This work contains three landmark plays from the French theatre, embodying the transition from the old to the modern in dramatic experimentation. Precursors of surrealism, they are innovative, outrageous and highly enjoyable. They are: Maurice Maeterlinck's, "The Blind" (1890); Alfred Jarry's, "Ubu the King" (1896); and Apollinaire's, "The Mammaries of Tiresias" (1917). "Who's there? Who are you? Have pity on us, we've been waiting so long!" "The Blind's" predicament is desperate, but Maeterlinck makes poetry out of their tragedy. If the mysterious "Blind" symbolize mankind, who is the priest they wait for? "Here I am! Gadzooks, by the wick of my candle, I'm surely fat enough." Jarry's Ubu, murdering monster-king, popping his unwanted subjects into his deadly pockets, would be horrific if he weren't so funny. "I want to make war and not make babies. No Monsieur husband, you won't order me around any more." Therese wins independence by turning into a man in Apollinaire's witty, outrageous farce, which first introduced the word "surrealism" to the world. These three French plays, written between 1890 and 1917, surprised and shocked their first audiences.
They still seem new, different - and sometimes shocking - today.
- ISBN10 0192832174
- ISBN13 9780192832177
- Publish Date 21 August 1997
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 October 2001
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Oxford Paperbacks
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 272
- Language English