Anouilh, Jean 1910–1987

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Anouilh, Jean 1910–1987

(Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh)

PERSONAL: Surname pronounced "Ahn-wee"; born June 23, 1910, in Bordeaux, France; died of a heart attack, October 3, 1987, in Lausanne, Switzerland; son of François (a tailor) and Marie-Magdeleine (a pianist; maiden name, Soulue) Anouilh; married Monelle Valentin (divorced); married Nicole Lancon, July 30, 1953; children: (first marriage) Catherine; (second marriage) Caroline, Nicolas, Marie-Colombe. Education: College Chaptal, baccalaureate; Sorbonne, University of Paris, law student, 1931–32.

CAREER: Writer, 1929–87. Advertising copywriter, author of publicity scripts and comic gags for films, 1929–32; secretary to theatrical company Comédie des Champs-Elysees, Paris, France, 1931–32. Also directed several films in France. Military service: Served in the French Army during the 1930s.

AWARDS, HONORS: Grand Prix du Cinema Francais, 1949, for film Monsieur Vincent; Antoinette Perry ("Tony") Award and citation from the cultural division of the French Embassy, both 1955, both for Thieves' Carnival (New York production); New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best foreign play of 1956–57, and nominee for the Antoinette Perry ("Tony") Award for best play, 1957, both for Waltz of the Toreadors; nominee for the Antoinette Perry ("Tony") Award for best play, 1958, for Time Remembered; Prix Dominique for the direction of film Madame M., 1959; Evening Standard newspaper drama award and Antoinette Perry ("Tony") Award for best foreign play of the year, both 1961, both for Becket; or, The Honor of God; Evening Standard newspaper drama award for best play of the year, 1963, for Poor Bitos; first prize for best play of the year, Syndicate of French Drama Critics, 1970, for Cher Antoine; ou, l'amour raté and Les poissons rouges; ou, mon père, ce héros; Paris Critics Prize, 1971, for Ne réveillez pas madame.

WRITINGS:

PLAYS

(With Jean Aurenche) Humulus le muet, Éditions Françaises Nouvelles (Grenoble, France), 1929.

L'hermine, first produced at Théâtre de l'Oeuvre, Paris, France, 1932.

Mandarine, first produced at Théâtre de l'Athénée, Paris, France, 1933.

Y'avait un prisonnier, first produced at Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris, France, 1935.

Le voyageur sans bagage (first produced at Théâtre des Mathurins, Paris, France, 1937; English translation by Lucienne Hill produced in New York at ANTA Theatre, 1964), translation by John Whiting published as Traveller without Luggage, Methuen (London, England), 1959, edition edited by Diane Birckbichler, Ann Dubé, and Walter Meiden published under original title, Holt, Rinehart (New York, NY), 1973.

La sauvage (first produced at Théâtre des Mathurins, Paris, France, 1938), translation by Lucienne Hill published as Restless Heart, Methuen (London, England), 1957.

Le bal des voleurs (first produced at Théâtre des Arts, Paris, France, 1938; produced at Théâtre des Quatre Saisons, New York, NY, 1938; English version produced as Thieves' Carnival at Cherry Lane Theatre, New York, 1955), Éditions Fran?aises Nouvelles (Grenoble, France), 1945, translation by Lucienne Hill published as Thieves' Carnival, Samuel French (New York, NY), 1952.

Le rendez-vous de Senlis (first produced at Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, France, 1938; produced as Dinner with the Family, at Gramercy Arts Theatre, New York, NY, 1961), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France, France), 1958, translation by Edwin Owen Marsh published as Dinner with the Family, Methuen (London, England), 1958.

Léocadia (first produced at Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, France, 1939; produced as Time Remembered, at Morosco Theater, New York, NY, 1957; translation by Stephanie L. Debner and Jeffrey Hatcher produced as To Fool the Eye, Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, MN, 2000), Appleton (New York, NY), 1965, translation by Patricia Moyes published as Time Remembered, Methuen (London, England), 1955, Coward (New York, NY), 1958, edition edited by Bettina L. Knapp and Alba della Fazia published under original title, Appleton-Century-Crofts (New York, NY), 1965.

Eurydice (first produced at Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, France, 1941; produced in English at Coronet Theatre, Hollywood, CA, 1948), annotation by Rambert George, Bordas (Paris, France), 1968, translation by Kitty Black published as Point of Departure, Samuel French (New York, NY), 1951, second English translation published as Legend of Lovers, Coward (New York, NY), 1952.

