Word: anouilh
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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This bilious tirade would not be worth a moment's thought if it had come off a mimeograph machine in some dank cellar. Instead, The Camp of the Saints arrives trailing clouds of praise from French savants, including Dramatist Jean Anouilh ("A haunting book of ir resistible force and calm logic"), with the imprint of a respected U.S. publisher and a teasing pre-publication ad campaign ("The end of the white world is near"). Before the book is called "courageous" or "provocative," a small distinction should be made. The portrait of racial enmity is one matter. The exacerbation...
...JEAN ANOUILH'S Antigone, a recreation rather than an adaptation of the Sophocles myth, explores a profound moral struggle between two human wills. In the end, neither wins. The fundamental compromise demanded by life and the solitude of heroic individuals who choose to refuse it are brought to the surface in the questions asked about freedom and happiness. Stripping away the layers of reason, Anouilh forces us to look at the universal, to see man floundering in an apparently illogical universe, driven to question the worth of "accepted" values...
...ever reconciling their respective ideals, their respective roles in the face of destiny. McMinn's Antigone is a vital mixture of woman and child, quivering with all the buried fears and desires which must be overcome in order to say no to life. Hill's Creon is all Anouilh intended--humane and aware that the course he took many years earlier, selflessly and in the interests of the state, is the compromise that his niece rejects. Not once does Hill allow his creon to cross the fine line into the despicable and thus distrub the precarious balance; throughout the play...
...brightness of the two lead performances, the mediocrity of the supporting actors sheds dark shadows on the production. These actors are on a completely different level from McMinn and Hill, and the result is strange. Immersing oneself in the truths expressed by Anouilh and in the essential drama between Antigone and Creon, one almost forgets the presence of the other actors. For Anouilh's meaning is strong enough to transcend the weakness of the minor performers...
...that, after all, she no longer knows why she is dying. Thirty years ago, in February, 1944, Antigone appeared in Paris at the time of the German Occupation. Under the threat of air raid and without electricity, French audiences packed the Ate lier Theater night after night to see Anouilh's wife, Monelle Valentin, play Antigone in the small patch of light which crept through the stage's skylight. For in her struggle they saw reflected their own. Whereas Creon represented the Vichy government, Antigone was for them the spirit of freedom...