The Balcony | Jean Genet: The Difficulty of Defining and Postscript
In this excerpt, David I. Grossvogel relates ‘‘The Balcony’’ to ‘‘a house of illusions.’’
The balcony [in Genet’s dramas] is a stage upon Genet’s stage, a place of sumptuousness, triumph, and make-believe.
The Balcony is a conscious stage from the first. . . . But this stage is also . . . ‘‘the most artful, yet the most decent house of illusions.’’ A house of illusions is the traditional French name for a brothel, a place for the creation and enjoyment of intimate fancies. . . . No problem, says Genet, should be resolved in the imaginary realm, especially since the dramatic solution is an indistinct part of the closed social structure. It is rather...
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