Antigone (first produced at Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, France, 1944; produced in English at Cort Theatre, New York, NY, 1946), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1946, translation by Lewis Galan-tiere, Random House (New York, NY), 1946, new edition edited by Raymond Laubreaux, Didier (Paris, France), 1977, excerpts published as Antigone: Extraits, Bordas (Paris, France), 1968.

Roméo et Jeannette, first produced at Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, France, 1946, translation by Miriam John produced as Jeannette, at Maidman Playhouse, New York, NY, 1960.

L'invitation au château (first produced at Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, France, 1947; produced as Ring around the Moon, at Martin Beck Theatre, New York, NY, 1950), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1948, edited by D.J. Conlon, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1962, translation by Christopher Fry published as Ring around the Moon, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1950, French (London, England), 1976.

Épisode de la vie d'un auteur, first produced in Paris, France, at Comédie des Champs-Elysees, 1948; translation produced as Episode in the Life of an Author in Buffalo, NY, at Studio Arena Theatre, September, 1969.

Ardèle; ou, la Marguerite (first produced with Épisode de la vie d'un auteur, in Paris, France, at Comédie des Champs-Elysees, 1948; produced as Cry of the Peacock, at Mansfield Theatre, New York, NY, 1950), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1949, Le Livre de Poche (Paris, France), 1970, translation by Lucienne Hill published as Ardèle, Methuen (London, England), 1951.

Cécile; ou, l'École des pères (first produced in Paris, France, at Comédie des Champs-Elysees, 1949), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1954.

La répétition; ou, l'amour puni (first produced at Théâtre Marigny, Paris, France, 1950; produced in New York at Ziegfield Theatre, 1952), La Palatine (Geneva, Switzerland), 1950, critical edition, Bordas (Paris, France), 1970, translation by Pamela Hansford Johnson and Kitty Black published as The Rehearsal, Coward (New York, NY) 1961.

Colombe (first produced at Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, France, 1951; adaptation by Denis Cannan produced at Longacre Theatre, New York, NY, 1954), Livre de Poche, 1963, translation by Denis Cannan published by Methuen (London, England), 1954.

Monsieur Vincent (dialogue), Beyerische Schuelbuch-Verlag, 1951.

La valse des toréadors (English translation produced at Coronet Theatre, New York, NY, 1957), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1952, translation by Lucienne Hill published as The Waltz of the Toreadors, Elek, 1956, Coward (New York, NY) 1957.

L'alouette (first produced at Théâtre Montparnasse, Paris, France, 1953; adaptation by Lillian Hellman produced as The Lark at Longacre Theatre, New York, NY, 1955), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1953, edited by Merlin Thomas and Simon Lee, with exercises and vocabulary by Bert M.P. Leefmans, Appleton (New York, NY), 1956, translation by Christopher Fry published as The Lark, Methuen (London, England), 1955, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1956, translation by Lillian Hellman published as The Lark, Random House (New York, NY), 1956.

Médée (first produced at Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris, France, 1953; also see below), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1953.

Ornifle; ou, le courant d'air (first produced in Paris, France, at Comédie des Champs-Elysees, 1955), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1955, translation by Lucienne Hill published as Ornifle: A Play, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1970.

Pauvre Bitos; ou, le dîner de têtes (first produced at Théâtre Montparnasse, Paris, France, 1956; produced in English in New York at Classic Stage Repertory, 1969), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1958, translation by Lucienne Hill published as Poor Bitos, Coward (New York, NY) 1964.

L'hurluberlu; ou, le réactionnaire amoureux (first produced in Paris, France, dat Comédie des Champs-Elysees, 1959; produced in English at ANTA Theatre, New York, NY, 1959), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1959, translation by Lucienne Hill published as The Fighting Cock, Coward (New York, NY) 1960.

Becket; ou, l'honneur de Dieu (first produced at Théâtre Montparnasse-Gaston Baty, Paris, France, 1959; produced as Becket, at St. James Theatre, New York, NY, 1960), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1959, translation by Lucienne Hill published as Becket; or, The Honor of God, Coward (New York, NY) 1960, with a foreword by André Aciman, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Madame de … (produced with Traveller without Luggage at Arts Theatre, London, England, 1959), translation by John Whiting published by Samuel French (London, England), 1959.

La petite Molière, first produced at Festival of Bordeaux, France, 1960.

