Clearly, the two paramount problems recurring throughout Nathalie Sarraute's writings are those of communication and of truth. And it is no accident and no surprise to find that her only two plays [both originally written for radio] bear the titles: Le Silence and Le Mensonge. (p. 102)

In their content and approach the two plays are a logical extension of Nathalie Sarraute's novels, even if the dramatic form constitutes a departure from her other writing. In both plays a number of men and women, who seem to know each other well, are gathered for an evening, for no apparent specific reason. These men and women are not identifiable characters. In Le Silence, with one exception, they are not given any names. In Le Mensonge they have names, but names that confer no identity upon them. Both plays are set in motion in both cases by an utterance that has upset the usual order of things.

In Le Silence the man who appears to be the main character has committed a faux pas in evoking out loud a sentimental memory: a "dream-country" of his in the form of a village with little houses, fretwork trimming over windows, bits of colored lace, fences around gardens, and fragrant evenings perfumed by jasmin and acacia. The statement has been made in elemental form, unstyled and spontaneous, a part of himself handed over in crude form. In the sophisticated setting constituted by the gathering, this lapse causes quite a stir. Everyone pleads with the perpetrator: please, continue, how delightful. But do they really mean it? Are they on his wave length? Are they in tune with this lyrical part of himself, which he has inadvertently handed over? No, he feels, there is no real sympathy, no real communication; they just want to strip him naked. The poor man feels ridiculous, trapped—less, in the end, by the vocal insistence of those surrounding him than by the obstinate and oppressive silence maintained by Jean-Pierre. The latter breaks through his own terrible silence only to utter an occasional laugh or, once, even a whistle. The laughter and the silence both contrive to appear as unspoken criticism, a censorship all the more severe since true communication has been made impossible. Jean-Pierre's silence becomes unbearable to all, though it is felt most acutely by the more sensitive main character. It is he who in the end will restore order by attaching to a reiterated description of the dream village a number of factual objective details, pertaining to art history, and enunciated in a bold and clear tone. Jean-Pierre is then ready, to everyone's relief, to rejoin the conversation. The "subconversation" (the poetic lapse) which has caused the break (the silence) is covered over by logical, objective facts.

In Le Mensonge Pierre, unable to condone even a "white lie," has exploded and has told off an heiress who likes to play the pauper. The other characters, used to accepting the polite lies society is built on, are suddenly compelled to question their more habitual behavior. Only Jacques pleads for wisdom and good will—in other words, distortion of the truth, our daily fare. But the ball has been set in motion: they must try and define the nature and value of the truth. To this end they enter into a round of confession games (a kind of psychodrama, suggests one of the characters). The game becomes painful in the extreme when Simone starts playing in earnest. She insists this is no game; her story is true, though Pierre points out the glaring contradictions with a previous story of hers. We are back at Pirandello's To Each His Truth. Where is the game? Where is the truth? No one knows any more. Desperately seeking safety, they try to restore logic. They come on bended knees to Simone: please, tell us you were playing. She yields and thus restores accepted convention. Pierre, without deep conviction, pays lip-service to the renewed social contract.

In both plays silence and the truth represent elements which have come to disturb the established order. They appear as active beings, endowed with unsuspected force, capable of inflicting terrible tortures. Silence, such as the one imposed by Jean-Pierre on his surroundings, walls in human beings. Like a net, it traps them, so that they can neither reach out to others nor be reached by them. The author of the silence is only a sort of trigger, himself seemingly unaffected by the silence he imposes, while it is the silence itself which carries "some strange threat, some mortal danger."… [This is] the dilemma: silence kills, but the word, which can save, can also kill. So beware, use words with discernment…. [Le Silence] ends on an ambiguous note. The silence has indeed been broken, but only because what caused it (the faux pas) has been clothed afresh, respectably, so as to restore the former "normal" order. The malaise is dissipated, but a bitter taste lingers—"his silence," briefly evoked at the very end, and promptly dismissed ("what silence?"), swept under the rug. Let us all play according to the rules, otherwise life is too risky. The episode was nothing but an excursion into another reality. It proved painful; let us agree to terminate the interlude.

