Word: genet
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...said, in defense of director Jaul John Austin, that putting on Genet is difficult. Quintero has not done so well by him in New York, with The Balcony, and similarly, the financial and social success of The Blacks overshadows the weaknesses of its theatricality...
...Genet's characters are intellectualizations. In Deathwatch, Green Eyes is the intellectual abstraction of a murderer, LeFranc of a petty crook, and Maurice of a thieving, confused little homosexual. And intellectualizations are not easily translated into flesh and blood. Their conflicts are worked out on a conversational plane, while the real struggles that men take part in cannot be totally represented by debate...
Even more important, there are few events as such in Genet's work, and even less power. What he offers are reports of events and images of power: a phallus in The Balcony, a racial throne in The Blacks, and a well-publicized murder in Deathwatch. Thus there are no powerful characters: only those who pretend successfully (the strong) and those who fail in their deceptions (the weak...
While his writing is filled with anger and criticism, Genet has become a popular rather than a forceful play-wright. The productions are partly to blame, as are Genet's metaphysics. His racial commentary in The Blacks has been used to titillate rather than challenge. The result is intellectual exploitation of a currently catchy theme. It becomes off-beat, not serious, hip, not important. Irony wins, not Genet: in a community that virtually exiles its militant Negro leader, Robert Williams, and castigates A. Phillip Randolph, The Blacks remains the most successful off-Broadway show...
Deathwatch, a play written more from experience and less from speculation than Genet's two New York hits, would ring true if the actors didn't consistently obstruct the lines. Sadly though, Peter MacLean as Green Eyes is the only lead with feeling or understanding in his voice; and even he seems tempted to substitute crescendo for these qualities...