La grotte (first produced at Théâtre Montparnasse, Paris, France, 1961; produced in English at Playhouse in the Park, Cincinnati, OH, June, 1967), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1961, translation by Hill published as The Cavern, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1966.

La foire d'empoigne (first produced in Paris, France, 1962), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1961.

L'orchestre (first produced in Paris, France, 1962; produced in English in Buffalo, at Studio Arena Theatre, September, 1969), translation by Miriam John published as The Orchestra, French (New York, NY), 1975.

Fables, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1962.

Le boulanger, la boulangère et le petit mitron (first produced in Paris, France, at Comédie des Champs-Elysées, November 13, 1968; English translation by Lucienne Hill produced at University Theatre, Newcastle, England, fall, 1972), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1969.

Cher Antoine; ou, l'amour raté (first produced in Paris, France, at Comédie des Champs-Elysées, October 1, 1969; produced in English in Cambridge, MA, at Loeb Drama Center of Harvard University, July 20, 1973), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1969, translation by Lucienne Hill published as Dear Antoine; or, The Love That Failed, Hill & Wang, 1971.

Le Théâtre; ou, la vie comme elle est, first produced in Paris, France, at Comédie des Champs-Elysées, 1970.

Ne réveillez pas madame (first produced at Comédie des Champs-Elysées, October 21, 1970), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1970.

Les poissons rouges; ou, mon père, ce héros (first produced at Théâtre de l'Oeuvre, c. 1970), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1970.

Tu étais si gentil quand tu étais petit (first produced at Théâtre Antoine, January 18, 1972), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1972.

Le directeur de l'opera, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1972, translation by Lucienne Hill published as The Director of the Opera, Methuen (London, England), 1973.

Monsieur Barnett (bound with Claude Brulé's Le siècle des lumières), L'Avant-scène du théâtre (Paris, France), 1975.

L'arrestation: Pièce en deux parties, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1975, translation by Lucienne Hill published as The Arrest: A Drama in Two Acts, Samuel French (New York, NY), 1978.

Le scénario, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1976.

Chers Zoiseaux (four-act comedy), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1977.

La culotte, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1978.

Le nombril (produced in English under the title Number One at Queen's Theatre, London, England, April 24, 1984), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1981, translation by Michael Frayn published as Number One, French (New York, NY), 1985.

OEdipe, ou, Le roi boiteux: d'après Sophocle, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1986.

Thomas More, ou, L'homme libre, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1987.

Vive Henri IV!, ou, La Galigaï, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 2000.

Also author of plays published in French periodicals, including Attile le magnifique, 1930, Le petit bonheur, 1935, L'incertain, 1938, Oreste, 1945, Jezebel, 1946, and Le songe du critique, 1961.

TRANSLATOR

(And editor) William Shakespeare, Trois Comédies (contains As You Like It, Winter's Tale, and Twelfth Night), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1952.

(With wife Nicole Anouilh) Graham Greene, L'amant complaisant (translation of The Complacent Lover), Laffont, 1962.

(With Claude Vincent) Oscar Wilde, Il est importand dêtre aimé (tranlsation of The Importance of Being Earnest), produced in Paris, France, 1964.

William Shakespeare, Richard III, produced at Théâtre Montparnasse, Paris, France, 1964.

OMNIBUS VOLUMES IN FRENCH

Pièces roses: Le bal des voleurs, Le rendez-vous de Senlis, Léocadia, Éditions Balzac (Paris, France), 1942, 2nd edition, with addition of Humulus le muet, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1958.

Pièces noires: L'hermine, La sauvage, Le voyageur sans bagage, Eurydice, Éditions Balzac (Paris, France), 1942, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1966.

Nouvelles pièces noires: Jézabel, Antigone, Roméo et Jeannette, [and] Médée, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1946, 1967.

Antigone [and] Médée, Le Club Francais du Livre, 1948.

Pièces brillantes: L'invitation au château, Colombe, La répétition; ou, l'amour puni, [and] Cécile; ou, l'École des pères, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1951, 1965.

Deux pièces brillantes: L'invitation au château [and] La répétition; ou, l'amour puni, Le Club Français du Livre, 1953.

La sauvage [and] Le bal des voleurs, Colmann-Levy, 1955.

Antigone [and] L'alouette, Livre Club de Libraire, 1956.