Like silence, truth appears as a living thing, gifted with a "force of expansion"—sometimes a beast, pressing hard, ready to spring forth. In most cases, in order to preserve "normal" social exchanges, people control the beast, they tame it, put it on a leash. But there are times when the more you hold it back, the more it swells, presses, and wants to come out. Then you feel like shouting out: "stop lying." If one does not explode, one is condemned to suffer, for truth that is never allowed out "sinks in and burns."… And so it is that Pierre, unable to bear it any longer, explodes, and in so doing creates a terrible uproar, for social living demands its dose of lying. Jacques is there to remind everyone of the social convention. We lie, we play, lo and behold, "we change the truth," rather than change ourselves. So what? We must. Absolute truth would make social living impossible. This appears to be a restatement of Molière's Le Misanthrope. (pp. 102-06)

Just as there are no recognizable characters, there is, in these two plays, no plot, no dramatic development in the ordinary sense. Some anonymous people are gathered together and they talk (or they refuse to talk). The play is set in motion by a particular utterance; it is resolved by another utterance. The power of the Word could not be underlined more clearly. At the same time, throughout the plays, we feel undercurrents and subconversations, expressed by a particular intonation (one of derision, irony, anxiety, etc.)—this because of a deep awareness of the inadequacy of words to express our deeper, more subtle feelings…. [There are] two main problems of the writer which recur in Nathalie Sarraute's works: the problem of communication ("I perceive only for myself, and not for others") and the ultimate value and efficacy of verbal expression.

Thus when words cannot or must not be used, either because of their inadequacy or inherent threat, they are replaced by tropisms. In the radio script these often come in the form of audible laughter. All this is not new for Nathalie Sarraute. The same preoccupation, intent, and technique are discernible in the novels. So, one may ask, why this excursion into drama, and more particularly into radio plays? It would seem that here was an opportunity to concentrate on one form of discourse, the dialogue, and dispense with inner monologues, description, and narration. On the one hand, the dialogue offers the best medium for stating the problem of communication; on the other hand, it provides the most convincing way of showing both the power and the inadequacy of words. This is particularly striking when we try to characterize the type of dialogue and drama which is put forth here. There is no exchange of ideas; the dialogue follows neither time sequence nor logical sequence. It is an instantaneous and a completely spontaneous dialogue, or, what matters more, it creates the illusion of spontaneity. Therefore the play is short … and circumscribed and circular in structure. It is not intended to engender any development. There are no sustained speeches, no arguments, no discussions; no one convinces anybody of anything, at least not by logical means. When things happen—for instance, when Simone admits she was playing or when Jean-Pierre breaks the silence—it is not as a result of a logical argument, a fiery speech, or an event that intervened; it is simply because certain gestures were made, certain sounds uttered, certain words spoken which created a favorable climate. (pp. 106-08)

This type of dialogue, being no exchange, espouses the slightest innermost movements of the psyche. Phrases, cuts, silences, words must … stick to the feeling. The discourse therefore defies syntax; it is chopped, disorderly. There are many examples of disjointed speech, particularly when a character is overcome with strong emotions, which the others cannot share or understand. (p. 108)

The radio play affords the only privileged situation where we have to be all ears, thus particularly attuned to the scintillation and reverberation of words, as well as to the inflexions and intonations of the human voice. (p. 111)

By giving the auditory preeminence over the visual and the dialectical, the author makes us exceptionally receptive to a pure verbal impact. Whereas Nathalie Sarraute's plays extend and continue the statement and discourse of her novels, the medium employed, if more limited, is more distilled and refined. And the communication established with the audience is of a subtle nature; the listener participates accordingly. (pp. 111-12)