The Modern French Theater – 3 (Giraudoux)

The two articles which Mrs. Najla Aqrawi wrote in the two preceding issues on the modern French theater had a deep echo among readers. In this issue she concludes her valuable study by speaking of the well-known novelist Giraudoux, in the belief that he is of importance in the world of the modern theater.

Giraudoux

The man of letters Giraudoux occupies an important place in the modern French theater. Though he stands outside the three elements of the theater of which we have spoken, he is of such importance that no study of the modern French theater is complete unless we cast a glance at his drama and his art. He is closely bound to the French literary heritage—that heritage known for beauty, adroitness, and elegance, whose threads run from Molière to Marivaux and on to Musset. He expresses, moreover, many of the modern literary currents that sprang up in France out of the vitality of the twentieth century, such as pure musical Symbolism and violent, godless Existentialism...

Perhaps the best key to an understanding of Giraudoux and his drama is his own opinion of the theater, when he said: “The theater is reality within imagination.” He wants of the theater an enchanted atmosphere that lifts the audience out of their dry daily world into the world of imagination and beauty, to present them with its splendid treasures. This magic world, into which he invites us to take delight, has its name and its constituents: the magical, potent word helps to create it, for the word, with its musical, suggestive fall—that suggestion which the Symbolists sought and expressed through the music of their verse and the splendor of their imagination—has the greatest importance in creating this enchanted atmosphere; and the naming of things sometimes uncovers the hidden secrets of nature, casts a gleam over the trifles of ordinary matters, and lifts the simplest ordinary human acts out of the dry atmosphere of life into the world of beauty and elegance.

Among the elements of this magic is the mingling of reality with fantasy—that mingling which casts “Ondine,” one of the water-sprites of the sea, into the hands of “Hans,” the valiant knight, so that the destinies of mankind become entangled with the destinies of the fabulous world of the waters. The sprites, the “Ondines,” rise up against their sister “Ondine” because she has loved a man, and warn her of the treachery of the human race; but she will not be turned from pursuing her adventure. In the end “Hans” betrays her, as men habitually betray the dear women who love them; the king of the “Ondines” passes sentence of death upon Hans, and Ondine tries to save him from the sentence: she flees from his palace, a wanderer among the lakes and shores, crying at the top of her voice, “I betrayed him with Bertram! I betrayed him with Bertram!”—and the spaces and the waters echo back her strange, musical voice—in the hope that the king will believe her claim and revoke his sentence upon him. But the matter was decreed, and Hans was struck down; and the king of the sprites took pity on Ondine and afflicted her with loss of memory; her sisters called to her, and she returned to the pure, limpid waters, where there is no treachery and no troubling...

When Jouvet performed this play with Dominique Blanchar on the stage of the Athénée in 1951, it seemed to us, as we watched the scenes change from the lake shore, to the sprites swimming in the water, to the knight's palace, to the hut of the fisherman who had picked Ondine up from the strand, that there was a magician striking with his magic wand, so that new and astonishing worlds opened before our eyes; and we were carried, in very truth, into that enchanted atmosphere which “Giraudoux” created and into which he wished us to enter.

Nor does the play Intermezzo yield to Ondine in magic and beauty. Its events unfold in a village, around a girl in the springtime of life who teaches the little girls of the village and gives free rein to her imagination. She strikes up a bond of friendship with a specter who appears to her at dusk, sometimes in the verdant meadows adjoining the village, and she goes out eagerly to meet him; for she longs to know the secrets of the world of the dead. She questions him, and he answers her in riddles and enigmas; she wants from him the password—the secret of that hidden world which she yearns with all her being to know—and he asks her to accompany him thither, and sets her an appointment?... Then a young man in the springtime of life, a petty official residing in the village, comes to Isabelle's room and asks for her hand; and she wavers between him and the specter. He presses her, and tries to persuade her to leave the perilous world of fantasy and return to the tangible world of reality—to human beings, to youth, and to life. The specter appears suddenly, and the two fall to disputing. The young man defends his view: Isabelle is young and belongs to life, not to the world of the dead, and the only road that leads to death is the road of life. The specter mocks him, knowing that he won Isabelle long ago and that she is on her way to accompany him to the other world—else, “what is this pallor spreading over her face?” The young man stands as a barrier between them, imposes his will to protect her, and pours forth his love and his respect for her; the scale tips, and there escapes from Isabelle a word of tenderness and appreciation for the young man's ardor and devotion. The specter's fury flares up and he leaves Isabelle in anger; and she falls into the arms of her betrothed, her strength spent, asking for his help and the strength of his two arms.

Among the elements of this magic are the moments of silence that recur between the dialogues, for they have an effect surpassing the most eloquent expressions. If we add to them the music that accompanies the events of the play, and the artistic decoration of the stage, we have formed a picture of this splendid creativeness in the theatrical art, of that perfect piece which “Giraudoux” created.

And behind this magic, which astonishes us and takes hold of our feelings, lie political and social opinions, psychological analysis, urbane irony, and a philosophy of his own, which Giraudoux offers us in this beguiling mold; one glimpses them between the lines, and they penetrate to the depths of the soul with an endearing ease. He calls for a practical, temperate wisdom, that man may profit from the opportunities of life; and he unveils the beauty latent in nature—in the glittering stars, in the fragrant gardens, in the artless smile of a child, and even in the daily tasks that may seem to us trivial.

He has excursions of thought that remind us of Sartre, for he calls for man's humanity and his liberty, holds that everything in this life is relative, and that man must do his duty within his individual possibilities.

When the First World War came to its end, Giraudoux called for an understanding with Germany and brought out his famous play “Siegfried”—the tale of a young Frenchman who fell wounded in the enemy's trenches and was carried to a German sanatorium, where he was healed of his wounds but lost his memory and forgot his past. A German lady took him under her wing and handed him the leadership of the German national movement, and he became a leader to whose every gesture the crowds turned, to obey his command. It is as though Giraudoux wished to say that there is no difference between what we call German and what we call French: here is Jacques, the brilliant French writer, become Siegfried, the obeyed German leader; and here are commanders of the Prussian army of French Protestant stock, whose forefathers migrated to Germany after the revocation of the famous Treaty of Nantes.

Giraudoux died in 1945, leaving behind him a heritage of matchless dramatic literature that is counted among the glories of the world's theater. London embraced his plays, staging “The Trojan War Will Not Take Place” and “Ondine”; Audrey Hepburn took the part of Ondine in New York, and Diana Cilento that of Helen of Troy.

Those who knew him say that to this artistic creativeness he joined an attractive human personality, commanding respect and esteem: he was ready with a jest, adroit in his conduct, and found in the ordinary happenings of life his amusement and his inspiration.

Yet time has not spoken its final word on Giraudoux; he is still in that period of sifting which usually follows a writer's death, and which sometimes stretches out to twenty years. Many of his folded-away treasures await the critics and scholars who will undertake that mighty task; for his easy, magical writing conceals windings and touches both fine and deep...