Pièces grinçantes (includes Ardèle; ou, la Marguerite, La valse des toréadors, Ornifle; ou, le courant d'air, and Pauvre Bitos; ou, le dîner de têtes), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1956.

Une piece rose, deux pièces noires (includes Le bal des voleurs, La sauvage, and Eurydice), Club des Libraires de France, 1956.

Le rendez-vous de Senlis [and] Leocadia, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1958.

Le voyageur sans bagage [and] Le bal des voleurs, Édi-tions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1958.

Antigone, Becket, [and] Cécile, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1959.

La sauvage [and] L'invitation au cháteau, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1960.

Pièces costumées (includes L'alouette, Becket; ou, l'honneur de Dieu, and La foire d'empoigne), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1960.

Théâtre complet, six volumes, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1961–63.

Deux pièces roses: Le bal des voleurs [and] Le rendezvous de Senlis, Le Club Francais du Livre, 1963.

Sauvage [and] L'Invitation au château, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1965.

Le rendez-vous de Senlis [and] Léocadia, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1967.

Ardèle; ou, la Marguerite suivi de La valse des toréadors, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1970.

Nouvelles pièces grinçantes (contains L'hurluberlu; ou, le réactionnaire amoreux, La grotte, L'orchestre, Le boulanger, la boulangere, et le petit mitron, and Les poissons rouges; ou, mon père, ce héros), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1970.

Eurydice, suivi de Roméo et Jeannette, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1971.

Pièces baroques (includes Cher Antoine, Ne réveillez pas madame, Le directeur de l'opera), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1974.

Monsieur Barnett [and] L'Orchestre, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1975.

Pièces secrets (includes Tu étais si gentil quand tu étais petit, L'arrestation, and Le scénario), Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1977.

La Foire d'empoigne [and] Cécile: ou, l'École des pères, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1979.

La belle vie [and] Épisode de la vie d'un auteur, Édi-tions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1980.

Pièces farceuses, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1984.

OMNIBUS VOLUMES IN ENGLISH

Antigone [and] Eurydice, Methuen (London, England), 1951.

… Plays, three volumes, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), Volume 1: Five Plays (contains Antigone, Eurydice, The Ermine, The Rehearsal, and Roméo and Jeannette), 1958, Volume 2: Five Plays (contains Restless Heart, Time Remembered, Ardèle, Mademoiselle Colombe, and The Lark), 1959, Volume 3: Seven Plays (contains Thieves' Carnival, Medea, Cecile; or, The School for Fathers, Traveler without Luggage, The Orchestra, Episode in the Life of an Author, and Catch as Catch Can), 1967.

Ardèle [and] Colombe, Methuen (London, England), 1959.

Leocadia [and] Humulus le muet, Harrap, 1961.

Ardèle [and] Pauvre Bitos, Dell (New York, NY), 1965.

The Collected Plays, Methuen, Volume 1 (contains The Ermine, Thieves' Carnival, Restless Heart, Traveller without Luggage, and Dinner with the Family), 1966, Volume 2 (contains Time Remembered, Point of Departure, Antigone, Roméo and Jeannette, and Medea), 1967.

Euridice [and] Médée, edited and with an introduction and notes by E. Freeman, Blackwell (New York, NY), 1984.

Jean Anouilh: Five Plays, with an introduction by Ned Chaillet, Methuen (New York, NY), 1987.

Ring Round the Moon appeared in Three European Plays, edited by E. Martin Browne, Penguin, 1958.

FILMS

(With Jean Aurenche; and director) Le voyageur sans bagage, based on the play by Anouilh, 1944, released in United States as Identity Unknown, Republic, 1945.

(With Jean Bernard-Luc and Maurice Cloche) Monsieur Vincent, 1947; released in United States, Lopert, 1949.

(With Leonardo Bercovici, Forrest Judd, and David Robinson) Monsoon, based on Anouilh's play Roméo et Jeannette, United Artists, 1952.

La mort de Belle (also known as The End of Belle), 1961, released in United States as The Passion of Slow Fire, Trans-Lux Distributing, 1962.

