Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Vassiliki Rapti
 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Taking as its point of departure the complex question about whether Surrealist
theatre exists, this book re-examines the much misunderstood artistic medium
of theatre within Surrealism, especially when compared to poetry and painting.
This study reconsiders Surrealist theatre specifically from the perspective of
ludics—a poetics of play and games—an ideal approach to the Surrealists, whose
games blur the boundaries between the “playful” and the “serious.”

Vassiliki Rapti’s aims are threefold: first, to demystify André Breton’s

controversial attitude toward theatre; second, to do justice to Surrealist theatre,
by highlighting the unique character that derives from its inherent element of
play; and finally, to trace the impact of Surrealist theatre in areas far beyond
its generally acknowledged influence on the Theatre of the Absurd—an impact
being felt even on the contemporary world stage. Beginning with the Surrealists’
“one-into-another” game and its illustration of Breton’s ludic dramatic theory,
Rapti then examines the traces of this kind of game in the works of a wide variety
of Surrealist and Post-Surrealist playwrights and stage directors, from several
different countries, and from the 1920s to the present: Roger Vitrac, Antonin
Artaud, Günter Berghaus, Nanos Valaoritis, Robert Wilson, and Megan Terry.

Vassiliki Rapti is Preceptor in Modern Greek in the Department of

The Classics at Harvard University, USA, where she is also serving
as Research Fellow in Greek Literature and Language Pedagogy at
the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, D.C.).
 Ashgate Studies in Surrealism
Series Editor:
Gavin Parkinson, The Courtauld Institute of Art,
University of London, UK

With scholarly interest in Surrealism greater than ever, the Ashgate Studies in
Surrealism series serves as a forum for key areas of Surrealist inquiry today. This
series extends the ongoing academic and popular interest in Surrealism, evident
in recent studies that have rethought established areas of Surrealist activity and
engagement, including those of politics, the object, photography, crime, and
modern physics. Expanding and adding various lines of inquiry, books in the
series examine Surrealism’s intersections with philosophical, social, artistic, and
literary themes. Potential subjects to be examined in the context of Surrealism
include but are not limited to: nature; queer studies; humor and play; science;
theory in the 1950s and 1960s; the New Novel; Surrealist activities beyond Paris.

Proposals are welcomed for both monographs and essay collections dealing
with the above subjects or with discussions of Surrealism in other aspects and
genres. Monographic writings on artists and writers who have been generally
overlooked by English-language scholarship (for instance, Victor Brauner, Toyen,
Jorge Camacho) would also fall within the scope of this series.
Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and
Beyond

Vassiliki Rapti
© Vassiliki Rapti 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Vassiliki Rapti name has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Rapti, Vassiliki.
Ludics in Surrealist theatre and beyond.—(Ashgate studies in surrealism)
1. Surrealist games. 2. Experimental theater. 3. Surrealism (Literature) 4. Comic,
The.
I. Title II. Series
792'022—dc23

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Rapti, Vassiliki.
Ludics in surrealist theatre and beyond / by Vassiliki Rapti.
p. cm.—(Ashgate studies in surrealism)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-2906-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Theater—History—20th
century. 2. Experimental theater. 3. Surrealism (Literature) 4. Breton, André, 1896–
1966—Influence. I. Title.

PN2189.R37 2013
809.2'91163—dc23
 2012034194
ISBN 9781409429067 (hbk)
ISBN 9781472412263 (ebk—PDF)
ISBN 9781472412270 (ebk—ePUB)

III

Printed and bound in Great Britain by the

MPG Books Group, UK
To Andreas.
This page has been left blank intentionally
Contents

List of illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
List of abbreviations xv

Introduction: Does surrealist theatre exist? 1

1 The surrealist game “one into another” in Nadja and

Les Détraquées: Reconstructing André Breton’s
ludic dramatic theory 15

2 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry:

Breton’s ludic dramatic theory in practice 55

3 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or

Children in Power: Between paidia and ludus91

4 Playing with language: Antonin Artaud’s paidia

and Robert Wilson’s ludus 119

5 Ludics in Megan Terry’s

“theatre of transformations” 145
Conclusion 175

Works cited 179

Index 187
This page has been left blank intentionally
List of illustrations

Cover From Body Leaks by Sora Kimberlain, Jo Ann Schmidman, Megan Terry,
Omaha Magic Theatre. Excerpted from Right Brain Vacation Photos:
New Plays and Production Photographs, 1972–1992/Omaha Magic
Theatre, edited by Jo Ann Schmidman, Sora Kimberlain, Megan Terry;
photographs by Megan Terry. 1st edition. Omaha, NE: Omaha Magic
Theatre, 1992, 75
4.1 Günter Berghaus’ lighting setting in his stage experiment with Artaud’s
Le Jet de sang (The Spurt of Blood), performed February 14–17,
1996 at Wickham Studio Theatre, Bristol, director: Günter Berghaus.
Photographs copyright of Günter Berghaus. Berghaus Archive, Overath /
Germany
4.2 The Whore and the Knight, from Günter Berghaus’ stage experiment with
Artaud’s Le Jet de sang (The Spurt of Blood), performed February 14–17,
1996 at Wickham Studio Theatre, Bristol, director: Günter Berghaus.
Photographs copyright of Günter Berghaus. Berghaus Archive, Overath /
Germany
4.3 Mother and Knight, from Günter Berghaus’ stage experiment with
Artaud’s Le Jet de sang (The Spurt of Blood), performed February 14–17,
1996 at Wickham Studio Theatre, Bristol, director: Günter Berghaus.
Photographs copyright of Günter Berghaus. Berghaus Archive, Overath /
Germany
4.4–4.8 Scenes from American Repertory Theatre’s 1986 production of Alcestis,
directed by Robert Wilson. Photographs by Richard Feldman, courtesy
of A.R.T.
5.1 From Body Leaks by Sora Kimberlain, Jo Ann Schmidman, Megan Terry,
Omaha Magic Theatre. Excerpted from Right Brain Vacation Photos:
New Plays and Production Photographs, 1972–1992/Omaha Magic
Theatre, edited by Jo Ann Schmidman, Sora Kimberlain, Megan Terry;
photographs by Megan Terry. 1st edition. Omaha, NE: Omaha Magic
Theatre, 1992, 71
x Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

5.2 From Body Leaks by Sora Kimberlain, Jo Ann Schmidman, Megan Terry,
Omaha Magic Theatre. Excerpted from Right Brain Vacation Photos:
New Plays and Production Photographs, 1972–1992/Omaha Magic
Theatre, edited by Jo Ann Schmidman, Sora Kimberlain, Megan Terry;
photographs by Megan Terry. 1st edition. Omaha, NE: Omaha Magic
Theatre, 1992, 94
So I am inclined to distinguish between the essence and the inessential in a game too. The
game, one would like to say, has not only rules but also a point.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein
This page has been left blank intentionally
Acknowledgments

This book is the final product of my long commitment to surrealist theatre.

