The gathering of Nathalie Sarraute's plays into a single volume [Théâtre] allows the reader to note the emergence of certain patterns and themes. The action of each play begins in medias res. As in her novels, where the reader must make his way unaided by the accustomed props of characterization and plot, the background exposition of conventional drama is withheld. The reader/spectator is plunged into the heart of an ongoing conversation, into a maelstrom of swirling tropisms. Since all of Sarraute's plays were originally conceived of as plays for radio, the clash among opposing attitudes and feelings is revealed uniquely in the cross-patter of voices. In each play there is a hypersensitive recipient of tropisms, who is attuned to emotional repercussions imperceptible to the "others." Often, like H.1 in Le Silence, like Pierre in Le Mensonge, like the husband and wife in Isma and H.2 in Elle est là, this character is torn between the ambivalent need to convince others of his perspicacity, gain their adherence, associate himself with the group, and the contrary need to remain a loner, reinforce his isolation, and maintain his individuality. Invariably, this person becomes the catalyst whereby buried tropisms come to light. Thanks to his nagging persistency, hidden impulses rise to the surface, arouse an assortment of unacknowledged emotions—jealousy, rage, frustration, envy, even violent impulses to torment and kill—before they subside into oblivion.

Language has always been of primary concern to Sarraute—language as a means of perverting meaning, preventing communication, congealing feelings, breeding intolerance. Language and its inadequacies are at the heart of her earlier plays. In the total picture of her theater, a progression can now be discerned. From a concentration on the power of language—the ominous ambiguity of non-communication in Le Silence, the inextricable intertwining of truth and falsehood in Le Mensonge, even the irritating effects of speech mannerisms in Isma and of certain pat formulae in C'est beau—Sarraute has arrived at a concentration on the power of thought itself. By exploring dogmatism as a form of moral coercion—not on a grandiose politico-philosophical scale, but in its tiny, unnoticed, and insidious emotional repercussions on quite ordinary human beings—she opens a door onto profoundly disturbing vistas. In her diffident, circuitous way, Nathalie Sarraute has become a moralist for our time. (p. 498)