So, since we’re all trapped inside, I gonna start this again. So I picked up my copy of Best Short Plays of the World Theatre: 1958-1967, edited by Stanley Richards. I’ll go through these plays, read and write about them. There are twenty plays with authors as diverse as Noel Coward and Leroi Jones. It should be interesting.
Oh my! This is a distressing beginning. The first play is The Orchestra by Jean Anouilh, a french playwright who cut his teeth in the avante-garde of the 1930’s. This play was written in the early 1960’s and produced in 1962. It’s not a fun read. I know the Bechtel test didn’t exist at the time but, this play might have benefited from it.
The Orchestra would be extremely difficult to produce as it has as it’s characters an orchestra who is playing in a brasserie somewhere in France after World War II. The orchestra is comprised of seven people; two violinists, a double bassist, a cellist, a violist, a flutist, and a pianist; all are women, except the pianist. The dialogue takes place mostly between numbers, but some of it takes place during them. Ideally, one would need actresses who could play the instruments, or find some theatrical way of having them pretend. Of course, there would be no reason to produce it because it’s a terrible play.
The Play is built around three conversations between two duos of women and a trio comprising two women and the pianist. Pamela and Patricia, the violinists, trade insults about their appearance and Patricia’s virginity and Pamela’s promiscuity. Emmeline, the violist, rants about her lover or husband, and their arguments to flutist Leona’s sycophantic replies. Madame Hortense, the bassist and leader of the orchestra flits about, handing out sheet music and maternally flirting with the pianist under the jealous eyes of his lover, Suzanne the cellist.
Despite a cast of nearly all older women, the talk almost all about men. The lone man is weak, trapped in a loveless marriage with an invalid wife. He is sleeping with the cellist, who exhibits all the cliches of the “psycho-girlfriend.” The only part of the play that does not exhibit an unpleasant fascination with sexual politics happens when Patricia complains of her need to “care” for her senile mother whom she lives with. Basically, she talks about how she must abuse her mother to make her behave in a long monologue. Simultaneously, Pamela rationalizes abandoning her daughter for her various lover as the two talk across each other.
Things come to a head when Suzanne confronts the pianist about his lackluster loving in probably the only remotely interesting writing in the play as she laments their love being restricted by their watches. She causes a scene which gets the orchestra in trouble with the unseen manager of the brasserie. Overcome and upset, she runs to the bathroom giving Madam Hortense a chance to press her advantage with the pianist. He breaks into the longest monologue in the play, a disturbing tirade about how he lusts helplessly after all the women he sees, and goes to the beach to imagine having sex with all the bikini clad women there, some of it consensual and some not.
Suzanne shoots herself in the bathroom. The Manager comes angrily to the stage and fires the orchestra, demanding that they play one last song to distract the unseen customers from the suicide. The play ends.
I just don’t get it. Perhaps in the original french there was something poetic about the writing. Apart from the watch monologue, this translation conveys none. If there is some analogy in the story I don’t see it. Perhaps I’m too removed from 1960’s France to understand. This play left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth. I’ve read very few play that I wish I hadn’t. This was one.
Oh my! This is a distressing beginning. The first play is The Orchestra by Jean Anouilh, a french playwright who cut his teeth in the avante-garde of the 1930’s. This play was written in the early 1960’s and produced in 1962. It’s not a fun read. I know the Bechtel test didn’t exist at the time but, this play might have benefited from it.
The Orchestra would be extremely difficult to produce as it has as it’s characters an orchestra who is playing in a brasserie somewhere in France after World War II. The orchestra is comprised of seven people; two violinists, a double bassist, a cellist, a violist, a flutist, and a pianist; all are women, except the pianist. The dialogue takes place mostly between numbers, but some of it takes place during them. Ideally, one would need actresses who could play the instruments, or find some theatrical way of having them pretend. Of course, there would be no reason to produce it because it’s a terrible play.
The Play is built around three conversations between two duos of women and a trio comprising two women and the pianist. Pamela and Patricia, the violinists, trade insults about their appearance and Patricia’s virginity and Pamela’s promiscuity. Emmeline, the violist, rants about her lover or husband, and their arguments to flutist Leona’s sycophantic replies. Madame Hortense, the bassist and leader of the orchestra flits about, handing out sheet music and maternally flirting with the pianist under the jealous eyes of his lover, Suzanne the cellist.
Despite a cast of nearly all older women, the talk almost all about men. The lone man is weak, trapped in a loveless marriage with an invalid wife. He is sleeping with the cellist, who exhibits all the cliches of the “psycho-girlfriend.” The only part of the play that does not exhibit an unpleasant fascination with sexual politics happens when Patricia complains of her need to “care” for her senile mother whom she lives with. Basically, she talks about how she must abuse her mother to make her behave in a long monologue. Simultaneously, Pamela rationalizes abandoning her daughter for her various lover as the two talk across each other.
Things come to a head when Suzanne confronts the pianist about his lackluster loving in probably the only remotely interesting writing in the play as she laments their love being restricted by their watches. She causes a scene which gets the orchestra in trouble with the unseen manager of the brasserie. Overcome and upset, she runs to the bathroom giving Madam Hortense a chance to press her advantage with the pianist. He breaks into the longest monologue in the play, a disturbing tirade about how he lusts helplessly after all the women he sees, and goes to the beach to imagine having sex with all the bikini clad women there, some of it consensual and some not.
Suzanne shoots herself in the bathroom. The Manager comes angrily to the stage and fires the orchestra, demanding that they play one last song to distract the unseen customers from the suicide. The play ends.
I just don’t get it. Perhaps in the original french there was something poetic about the writing. Apart from the watch monologue, this translation conveys none. If there is some analogy in the story I don’t see it. Perhaps I’m too removed from 1960’s France to understand. This play left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth. I’ve read very few play that I wish I hadn’t. This was one.
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