My interest in the subject began in 2000, and evolved considerably from those
beginnings, in particular thanks to the “apprenticeship” I served under the author
Nanos Valaoritis. The “last Greek Surrealist” has helped me tremendously by so
generously entrusting to me all his unpublished archives and kindly permitting
me to work on them and publish them in part. Moreover, during our endless
telephone discussions for more than a decade now, he has enlightened me on
various issues that I would otherwise not have noticed. For all this and more,
I am profoundly grateful to him.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my mentor Stamos Metzidakis
and my colleagues Stratos Constantinidis and Olga Taxidou for their stimulating
intellectual exchange throughout the book project.
I am also grateful to my colleagues at Harvard University, especially Kathy
Coleman, Ivy Livingston, John Duffy, Michael Herzfeld, Rhéa Karabelas-Lesage,
Greg Nagy, Panagiotis Roilos and Mark Schiefsky, who along with the staff of
the Department of the Classics, Teresa Wu and Alyson Lynch, secured me an
inspirational research environment.
Special thanks are also due to all those affiliated with several public and
private foundations that supported this project over the years, especially the
Greek State Scholarship Foundation, the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit
Foundation and Washington University in St. Louis.
I am also grateful to many of my friends who supported me over the years
in many ways, in particular, to John Anton, Diane Miles-Touliatos, Jane Loe,
Jerry McAdams, Vinia Tsopelas, Julia Dubnoff, Anna Stavrakopoulou, and Eva
Prionas, for their constant care, and the late Venetia Gavrielatou for being an
inexhaustible source of wisdom and encouragement.
My thanks also are extended to Amy Debrecht, Nicole Miller, and Susan Kapit-
Husserl for their comments on stylistic matters at various stages of preparation
of my manuscript. My warmest thanks also go to Katalin Mitchell for granting
me permission to search the Robert Wilson Archives at the American Repertory
Theater and to use the pictures from the production of Robert Wilson’s Alcestis
that have been included in Chapter 4. In relation to the same chapter, I am
most grateful to Günter Berghaus for his kind permission to use the illustrations
xiv Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

from his production of Antonin Artaud’s Jet de Sang. I am indebted to Megan

Terry, JoAnn Schmidman, and Sora Kimberlain for granting me permission to
use four illustrations from the Omaha Magic Theatre in Chapter 5, one of which
appears on the cover of this book. Megan Terry’s generosity extended to the
invaluable comments she provided on the way she approaches games; I found
all her commentary truly enlightening. I would like to thank Tonda Marton for
putting me in touch with Megan Terry. I would like to express my gratitude to
Pella Publishing Co., and McFarland & Company, Inc. for granting me permission
to include here parts of my articles on ludics, first published in their journals
Charioteer and Text & Presentation, respectively. Special thanks are also due to
all those affiliated with several public and private foundations that supported this
project over the years, especially the Greek State Scholarship Foundation and
the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation. I am also grateful to many
of my friends who supported me over the years in many ways, in particular, to
John Anton, Diane Touliatos, Jane Loe, Vinia Tsopelas, and Eva Prionas, for their
constant care, and the late Venetia Gavrielatou for being an inexhaustible source
of wisdom and encouragement. I am deeply grateful to Melanie Stowell for her
diligent treatment of my manuscript. Without her excellent and conscientious
work, this book could not have been completed. I wish to thank Ashgate
Publishing, especially Meredith Norwich, Margaret Michniewicz, Beatrice Beaup,
Emily Ruskell and Jonathan Hoare, for all their help, as well as the Studies in
Surrealism series editor Gavin Parkinson of the Courtauld Institute of Art. Last
but not least, I am grateful to my family, particularly to my mother and parents-
in-law, my sisters and my husband Andreas, for their patience, support and love,
and to our daughter, Katerina Maria, who in her own way helped facilitate the
completion of this project.
List of abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used for this study’s most frequently cited works:

CW Collected Works

OC1 Œuvres complètes, vol. 1

OC2 Œuvres complètes, vol. 2

This page has been left blank intentionally
Introduction: Does surrealist
theatre exist?

The question whether surrealist theatre exists or not is neither rhetorical nor
self-explanatory. Rather, it is crucial to the unraveling of our understanding of
this theatre. To be sure, theatre has not received the attention it deserves within
Surrealism—a movement which officially traces its roots to 1924 in France, and
which advocated the absolute freedom of human beings, the omnipotence of
dreams, and the pursuit of the marvelous. J.H. Matthews pointed out in 1970
that theatre “has been the least developed mode in Surrealism” (“Surrealism”
239). Six years later, Annabelle Henkin Meltzer was more categorical and warned
scholars not to have any illusions: “Surrealism had not sought to develop an
aesthetic for the theatre, but rather had abducted a literary genre for its own
purposes” (Dada 167). She further elaborated: “Just as the surrealist text itself
is often difficult to grapple with, on the theoretical level the reader will have to
struggle with the absence of a consistent and consecutive approach to drama as
well as the absence of a unified program for the stage” (ibid.). The statistics that
Philip Auslander offered a few years later confirmed Henkin Meltzer’s remarks:
only 17 surrealist plays were staged in Paris, their performances covering
merely 30 nights in a period of two decades between the two World Wars.1
Such conspicuous neglect becomes even more marked when compared to
poetry and painting, the two pillars of this movement, as Ruby Cohn poignantly
remarked already in 1964: “Although poetry and painting were rocked to their
foundations by the Surrealist explosion of the imagination, the theatre of the
time was virtually untouched” (“Surrealism” 159).2 Two years later, Michael
Canney would note on the occasion of the art exhibition “Surrealism: A State of
Mind, 1924–1965,” presented by the Art Gallery at the University of California,
Santa Barbara: “We are perhaps only now beginning to appreciate how great
the influence of Surrealism has been upon post-war art” (no page, Foreword).3
Since then, it has become commonplace to acknowledge the pervasive influence
of Surrealism in popular culture, reflected in the countless reproductions of
works of art by Salvador Dali or Max Ernst among many other surrealist artists.
Yet, this is not the case when it comes to surrealist theatre. The controversial
attitude of the leader of Surrealism, André Breton, toward theatre is not the
2 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

