Anouilh, Jean (Vol. 1) - Anouilh, Jean 1910–

Anouilh, Jean 1910–

French playwright, best known for Beckett, The Lark, and Waltz of the Toreadors. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 17-18.)

[Jean] Anouilh first came to attention in America falsely labeled as a playwright of the French Resistance; he has lately become a playwright resisting modern France. Always disposed toward traditionalism in his forms and techniques, Anouilh is now trying to dramatize the anachronistic quality of his own position. His recent plays are about the conflict between the past and the present, and the importance and futility of maintaining traditional values in a world which no longer cares. He is evolving into a stringent critic of contemporary life; yet he remains a popular Boulevard dramatist, proving that, in France at least, commercial drama does not have to scrape before the public's values any more than it has to express the public's failure of nerve. Thus, even when Anouilh's work...

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