Also author of the films (with André Cerf and J.J. Thoren) La citadelle du silence, based on the story by T.H. Robert, 1937, released in United States as The Citadel of Silence, 1939; (with Jean Aurenche and others) Vous n'avez rien à dáclarer?, 1937, released in United States as Confessions of a Newlywed, 1941; (with Jean Aurenche and others) Dégourdis de la 11ème, 1937; (with Leo Mittler and Victor Trivas) Les otages, 1938, released in United States as The Mayor's Dilemma, 1940; (with Jean Aurenche) Cavalcade d'amour, 1940; (uncredited; with Jacques Viot) Marie-Martine, 1943; (with Julien Duvivier and Guy Morgan) Anna Karenina, based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy, 1948; (with Jean Bernard-Luc) Pattes blanches, 1949; (with Michel Audiard) Caroline chérie, based on the novel by Cécil Saint-Laurent, 1950, released in United States as Dear Caroline, 1954; (with Monelle Valentin; and director) Deux sous de violettes (also known as Two Pennies Worth of Violets), 1951; (with André Barsacq) Le rideau rouge (also known as Ce soir on joue Macbeth, Crimson Curtain, and Les rois d'une nuit), 1952; (with Cécil Saint-Laurent) Un caprice de Caroline chérie (also known as Caroline Cherie), based on the novel by Cécil Saint-Laurent, 1953; Le chevalier de la nuit (also known as Knight of the Night), 1954; La ronde, based on the play by Arthur Schnitzler, 1964; (with Sébastien Japrisot) Piège pour Cendrillon (also known as A Trap for Cinderella), 1965; and A Time for Loving, 1971.

OTHER

(With Pierre Imbourg and Andre Warnod) Michel-Marie Poulain, Braun, 1953.

(With Georges Neveux) Le loup (ballet), score by Henri Dutilleux, Éditions Ricordi, 1953.

(With Leon Thoorens and others) Le dossier Molière, Gerard, 1964.

La vicomtesse d'Eristal n'a pas reçu son balai méca-nique: Souvenirs d'un jeune homme, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 1987.

En marge du théâtre, edited and with noted by Efrin Knight, Éditions de la Table Ronde (Paris, France), 2000.

Also author of ballet Les demoiselles de la nuit, score by Jean-Rene Francaix, 1948. Author of (with others) Robert Brasillach et la gétération perdue, 1987. Contributor to anthologies, including Contemporary Drama, Scribner, 1956; One-Act: Eleven Short Plays of the Modern Theatre, Grove, 1961; Joan of Arc: Fact, Legend, and Literature, Harcourt, 1964; and Masterpieces of Modern French Theatre, Macmillan, 1967.

Also author of teleplays, including (with Nicole Anouilh) Comme il vous plaira, based on the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare, for French television, 1972; Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (miniseries), based on the play by Abbé Prévost, 1978; and La belle vie, for French television, 1979.