only reason for such oversight, but it is without doubt a major factor, and the
one most commonly recognized by scholars. Martine Antle, in Cultures du
surréalisme: les représentations de l’Autre (2001), for example, confirms this fact
when she emphasizes Breton’s ambivalent attitude toward theatre and his “peu
de goût pour les planches” (82) [his small interest in the stage]. The scholar who
addresses this issue in most detail, however, is Henri Béhar, whose views will be
discussed in detail in the next chapter.4
Whether responsibility for theatre within Surrealism never becoming fully
fledged lies entirely with Breton, or only in part, as this book aspires to address,
the fact remains that surrealist theatre is missing as a separate category from
almost all extant dictionaries of theatre, due either to a lack of official support or
to a misconception about the incompatibility of Surrealism with the stage. Martin
Esslin, for instance, argues that surrealist theatre lacked “the qualities that would
have been needed to create a real surrealist drama” (Artaud 348). Therefore,
at best, whenever it is mentioned, surrealist theatre is subsumed under the
“avant-garde” or “experimental” theatre and, in some cases, it is confused with
the Theatre of the Absurd. With the exception of The Penguin Dictionary of the
Theatre, which confirms that “unlike Dada, Surrealism expressed itself little in
drama” (261), and that “Artaud was for a while associated with the movement”
(261), almost all other major dictionaries of the theatre,5 including The Oxford
Companion to the Theatre, Patrice Pavis’s Dictionary of Theatre, and Alfred
Simon’s Dictionary of Contemporary French Theatre, do not include a separate
lemma for “Surrealist Theatre,” nor even for “Surrealist Drama,” at all. Thus, for
anyone who takes the authority of the dictionaries as a given, a negative answer
to our initial question as to whether surrealist theatre exists or not, would be
inevitable. Nevertheless, surrealist theatre does exist, mainly “as the result of
individual initiatives outside the surrealist movement,” as Béhar states (Étude
30), and other prominent experts of Surrealism have shown.6 In this light, the
term “surrealist theatre,” as distinct from “surrealist drama”—in the sense that
it goes beyond the limits of the page and reaches the stage—needs further
elucidation. What is “surrealist theatre” and what are its characteristics? Where
and when did it make its appearance and for what time span? These issues
will be addressed here, starting with an attempt to define the term “surrealist
theatre.” By this term, I refer to any theatrical work that claims to be surrealist,
and which has been put on stage (thus going beyond the limits of the page),
independently of the consent of the leader of Surrealism, André Breton. For if
Breton’s approval must be necessary for any theatrical work to be considered
surrealist, then such a theatre would indeed not exist, given Breton’s overall
hostile attitude toward theatre (despite his own early theatrical attempts during
his Dadaist phase). Finally, if there is a theatrical work that does not make any
overt claim of connection to Surrealism, yet arguably bears traces of it, I prefer to
classify it as an epigone to surrealist theatre. As such, one should talk about the
influence of surrealist theatre, one that has indeed exceeded both the national
borders of the parent country of Surrealism—France—and the temporal borders
of the movement’s historical moment, which officially expired in 1968, two
years after André Breton’s death.7 I must add here that, as such, the influence
of the surrealist theatre is a key issue for its much-needed reconsideration.
 Introduction: Does surrealist theatre exist? 3

Among those who have raised this issue, Henri Béhar devoted himself to the
study of Dada and surrealist theatre. His works, Roger Vitrac: Un reprouvé du
surréalisme (1966), Étude sur le théâtre dada et surréaliste (1967), and Théâtre
ouvert sur le rêve (1980), to name but a few, which “helped considerably to
rethink the place that the theatre occupies within the Surrealist thought and
esthetics” (Antle, Cultures 81), are at the origins of my study. Also, J.H. Matthews’
book Theatre in Dada and Surrealism (1974), Gloria Orenstein Feman’s work The
Theater of the Marvelous: Surrealism and the Contemporary Stage (1975), and
David G. Zinder’s work The Surrealist Connection: An Approach to a Surrealist
Aesthetic of Theatre (1976), all constitute great contributions to the study of
surrealist theatre. Equally important is the anthology of translated French
surrealist plays, edited by Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth, The Avant-
Garde, Dada, and Surrealism. Modern French Theatre: An Anthology of Plays
(1964). Finally, monographs or articles on surrealist theatre, written by Martine
Antle, Annabelle Henkin Meltzer, Anette S. Levitt, Philip Auslander, and Albert
Bermel, to name but a few, combine to prove that surrealist theatre does exist
as a separate category in the history of theatre and deserves special attention.
It is easy to attribute the dismissal of surrealist theatre to its “failure” as
a theatrical genre. Antle, for example, points to the ambiguous status of the
surrealist theatrical text as the primary reason for such a failure (Cultures 82). This
holds true particularly when the surrealist theatrical text is judged––as has often
been the case––through the lens of Aristotelian theory and its basic qualitative
components of plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. None of
these elements necessarily apply to surrealist theatre. Moreover, its profoundly
anti-mimetic nature, due to its much-sought “surreality,” in other words, the
meeting place of opposite categories, poses a great obstacle for surrealist
theatre to be considered successful by the standards of conventional theatre.
Thus, in the eyes of some critics, as Mark Bennison states, “surrealist plays are
formless, nonsensical, and meaningless. At best, they are interesting; at worst,
sophomoric jokes” (190). However, a closer look reveals unusual merits that
encompass its revolutionary shock value aimed at the attack of reason. Anna
Balakian’s following words bear evidence that, already in 1975, there was room
for reconsideration of surrealist theatre:

Some years ago, … I reread the fragmental plays that the surrealists had created in the early
phase of their cenacle and came to the conclusion that surrealism produced nothing more
than a blueprint for theater. That was before Gloria Orenstein launched on her global and
exhaustive investigation of the flowering of the terrain, vaguely delimited but fertile, which
the surrealists had seeded and their followers cultivated (quoted in Orenstein Feman xiii;
my emphasis).

