Plays: v. 12 (Ionescu plays) - Softcover

Ionesco, Eugene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714539562 ISBN 13: 9780714539560

Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd, 1985

Synopsis

The twelth volume of plays by Eugene Ionesco to appear in English
translation contains only a single play. A dream play that echoes the many
preocupations and anxieties of the most fascinating and unpredictable of
French dramatists - it could as aptly be labelled 'theatre of fear' as
'theatre of the absurd'. The reality of dream and nightmare is brilliantly
projected - the worries and failures of the past intermingling with those
of the present; the living with the dead; high comedy with the macabre
unleashing of our most primitive desires and instincts.

Once again, Jean is the character through which the author presents his own
alter ego to view the world he sees and represent his own place in it. Jean
has many relatives, both living and dead, who impede or further his quest -
itself as variable as our dream journeys usually are. Jean's final
monologue is not only an escape from nightmare reality, but a dream mirror
of the disintegration of wordsthemselves as he struggles to describe the
world he inhabits. As with Ionesco's other plays, the nightmare portrayed
makes many allusions to the waking nightmare of 20th century existence.

'Journeys Among the Dead' is translated by Barbara Wright - the translator
of Queneau, Pinget, Sarraute, Arrabal, Robbe-Grillet, Duras, Tournier,Topor
and many other French playwrights and novelists in whole or in part - and
has a reputation for the ingenuity and fidelity of her renderings that is
unequalled.

About this title

About the Author

Ionesco was one of three new playwrights who emerged in early 1950s France
- changing the course of modern theatre. None of them French by birth - the
others being Samuel Beckett and Arthur Adamov - it is to the Romanian born
Ionesco that the label 'absurdist' most properly belongs. He owes a debt to
such surrealists as Roger Vitrac and to Luigi Pirandello, but his work is
based partly on the absurdities he found in language - an experience common
to those who grow up with more than one. Another feature of his work is his
ability to relate visual metaphores and exaggerated stage pictures to
enable audiences to appreciate his meanings as much through their nerves
and intuitions as through their eyes and ears. Like Pirandello, he too
exploited his dreams. In one play his hero gradually sees all his friends
turn into Rhinocerouses; in another a body grows in the next room as a
husband and wife squabble until giant feet crash through the wall; and in
still another, a perfectly planned city becomes the habitat of a motiveless
serial killer. Ionesco's plays are extremely entertaining and funny - never
less so than when they end as tragedies - which they usually do. He differs
from Beckett in his lightness of touch, and from Adamov in his avoidance of
political ideology - although some of his plays have a strong political
content. He was extremely eccentric as a man as well as a playwright - he
lived in constant fear; both of losing his reputation once it had
flourished in the late 1950s, and of death. Much of his work is based on
these and other fears. As well as his plays, we also publish his only novel
"The Hermit".

Edition details

• Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0714539562
• ISBN 13: 9780714539560
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 65