ADAPTATIONS: Le rendez-vous de Senlis was adapted as the film Quartieri alti (also known as In High Places), 1945; Antigone was filmed for the television program The Kaiser Aluminum Hour, c. 1956; L'alouette was adapted for German television as Jeanne oder Die Lerche, 1956 and 1966; L'alouette was adapted for television and presented as The Lark, in the "Hallmark Hall of Fame" series, 1956–57; La répétition ou L'amour puni was adapted for television, 1958; Colombe was adapted for television, 1958 and 1960; The Waltz of the Toreadors was filmed for television, 1959; Madame de … was filmed in 1959; Thieves' Carnival was filmed for television, 1959; Léocadia was adapted for television and presented by Compass Productions as Time Remembered for the "Hallmark Hall of Fame" series, 1961; Eurydice, Le rendez-vous de Senlis, Becket; ou, l'honneur de Dieu, La valse des torédors, Le voyageur sans bagages and La grotte were adapted for German television, 1961–63; La valse des toréadors was filmed with the title Waltz of the Toreadors, Continental Distributing, 1962; Dinner with the Family was filmed for television, 1962; Becket; ou, l'honneur de Dieu was filmed with the title Becket, Paramount Pictures, 1963, and television, 1964; La foire d'empoigne was adapted for television as Catch as Catch Can, 1964; Colombe was adapted for television, 1965; an extract from Antigone adapted as I Was Happy Here (also known as Passage of Love and Time Lost and Time Remembered), 1965; La répétition ou L'amour puni was adapted for Swedish television as Repetitionen, 1968; Die Katze appeared on West German television, 1968; Le rendez-vous de Senlis was adapted for Belgian television as Het rendez-vous van Senlis, 1968; Monsieur Barnette, avec l'orchestre was adapted for Swedish television as Monsieur Barnett, 1968, and for West German television as Mister Barnett, 1969; Colombe was produced as an opera at Opéra Comique, Paris, France, c. 1970; L'invitation au château was adapted for television as Einladung ins Schloss (also known as Ring Round the Moon), 1970; Cher Antoine; ou, l'amour raté was adapted for West German television as Cher Antoine oder Die verfehlte Liebe, 1970; Traveller without Luggage was adapted for NET Playhouse in 1971; Ornifle ou le courant d'air was adapted for West German television as Ornifle oder Der erzürnte Himmel, 1972; Antigone was produced in English for "Playhouse New York," Public Broadcasting System, 1972, and adapted for television, 1974; Le bal des voleurs was adapted for Belgian television as Het Dievenbal, 1977; The Rehearsal was adapted for British television, 1977; Le Scénario was adapted for television, 1978; Le songe du critique was filmed for the television program Le petit Théâtre d'Antenne 2, c. 1978; Le diable amoureux was adapted for television, 1991; Colombe was adapted for television, 1996; Skovr¡nok appeared on Slovak television, 1999; Le voy-ageur sans bagages was adapted for Czech television as Cestující bez zavazadel, 2000; L'alouette was adapted for Romanian television as Ciocârlia, 2002; Le voyageur sans bagage was adapted for French television, 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Jean Anouilh was ranked among France's most successful playwrights for more than forty years. One of several theatrical craftsmen whose work marked an exceptionally rich era in French theatre, Anouilh authored numerous dramas that have been performed all over the world. His plays often feature heroes who are forced to desperate confrontations with "a world fueled by cowardice, revenge and hatred," to quote Washington Post contributor Richard Pearson. This expressed horror at mankind's predicament led Anouilh to pen many grim dramas (he called them "black plays" and "grating plays"), but it also spawned humorous pieces that have been compared to the works of Molière. In Jean Anouilh: Stages in Rebellion, Branko Alan Lenski wrote: "For thirty years, through bedroom as well as metaphysical farces, Anouilh has been providing us with his orchestration of the eternal debate between the body and the soul…. [His] voice rises in indignation before certain historical crimes and yet always remains stylized, elegant and perfectly allied to the action on the stage." Sylvie Drake put it more succinctly in the Los Angeles Times. Anouilh, Drake concluded, "was a man of ideas who skillfully disguised them as entertainments."

Anouilh held strong views on the purpose of the theatre. He saw drama as a temporary escape from awareness of the inevitability of death, and he therefore strove to make his work highly theatrical. A London Times reviewer found Anouilh's plays "compellingly watchable," with "dialogue which could be spoken easily and effectively on stage." Nation correspondent Harold Clurman also observed that the playwright desired "to do little more than purvey material for enjoyable theatre-going. But that is only a disguise: Anouilh [possessed] an artistic individuality, deep-rooted in his personality and in the nature of the French nation." Lenski wrote that Anouilh was "the type of playwright who [poured] all his life into his plays, crying, laughing, vituperating, battling, confessing…. Such theatre often exhibits cheap sentimentality, is talkative, abounds in locker-room jokes, relies on vaudeville gimmicks—yet in so doing it is only true to life." The effect of such entertainment, Jack Kroll concluded in Newsweek, is "like a child being held by a sage and cynical uncle who talks seductively of the bittersweet pleasure-pains of life."

Anouilh enjoyed grouping his plays into categories. He did it, he said, to satisfy the public's need for classifications—but it also helped to organize his prolific oeuvre. His categories included pièces noires (black plays), pièces roses (rosy plays), nouvelles pièces noires (new black plays), pièces brillantes (brilliant plays), pièces grinçantes (grating plays), pièces costumées (costume plays), and pièces baroques (baroque plays). In Jean Anouilh, author Alba M. Della Fazia wrote: "In plays classified as 'black,' 'pink,' 'brilliant,' 'jarring,' and 'costumed,' Anouilh treats an assortment of themes that range from the soul of man to the world of men, from the heroism of the individual to the mediocrity of the masses. Some of the plays are heavy and dismal, some are light and fanciful, but all reveal the author's profound and often painful insight into the human condition."