Today, almost 35 years later, despite an accumulated bibliography on the field

of surrealist theatre—a field that flourished in the late 1960s and 70s due to
the emergence of experimental theatre and the exploration of its affinities with
surrealist theatre—there is still room for reconsideration of the latter. Martine
Antle’s study Cultures du surréalisme (2001) is a recent example. Focusing on
the disregarded media of theatre and photography, Antle reviews Surrealism’s
multicultural aspects and shows how these media are “fontamentaux pour
4 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

une compréhension de l’alterité dans le surréalisme” (179) [fundamental for

a comprehension of alterity within Surrealism]. She proposes a re-reading of
Breton’s Nadja among others, and demonstrates how its theatricality determines
the self’s quest for identity. Most important of all, Antle demonstrates “how
pervasive Surrealism has become in contemporary popular culture by showing
how it has fallen into the public domain within, and outside of Europe, and how
it continues to thrive there and to play a fundamental role on a bigger scale”
(Conley 4).
A reconsideration of surrealist theatre would not only challenge the idea
about its mimetic character, but also demystify André Breton’s controversial
attitude toward theatre. Furthermore, it would differentiate surrealist theatre
from other experimental theatre going on at the same time and would trace
the influence of surrealist theatre to areas far beyond its more generally
acknowledged influence on the Theatre of the Absurd, as it imbues even the
contemporary, postmodern stage.8 With regard to the Theatre of the Absurd,
for instance, which “strives to express its senselessness of the human condition
and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of
rational devices and discursive thought” (Esslin, Theatre of the Absurd xix–xx),
Eugene Ionesco admits that Surrealism dazzled and liberated him. So he was
not surprised to be considered by the great surviving Surrealists as the most
successful practitioner of Surrealism. In an interview with Edith Mora in 1960, he
observed: “When he (Philippe Soupault) and Breton and Benjamin Péret saw my
plays in 1952 and ’53 they did indeed say to me, ‘That’s what we wanted to do!’
But I have never belonged to their group, or to the neosurrealists, although the
movement interested me” (Ionesco, Notes 120).
Puzzled by the distinct nature of surrealist plays, which do not seem to fall
into the category of mimetic theatre in the Aristotelian sense, but rather follow
the ludic9 organizational principle, I believe one might usefully look at surrealist
theatre through the lens of this theory of play and games. For surrealist theatre
displays a gamut of ludic strategies that were destined for ample use by the
contemporary postmodern stage in general. Therefore, given the importance
attributed to play and games by the Surrealists themselves, I would argue that
examining surrealist theatre through the lens of ludic theory is a safe path to use
in reconsidering surrealist theatre in general, and in the further exploration of its
deep impact on contemporary theatre. As Stamos Metzidakis claims,

Dès que l’on dit “surréalisme,” on évoque la notion d’une activité ludique. Pour cette raison,
bien des critiques n’ont jamais pris les surréalistes au sérieux. Ils prétendent que ceux-ci ne
faisaient que jouer à des petits jeux linguistiques dont la majorité était incompréhensible
(“L’Apothéose de l’erreur” 7).

[From the moment we say “Surrealism” we evoke the notion of a ludic activity. For this
reason, several critics have never taken the Surrealists seriously. They pretend that
these latter did nothing but play small linguistic games, the majority of which were
incomprehensible.]

Unlike these critics, I believe with Metzidakis that it is substantial to take

surrealist ludic activity seriously, for it was the equivalent of rebellion for them:
“the message [the word ‘jeu’] strove so desperately to communicate was the
 Introduction: Does surrealist theatre exist? 5

refusal to be serious about a social order and a set of values that were believed
discredited by history” (Toloudis 149). Originally introduced as a source of fun
and a means of bonding by showing their group’s common interests, their
experimental games quickly developed into a significant research area for the
Surrealists. In his work Donner à voir (1939), Paul Eluard offers the following vivid
description of the way surrealist games reinforced solidarity among the players:

How many evenings did we spend lovingly creating a race of cadavre exquis! … All cares
were banished, all memory of our poverty, of boredom, of the outside world. We played
with imagery and there were no losers. Everyone wanted his neighbor to win, and to
continue winning even more, until he had everything. No longer did revelation need food.
Its features disfigured by passion seemed far more beautiful than anything revelation can
tell us when we are alone, for when we are alone we are struck dumb by our vision (quoted
in Gershman 55).

