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Break of Noon (Partage de Midi) By Paul Claudel At the Théâtre des Nations Directed by Jean-Louis Barrault (J. L. Barrault)

The time is noon, and the ship plows the waves of the sea on its way to China... The sunlight is dazzling and blazing, the heat raging and oppressive. On the ship's deck a woman of radiant appearance, resplendent with her abundant bright blond hair, which she has raised like a crown around her beautiful, luminous face; she moves swaying with her full womanhood at the middle of life (1). Her long, flowing gown and its trailing

(1) At the beginning of the twentieth century, a woman reckoned her youth to be over once she passed thirty years of age.

ivory folds take us fifty years back — to the

Paul Claudel, 1866–1955

Act One: On the ship's deck, Ysé (Edwige Feuillère); on her left Amalric (Jacques Dacqmine), and on her right her husband De Ciz (Jean Desailly) and Mesa (Jean-Louis Barrault)