The pièces noires and the pièces roses are similar in content—both are concerned with human survival in an inhospitable environment. In the pièces noires, society triumphs over the hero's ideals, forcing the hero to seek a tragic form of escape. Lenski observed that the central characters in the pièces noires "are deaf to arguments in favor of a humble sort of happiness. They want all or nothing at all, and the lower they stand, the greater their claims on the Ideal, the louder their plea for help." In the pièces roses, the hero escapes not through death but through fantasy, illusion, and changing personality. In The World of Jean Anouilh, author Leonard Cabell Pronko contended that although the characters of the pièces roses are unheroic in their compromise with happiness, "they at least possess the noble desire for the purity of life that dares to be what it is without excuses. But they are satisfied with a happiness that Anouilh later satirizes as illusory and unworthwhile." In his book titled Jean Anouilh, Lewis W. Falb concluded: "Anouilh may choose to present his observations in the guise of amusing fables, but one must not be deceived by their often pleasing surfaces; the vision underlying them is brutal and unpleasant…. But in his theatre, even at his most misanthropic, Anouilh offers a glimpse of an ideal, which, although faint or parodied, is not forgotten."

Over time Anouilh gradually became more grim in his theatrical treatments of humanity. Harold Hobson noted in Drama magazine that these pièces grinçantes "certainly caused audiences and critics to say that Anouilh was a man who hated life itself." New York Times contributor Gerald Jonas described these "grating plays" as productions in which "moments of realism, even tragedy, alternate with moments of corrosive humor. In such plays, judgments about events on the stage and the motivations of the principals must be constantly revised in the light of new revelations. Anyone in the audience who does not feel a certain discomfort as the evening progresses is probably not paying attention." Pronko claimed that the picture "is one of compromise, and the outlook seems more pessimistic than ever. We can find no hole in the fabric of an absurd universe through which to bring in some meaning." Della Fazia, too, stated that the effect of the plays "is 'jarring' because two irreconcilables—comedy and tragedy—clash on a battlefield strewn with the castoff armor of humanity's defense mechanisms."

In his The Theatre of Jean Anouilh, H.G. McIntyre wrote: "It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there is only one central theme running through the whole of Anouilh's work—the eternal and universal conflict between idealism and reality. All his other themes are related to this, either as expressions of the idealistic rejection of life or as explorations of the various obstacles to idealism and self-realization in an imperfect world." Lenski felt that Anouilh judged reality "from the height of the ideal and inevitably, seen from high up, the world seems a very sad place to live. At the same time, in showing reality in black coloring, Anouilh places the ideal into proper perspective." According to Joseph Chiari in The Contemporary French Theatre: The Flight from Naturalism, the pessimism of Anouilh is "the revolt of a sensitive being appalled and wounded by the cruelty of life and expressing man's despair at never being able to know his true self or to meet another self in a state of purity…. His heroes and heroines are alone, and when they hope to escape from their loneliness through another they generally realize that there is no escape, that life soils everything and that unless they choose to live a lie, death is the only solution—or failing death, the acceptance of suffering as a refining fire which will consume the dross into the ashes of a life devoted to an ideal."

This tendency to champion nonconformity gave Anouilh's work a political edge, especially during World War II. During the Nazi occupation of France, Anouilh produced the play Antigone, a reworking of the classical story of a young woman who dies because she defies the state. With Antigone, Bryan Appleyard wrote in the London Times, Anouilh "confronted the ironic contrast between the life of the imagination and the life of the world." Resistance critics hailed the work as a position statement, but Nazi collaborators also praised it for the pragmatic, reasoned arguments it offered in favor of capitulation. A Times contributor claimed, however, that Antigone "remains the quintessential French play of the 1940s. It combines moving if ambiguous references to the politics of the Resistance with a metaphysical despair that went straight to many an adolescent heart." After the war, Anouilh continued to pen dramas about martyrs; his best-known plays include Becket; or, The Honor of God, the story of an English archbishop murdered for his steadfast adherence to church law, and The Lark, a treatment of the life of Joan of Arc. Pronko noted that these works show a conflict between "the hero's or the heroine's aspirations and the world of compromise that they must face and in contact with which they would become sullied…. Contrasted to them are the mediocre who consent to play the game, and who seek happiness by hiding the truth of life's absurdity from themselves."