Discovering a new vision stemming from their so-called dialogue games,10

Surrealists soon used them to learn about and put into motion the mechanisms
of the psyche. As early as 1924, the Manifesto of Surrealism mentioned play
in the form of “disinterested play of thought,” next to “the superior reality of
certain forms of previously neglected associations” and “the omnipotence
of dream” (Breton, Manifestoes 26). Thirty years later, Breton explained why
Surrealism placed such a great importance on play activity. “Play,” as opposed to
“seriousness,” reflected the desire of the Surrealists “to break with all obsolete
antinomies such as action versus dream, past versus future, reason versus folly,
high versus low, etc.” (quoted in Garrigues 217).
It is indeed imperative to treat surrealist ludic activity as a research tool, since
it has been considered such by the Surrealists themselves, particularly from
the moment they invented their own games. To the Surrealists, as Herbert S.
Gershman states, “surrealist games were a method by which they might detach
themselves from the world, a gesture meaningless in the context of ‘ordinary’
life, but pointing toward a social distinction—and suggesting a distinctive
metaphysical look” (51). Furthermore, the same scholar adds, the surrealist
games “were a gesture of defiance directed at the world of reality, a thumbing
of the nose at adult (utilitarian) logic, a retreat to a paradise where the liberty
so loudly proclaimed in other spheres could not possibly obtain. … The game, in
short, is a formal construction which shuts out one reality while creating another,
more nearly ideal one” (51–2). It is as such that I view each surrealist play, that
is, as a game that shuts out a limited reality and creates another, more ideal one
that has been called “surreality.” Yet, this new ideal reality in which opposite
categories conflate is not a fiction, but the outcome of an active engagement
on behalf of the participants-players. In the words of Freud and Huizinga: “the
opposite of play is not serious activity but reality” (Slovenko and Knight 9).
Such a view obviously stands in sharp contrast to the view of surrealist plays as
generally “mimetic,” as we find in Martin John Bennison’s otherwise important
dissertation, “Aesthetic Principles in Representative Surrealist Plays” (1971).
There he claims, “in the main, the Surrealist plays discussed are mimetic” (190).
By “mimetic play,” he refers to “an object, sufficient or complete in itself that
arouses certain emotions and completes or realizes these emotions. Plot is the
chief principle of formal organization in the mimetic play” (192). And Bennison
6 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

concludes, “[i]n essence, therefore, surrealist dramas do not differ in aesthetic

foundation from previous drama in Western culture” (190); he even leaves room
for didacticism in some of the surrealist plays, which can be seen as another
motivation for mimesis. To make the claim that surrealist drama is accepted as
an integral part of the Western dramatic canon inaugurated by Aristotle’s Poetics
according to which mimesis is the fundamental mode of art (1447a) that refers to
the imitation of human action and external reality, is to diminish the revolutionary
character of surrealist drama. Bennison attempts to equate surrealist drama with
the Western dramatic canon in order for it to be more easily accepted. However,
surrealist drama, like any avant-garde drama, defies this canon and its value lies
precisely in such defiance. “No longer interested in the imitation of external
reality, [it] turned to the imitation of personal experience which, it felt, was more
truthful, more profound, and even more universally significant than any form of
art that had preceded it” (Zinder 1). Thus, surrealist drama has been created in
reaction to any previous form of Western drama, whether Greek classical drama,
French neo-classical drama, realistic and naturalistic drama, or psychological
drama, all of which comply with the illusionistic principle. Its main difference lies
in its defiance of the world of external reality and in its attempt to amplify it, by
actualizing the world of dream on stage, not necessarily in an idealized form, but
in all its depth, no matter how cruel it might be. Such amplification of the stage
is the result of a different view of the use of language, which goes against the
logical use of language and therefore of a coherent use of reality. From this point
of view, although imitation may be used in surrealist dramas as one of their ludic
strategies, it is never as a faithful representation of reality, but rather one that
despises it or, at best, attempts to transform it by transporting the participants
to another world.
Thus, unlike Bennison, who sees surrealist drama as a mimetic drama with
all the components of Aristotelian dramatic theory, I argue, rather, that by
foregrounding the play-concept that is considered free activity par excellence,
surrealist drama is methectic, that is, initiative, participatory, and ritualistic. In
other words, surrealist drama does not represent but rather re-presents, in the
sense that an event or a series of events is not shown figuratively on stage but is
actually reproduced in the action. It thus defies mimesis and instead encourages
semiosis, a process whereby something functions as a sign that may reinforce the
sense of a total theatre where the unification of opposites occurs. Through such a
process, both the actors and the audience engage in a game as a lived experience,
and thus overcome the obstacle of the stage’s inherently mimetic nature and
the notion of a world divided between the stage and the auditorium. This kind
of theatre has its own lucidity and brings to the fore notions that are common
in the postmodern stage: the play of dreams, sexuality, drives, or phantasms;
intertextuality; intermediality, i.e.: the integration of aesthetic concepts from
different media (particularly from the cinema) into a new context; non-linearity;
superposition; visuality; bodied space as the site of signs; the transformation
principle; poeticized language; the active participation of the audience.
Ludic theory thus provides the principal vocabulary for this study, combined
with some notions borrowed from a variety of other disciplines such as semiotics
and performance analysis, the psychoanalysis, and philosophy of language, all
of which provide useful tools for my analysis of individual plays. As regards the
 Introduction: Does surrealist theatre exist? 7

specific ludic theory that I follow here, since there is a great variety of theories
related to the play-concept, and in order to narrow my approach, I was initially
guided by Mihai I. Spariosu’s seminal study Dionysus Reborn: Play and the
Aesthetic Dimension in Modern Philosophical and Scientific Discourse (1989).
In Spariosu’s history of play in philosophy and science since the eighteenth
century, the concept of play is linked to a Western mentality revolving around
a set of rational and pre-rational concepts. It was the pre-rational concept of
play that best fitted surrealist theatre, given the outspoken hostility of the
Surrealists toward reason. My main approach was then further channeled by
Johan Huizinga’s well-known study Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Elements in
Culture (1938), which stressed the essentially irrational and ritualistic character
of the play, in which culture arises and unfolds in and as play, and which Breton
hailed in 1954 as complying with the surrealist beliefs with regard to play. For
Huizinga, human play is indeed “irrational” (4) and “always belongs to the sphere
of festival and ritual-the sacred sphere” (9). Combining “strict rules with genuine
freedom” (22), the world of play belongs to “the world of the savage, the child
and the poet” (26), while its quintessentially creative character is intimately
related to language. Attributing several key aspects to play, Huizinga defined play
as free, disinterested, limited in time and space, orderly, displaying an element
of tension, fostering a play-community, and finally, extra-ordinary, in the sense
of being distinct from real life.
In addition to Huizinga’s work, I also benefited from the insights of several
other studies that themselves re-examined Homo Ludens, such as the study
Les Jeux et les hommes (1958), conducted by the ex-Surrealist, Roger Caillois.
In this study, Caillois puts forward a new typology of games that tries to correct
Huizinga’s view of them as essentially competitive or agon-based, disregarding
entirely the element of chance. In Caillois’ view, games should be classified
under the following four general categories: agon (contest), alea (chance),
mimicry (imitation), and ilinx (vertigo). I used his classification in this study,
particularly since it incorporated a new dimension that is seminal for the
Surrealists, namely chance—best expressed in the notion of the hasard objectif
(the objective chance), which itself includes both premonitions and striking
coincidences. Objective chance is more specifically defined as “the discovery of
the natural link existing between personal subjective automatism and universal
automatism … between personal unconscious, collective unconscious, and
even cosmic unconscious” (Carrouges 7). Susan Laxton’s dissertation, “Paris as
Gameboard: Surrealist Ludic Practices” (2004), explored the factor of chance in
the ludic activities of surrealist painters, through their experiments with drawing
on the basis of the surrealist game “cadavre exquis” [exquisite corpse]: “a self-
consciously constructed process for stimulating an ‘automatism-effect’” (386).
While many concepts drawn on in Laxton’s work, including her article “The
Guarantor of Chance”, where she concentrates on the “exquisite corpse” surrealist
game, were influential to this project, I preferred instead to concentrate on the
surrealist game “one-into-another” (defined below), because of its proximity to
the ludic model employed here according to which play inhabits two interlocking
realities conceived as two communicating vessels to use Breton’s terms, provided
one is able to retrieve their hidden correspondences. Although it was invented
much later than the original effervescence of surrealist theatre, even a posteriori
8 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

