superiority that remains constant. It seems that in France there are writers actually engaged in turning out plays, and plays of ideas at that. But, once over the shock of this initial discovery, the critic may be allowed to ask whether the success of the French Theatre depends entirely on the intellectual treatment of serious themes Have not the passions had something to say since Racine ? And what is the French theatre ? Is it Anouilh, whom some English critics think a great playwright, or is it Sartre, who very possibly is a .great playwright ? Is it the bravura of Montherlant or the basic metaphysics of Samuel Beckett ? A tour of Parisian theatres suggestS these questions, if only because the scales seem to be weighted rather heavily against the play of ideas.
Certainly, M. Julien Green's play Sud at the Athenee deals with 0, social problem—that of homosexuality—but the approach is personal and passionate. At the outbreak of the American Civil War Lieu. tenant Jan Wicziewslcy is on a visit to a plantation near Charleston, There he falls in love with Eric MacClure, the son of a neighbouring planter. Horrified at himself, he tries to escape by proposing to Angelina, the daughter of the house, and, after the failure of this attempt at liberation, provokes MacClure to a duel and is killed by him. In short, a tragedy and a good tragedy in spite of the oppres' sively deep Southern atmosphere. We could have done without the old negro prophesying the doom of the whites and the references to flagellation which seem such an obsessional part of plays set sou of the Mason-Dixon line. The central theme, however, is handle with force combined with a real tact and modesty of emphasis.
On the left bank at the Noctambules we find another tragedy of passionate excess. Ugo Betti's characters in L'Ile des Chevres come also from the south,but from the passionate ungenteel south of Italy, Angelo comes to a house inhabited by three women—the widow sisker and daughter of a professor. The play is the story of how lie first seduces them and is later trapped by them and left to die at the bottom of a well. The sex war is fought between Angelo, remarkably played by Alain Cuny, and the widow, Agata, to whom Silvia Mon' fort gives a cold ferocity. On another level it is a struggle between the instinctive and the rational, the animal and the ideal. It is to her ideals that Agata sacrifices Angelo as she has already sacrificei her husband, and the voice calling out of the well is truly the voice oft the dead. This tragedy is a memorable and moving experience. it draws on the primitive depths that inspire so much Italian writing and the beauty of the symbolism is enchanting and appalling. Here is a play that, while essentially pagan, is yet a rite. It should be seen in Paris. It should be performed in London. • And the French theatre ? Where is the wit, the clarity and Intel' ligence we usually associate with it ? Of course, there is alwaYs M. Marcel Ayme's bitter comedy La Tete des Autres at the Renais' sance. There are ideas there—but what ideas : the cynical sweeping from the back-stairs of French life. I would exchange any numbel, of such comedies for one Ile des Chevres. We must face the dreadful truth : the best play on the French stage at the moment is by an Italian, and its qualities are poetic and irrational. But Pascal, at
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