Anouilh died of a heart attack at the age of seventy-seven. Ironically, given his predilection for viewing himself as an entertainer, he was eulogized as a playwright of ideas. Pronko called Anouilh "a writer who [was] bound to the cause of man's freedom." Likewise, Falb praised the author for his "rich statement of a personal vision, a lucid yet entertaining exploration of themes that involve the anxieties and preoccupations of contemporary audiences." Still, Chiari maintained that it was "human reality and not systems or concepts which Anouilh [was] after, and that is why his characters, full of human contradictions, are emotionally alive. It is in fact not what they think, but above all what they feel which is the main factor." In comedies that force audiences to laugh uncomfortably at their own absurdities, and in tragedies that highlight the venality of life, Anouilh strove to reveal his deepest torments. In the process, to quote Bettina L. Knapp in Books Abroad, he "has given the world some very great plays."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Archer, Marguerite, Jean Anouilh, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1971.

Bogard, Travis and William I. Oliver, editors, Modern Drama: Essays in Criticism, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1965.

Brustein, Robert, Seasons of Discontent: Dramatic Opinions, 1959–1965, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1965.

Chiari, Joseph, Landmarks of Contemporary Drama, Herbert Jenkins (London, England), 1965.

Chiari, Joseph, The Contemporary French Theatre: The Flight from Naturalism, Gordian Press (New York, NY), 1970.

Cole, Toby, editor, Playwrights on Playwrighting, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1961.

Curtis, Anthony, New Developments in the French Theatre: A Critical Introduction to the Plays of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Jean Anouilh, Curtain Press (London, England), 1948.

Della Fazia, Alba M., Jean Anouilh, Twayne (New York, NY), 1969.

Encyclopedia of World Biography, second edition, seventeen volumes, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

Falb, Lewis W., Jean Anouilh, Ungar (New York, NY), 1977.

Fowlie, Wallace, Dionysus in Paris: A Guide to Contemporary French Theater, World (Cleveland, OH), 1960.

Gassner, John, Theatre at the Crossroads: Plays and Playwrights of the Mid-Century American Stage, Holt (New York, NY), 1960.

Gassner, John, Dramatic Soundings: Evaluations and Retractions Culled from Thirty Years of Drama Criticism, Crown (New York, NY), 1968.

Grossvogel, David I., The Self-Conscious Stage in Modern French Drama, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1958.

Harvey, John, Anouilh: A Study in Theatrics, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1964.

International Dictionary of Theatre, Volume 2: Playwrights, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1993.

Jolivet, Phillippe, Le Théâtre de Jean Anouilh, Michel Brient (Paris, France), 1963.

Kelly, K. W., Jean Anouilh: An Annotated Bibliography, Scarecrow (Metuchen, NJ), 1973.

Lenski, Branko Alan, Jean Anouilh: Stages in Rebellion, Humanities Press (Atlantic Heights, NJ), 1975.

Luppé, Robert de, Jean Anouilh, Éditions Universitaires (Paris, France), 1959.

Marsh, Edward Owen, Jean Anouilh, British Book Centre (London, England), 1953.

McIntyre, H. G., The Theatre of Jean Anouilh, Barnes & Noble (New York, NY), 1981.

Picon, Gaetan, Contemporary French Literature: 1945 and After, Ungar (New York, NY), 1974.

Pronko, Leonard Cabell, The World of Jean Anouilh, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1961.

Smith, H. A., Contemporary Theater, Arnold, 1962.

Thody, Philip Malcolm Waller, Anouilh, Oliver & Boyd (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1968.

PERIODICALS

Back Stage, February 3, 1995, Eric Grode, review of The Rehearsal, p. 38; November 29, 1996, Irene Backalenick, review of The Rehearsal, p. 40.

Books Abroad, autumn, 1976, Bettina L. Knapp.

College English, March, 1955.

Financial Post, February 8, 1992, John Burgess, review of Becket, section S, p. 12.

Journal of European Studies, March-June, 1993, Mary Ann Frese Witt, "Fascist Ideology and Theater under the Occupation: The Case of Anouilh," pp. 49-69.

Nation, October 8, 1973, Harold Clurman.

New Republic, February 11, 1957.

Newsweek, September 24, 1973, Jack Kroll.

New York Times, November 7, 1979; October 13, 1985, Gerald Jonas, review of The Waltz of the Toreadors, section H, p. 4; October 17, 1985, Frank Rich, review of The Waltz of the Toreadors, section C, p. 16; May 29, 1989.

Plays and Players, April, 1974.

Romance Notes, fall, 1978.

Times (London, England), April 23, 1984.

Variety, May 3, 1999, Charles Isherwood, review of Ring Round the Moon, p. 94; October 30, 2000, Peter Ritter, review of To Fool the Eye, p. 36.

Yale French Studies, winter, 1954–55.