this game exemplifies the main theoretical ludic pillars of the genre. Besides, the
surrealist ludic activity was only theorized retrospectively,11 thanks to the efforts
of Emmanuel Garrigues, who compiled the compendium Les Jeux surréalistes
(Archives du surréalisme, no. 5, 1995). The game “one-into-another”12 was
invented by Breton and Benjamin Péret and was published in Médium (no. 2,
February 1954 and no. 3, May 1954), “as a way of systematizing an important
area of Surrealist thought, that of metaphor, analogy and the ‘image’” (Gooding
145). It relies upon the idea that any object is “contained” within any other object,
once one can isolate some of its—color, structure, or dimensions—that can also
apply to the other object. In other words, it refers to the coupling of two terms
of reality not normally associated with one another and is intended to signify the
possibility of relations existing in the world other than those usually perceived.
A different sort of causality is asserted, or at least hinted at, exemplifying the
principal surrealist idea of the reconciliation of contradictory forces, as well as
the disinterested play of thought. In a sense, in “one-into-another” there is an
enigma of sorts in search of its own solution by means of play. As Philippe Gréa
puts it, “less famous than the exquisite cadavers, it is based on a particular use of
the threaded metaphor and consists in an enigma that has to be cracked by the
players” (91). On the basis of interpretive semantics, this scholar demystified the
inner logic of this game by foregrounding the semantic foundations of the game
and the mechanisms that lead to the discovery of the solution. According to him,
“l’un dans l’autre forms what can be called a semic complex” (ibid.), while “a rule
of optimality eventually paves the way towards the answer” (ibid.).
Another influential study from which I borrowed the term “ludics” in the
sense of the poetics of play and games, is Warren Motte’s study Playtexts: Ludics
in Contemporary Literature (1995), in which he revisits Huizinga’s Homo Ludens
through a critical analysis of its two main revisions, namely, Caillois’ Les Jeux et les
homes (1958) and Jacques Ehrmann’s study “Homo Ludens Revisited,” included
in the special issue of Yale French Studies, entitled Game, Play, Literature (1968).
In this study, Ehrmann offers a model of play as economy, communication, and
articulation. Play for him is thus a dynamic economic system characterized by
motion and creativity. Embracing this model, rather than Huizinga’s or Caillois’
play models, Motte developed the concept of literary ludics, according to which
every text is the product of a playful activity among the author, the reader, and
the text, during which one appropriates language to oneself, simultaneously
and playfully constructing an idiolect. Thus, Motte’s thesis also bears the
mark of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of “language-game,” as developed in his
Philosophical Investigations, according to which, as Motte glosses, “each sort of
utterance may be thought of as a game, guided by its own set of rules” (13), and
that “these games are varied yet bear nonetheless certain mutual resemblances”
(ibid.). This “family” resemblance, Motte argues, “can be accounted for by the
attitude with which we approach these activities, an attitude that is—in varying
degree—ludic in character” (14). By appropriating certain of Ehrmann’s and
Wittgenstein’s ideas, Motte questions idealist formulations of play, and targets
the opposition of play and seriousness that lurks behind both play models of
Huizinga and Caillois. Warren Motte embraces Wittgenstein’s axiom that all game
has a “point” (an axiom that appears on page 150 of Philosophical Investigations,
which Motte quotes on page 15 of Playtexts).
 Introduction: Does surrealist theatre exist? 9

