Reflections on the Theatre: And Other Writings

(Paperback, Main)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Jean Genet's The Screens, hailed by many to be Genet's masterpiece, was staged in Paris in 1966 by the Jean-Louis Barrault-Madeleine Renaud Company. This epic 62-character play almost defies staging and, written at the height of the Algerian War, was initially considered unperformable in France due to the violent political reactions it was bound to arouse. It is one of the most original examples of the avant-garde theatre of the 1960s. all of Samuel Beckett's early plays. Blin giving his views on every aspect of The Screens' staging. His comments deal with the details of that play and that production, but also transcend them. What these letters add up to is a precise and fascinating compilation of Jean Genet's concept of the theatre. contains two essays by Genet, originally published in the French periodical Un Tel, giving his striking and highly personal views on life and art.

Author Bio

Jean Genet was born in Paris in 1910. An illegitimate child who never knew his parents, he was abandoned to the Public Assistance Authorities. He was ten when he was sent to a reformatory for stealing; thereafter he spent time in the prisons of nearly every country he visited in thirty years of prowling through the European underworld. With ten convictions for theft in France to his credit he was, the eleventh time, condemned to life imprisonment. Eventually he was granted a pardon by President Auriol as a result of appeals from France's leading artists and writers led by Jean Cocteau.$$$His first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers, was written while he was in prison, followed by Miracle of the Rose, the autobiographical The Thief's Journal, Querelle of Brest and Funeral Rites. He wrote six plays: The Balcony, The Blacks, The Screens, The Maids, Deathwatch and Splendid's (the manuscript of which was rediscovered only in 1993). Jean Genet died in 1986.