Embracing this idea myself, which we retrieve in Huizinga’s model uttered

as “all play means something” (1), I have embarked on an endeavor similar to
Motte’s; I attempt a construct of surrealist dramatic ludics in the same way that
Motte offers a construct of literary ludics, where every single literary piece he
examines may be considered as a playtext in which a variety of diverse ludic
strategies is materialized. Likewise, in this book, every single representative play
I examine may be considered as a stage game that materializes the “one-into-
another” ludic principle. My departure point comes from Breton’s text Nadja
(1928), which is also among the variety of seminal texts examined by Motte,
specifically as a terrain in which Breton materializes diverse ludic strategies.
Interestingly, Nadja does constitute my departure point in this book in one of its
specific moments wherein Nadja invites her interlocutor to engage in a game of
her own. This being the focal point of my rereading of Nadja, it affects this book’s
organization as follows:
Chapter 1 presents the seminal surrealist game “one-into-another” in Nadja
and Jean Pierre Palau’s infamous play Les Détraquées (The Derouted), in an effort
to formulate André Breton’s implicit dramatic theory as it emerges from some of
his major writings, in particular from Nadja, “Le Discours sur le peu de réalité”
(“Discourse on the Paucity of Reality,” 1924), and, of course, his manifestoes
of Surrealism. What this dramatic theory consists of, how it is related to the
concept of play and the surrealist game “one-into-another,” in particular, and
how this implicit dramatic theory accounts for Breton’s controversial attitude
toward theatre, constitute the main issues addressed in this chapter. It must
be stressed that this chapter goes beyond Orestein Feman’s findings in the
introductory part of her study The Theatre of the Marvelous: Surrealism and
the Contemporary Stage (1975), in which she undertakes a similar endeavor.
Orenstein Feman attempted to define Breton’s dramatic theory through a
succinct intra-textual analysis and astutely concluded that “theater could one
day become the medium par excellence for surrealist expression” (18). More
specifically, this chapter traces the first official implementation of Breton’s implicit
ludic surrealist dramatic theory on stage. The latter is reconstructed on the basis
of a re-reading of Nadja that joins two of its moments: Nadja’s invitation to play,
addressed to the narrator/Breton, and the latter’s task to play the performance
analyst as a deeply troubled spectator, facing the staging/re-staging of Palau’s
play Les Détraquées. The interweaving of these two moments demonstrates
how Breton is taught by Nadja how to play a mimicry game and how he himself
is transported by this game to the terrain of the aforementioned spectacle which
he recalls. He engages thus in a voluntary activity that totally absorbs him in
a quasi-ritualistic manner: in the process he becomes a performance analyst/
spectator guided by desire and is situated at the interface of two realities: one,
in which he challenges his memory, and another, in which he re-experiences
the feelings that troubled him in front of the spectacle of Les Détraquées. This
absorption was made possible due to the major force of desire.
A ludic theory that challenges the spectator in this way was paradoxically first
implemented on stage thanks to the efforts of two ex-members of Surrealism.
I refer to the staging of Vitrac’s The Mysteries of Love: A Surrealist Drama (1924)
under Antonin Artaud’s direction in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry in 1927—the
subject of my second chapter. The chapter also showcases how Breton’s ludic
10 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

dramatic theory reached its peak in the Greek playwright Nanos Valaoritis’s
self-conscious experimentation with surrealist games after joining the surrealist
group in its latest phase, specifically in his play The Nightfall Hotel (1957),
modeled after Vitrac’s The Mysteries of Love. Through a comparative analysis of
these two thematically similar plays that center around “mad love,” this chapter
demonstrates how both these plays are structured after Breton’s concept of the
surrealist dialogue-game and how they bring the matter of language into play
even when applied to the stage, thus remaining faithful to the basic tenets of
Surrealism. To render my thesis even more plausible, these plays are examined
through the lens of Breton’s surrealist credo, as well as in light of some seminal
theoretical texts, signed by both Vitrac and Artaud and published during the
period 1927–30, heavily influenced by Breton’s ideas. I refer, in particular, to the
seminal text “Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry et l’hostilité publique” (“The Alfred Jarry
Theatre and Public Hostility”) and some excerpts from Valaoritis’s books, written
in Greek, Για μια θεωρία της Γραφής (For a Theory of Writing) (1990) and Για
μια θεωρία της Γραφής B (For a Theory of Writing B) (2006) that illustrate the
development of the reception of Breton’s ludic ideas.
Chapter 3 departs from the idea that ludic activities, in many surrealist plays,
are guided by rules, and argues that surrealist theatre ingeniously places the
inherent logic of games into the service of the irrational, in order to become
a tool of subversion of the social order. More precisely, the rule-bound ludic
activity of the Surrealists led to the exploration of the unconscious and of
chance, to the point where genuine freedom meets with reason-bound rules. In
fact, the Surrealists express their desire to disassociate reason from its common
conception as the opposite of nonsense and try to treat it as a communicative
vessel with nonsense. Nonsense then becomes meaningful as an attempt
to reorganize language according to the rules of play. Take, for instance, the
so-called “one-into-another” game, which is the culmination of surrealist ludic
activity. Anna Balakian describes this game, which explores the mechanism of
analogy, as follows: “[it is] the power of seeing in each object two or an infinite
quantity of others, the range and number dependent on the power of desire
and obsession” (quoted in Orenstein Feman 23). This basic rule functions as a
guarantor of freeing the players’ imagination to the point that it supports the
irrational, since it encourages improvisation and free association. Such a freedom
of imagination is characteristic of children’s behavior. In fact, as Freud points out,
“(the child) finds enjoyment in the attraction of what is forbidden by reason.
He now uses games in order to withdraw from the pressure of critical reason”
(125–6). Huizinga appeals to the same concept when he states, “really to play,
a man must play as a child” (quoted in Motte 12). It thus became necessary to
expand the use of surrealist games to that of children’s games in this chapter,
particularly since they are also widely incorporated in surrealist theatrical
output. This chapter offers a comparative reading of three plays that showcase
how their diverse ludic strategies become tools of social disruptiveness: Vitrac’s
play Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir (Victor or Children in Power, 1928) and its
loose adaptation by Valaoritis, entitled Henriette où est-elle passée? (Henriette,
Where Did She Go? 1957), as well as Valaoritis’s Les Tables rondes (The Round
Tables, 1957). All these plays feature children as their protagonists, who play with
language and children’s games in an extremely intelligent manner that turns the
 Introduction: Does surrealist theatre exist? 11

world of adults upside down. Furthermore, taking the ludic strategies employed
in his model (Victor or Children in Power) a step further, Valaoritis, in his play, The
Round Tables, plays with language’s patent nonsense and creates something new
from it. While Vitrac uses games as a means of revealing the problem of human
expression, Valaoritis uses them as an end in itself, to show that a theatrical work
conceived as a game is far more interesting than any merely mimetic play.
Chapter 4 takes its cue from Louis Aragon’s idea that the theatrical work of
postmodern artist Robert Wilson constitutes the fulfillment of Surrealism. From
here, it seeks to identify the affinity of Wilson’s work with Surrealism on the basis
of the pioneering gamut of ludic strategies that he uses on stage. This chapter,
through a comparative approach, offers representative examples of Wilson’s
stage games from several of his theatrical works, particularly from Le Regard du
sourd (Deafman Glance, 1967), the seeds of which can be traced back to Antonin
Artaud’s early experiment Le Jet de sang (The Spurt of Blood, 1927). Sharing a
similar process in their respective attempts to reinvent the language of the stage,
both men deal with the action on stage as an ongoing, thrilling game, in which
both actors and audience are wholeheartedly engaged as players, and during
which language is transformed into images, thus placing at the foreground a
visual rather than a verbal logic. If the surrealist mode of playing with images
as exemplified in Artaud’s The Jet of Blood resembles improvisation, Wilson’s
play with language resembles a more sophisticated, rule-bound game, despite
its intended, careful advanced planning. In an effort to better illustrate Artaud’s
conceptualization of the stage in his Jet de sang, I look at one of its multiple
contemporary stagings that seems to do justice to it in all respects. I refer to its
staging at Wickham Studio Theatre in Bristol, UK, under the direction of Günter
Berghaus that took place February 14–17, 1996. The accompanying pictures of
this performance will, I hope, help the reader visualize that materialization of
Artaud’s surrealist stage ludics.
The final chapter focuses on another seminal American playwright, Megan
Terry, whose theatrical work, both in theme and style, is driven by the ludic
principle, particularly in her so-called transformation plays that best express
her ties to surrealist theatre. In the span of a long and successful career as a
playwright and stage director, Terry never stopped experimenting with the
concepts of play and games both on the level of stage language and that of the
actors’ body movements in an ultimate attempt to interrogate the function of
the ever-elusive “self” within the framework of a feminist agenda. Focusing on
four of Terry’s transformation plays—Calm Down Mother: A Transformation for
Three Women (1965), Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place (1966), Comings
and Goings: A Theater Game (1966), and Objective Love (1980)—this last
chapter offers a demonstration of post-surrealist ludic stage techniques primarily
operating on the level of the actors’ bodies, and the way these techniques
challenge the notion of reality, the nature of identity of the character, and the
nature of the relationship between the stage and auditorium.
In conclusion, in this book, I focus exclusively on the ludic strategies employed
in surrealist theatre and in plays that bear clear affinities with Surrealism.
Considering it as essentially ludic and transformational, surrealist theatre has
a life of its own and is separate from experimental and avant-garde theatre.
12 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

What distinguishes it from the latter is its focus on the aesthetic category of
the “marvelous” in the context of the developmental stages of surrealist games,
animated by the same spirit that infuses children’s games. As such, surrealist
theatre has greatly intruded upon and infused the contemporary stage, bringing
with it the leader of Surrealism to be once more ahead of his time in his
re-imagining of the stage for future generations.

Notes
1 For more details on this issue, see Auslander, “Surrealism in the Theatre.”
2 For more details, see Cohn, “Surrealism and Today’s French Theatre.”
3 This exhibition lasted from February 26 to March 27, 1966.
4 For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see Béhar, Étude, 30.
5 Here are some representative ones: The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, Patrice
Pavis’s Dictionnaire du théâtre and Alfred Simon’s Dictionnaire du théâtre français
contemporain.
6 The following three articles were also particularly influential to the present study:
Levitt, “Roger Vitrac and the Drama of Surrealism,” Bermel, “Artaud as Playwright,”
and Metzidakis, “L’Apothéose de l’erreur.”
7 See, Schuster, “Le Quatrième chant.”
8 I use the term “postmodern” in Ihab Hassan’s sense, that is, as a new aesthetic
formation, characterized by the openness of elements such as “‘play’, ‘chance’,
‘dispersal’, ‘combination’, ‘difference’, and ‘desire’” against the closure and rigid
organization of elements linked with modernism such as, among others, “‘form’,
‘hierarchy’, ‘mastery’ and ‘determinacy.’” See Malpas, The Postmodern.
9 The word “ludic,” more common in French than English, is asso­ciated with the
activity of playing games. It comes from the Latin word ludus. Johan Huizinga
comments, with regard to ludus: “In remarkable contrast to Greek with its changing
and heterogeneous terms for the play-function, Latin has really only one word to
cover the whole field of play: ludus, from ludere, of which ludus is a direct derivative.
We should observe that jocus, jocari in the special sense of joking and jesting does
not mean play proper in classical Latin. Though ludere may be used for the leaping
of fishes, the fluttering of birds and the splashing of water, its etymology does not
appear to lie in the sphere of rapid movement, flashing, etc., but in that of non-
seriousness, and particularly of ‘semblance’ or ‘deception.’ Ludus covers children’s
games, recreation, contests, liturgical and theatrical representations, and games of
chance. In the expression lares ludentes it means ‘dancing’” (35).
10 Although the first surrealist game, called “Liquidation” and published in Littérature
in March 1921, was based on Breton’s concept of dialogue as two simultaneous
monologues, the Surrealists decided only in March 1928 to name their games
“dialogues.” Both the rules and the texts they produced were published under the
title “Dialogue in 1928” in La Révolution surréaliste of the same year. They published
other games in subsequent issues until September 1962 and collected them in a
volume edited by Emmanuel Garrigues in 1995. In addition to the “Dialogue in
1928” the following forms of this game appeared in various journals: “The Dialogue
in 1929” (Varietés, June 1929) and “The Dialogue in 1934” (Documents, spec. issue,
June 1934). These were published by Emmanuel Garrigues along with “The Dialogue
 Introduction: Does surrealist theatre exist? 13

in 1952–1954” and “The Game of Syllogisms.” In the “dia­logue” the participants

were seated around a table without looking at each other, and wrote questions
and responses on a circulating piece of paper. Their various sentences were then
assembled and the result was always funny and puzzling. A version of this game is
the famous “cadavre exquis” (exquisite corpse).
11 See Jean Paul Morel’s relevant remark: “these fixed theoretical elements were,
besides, established in their majority retrospectively and a posteriori.” This
information was diffused by the electronic list Melusine through which Jean-Paul
Morel’s French original version of his article “Les Jeux surréalistes” appeared and
which would be published in Portuguese in the collective volume O Surrealismo
(2004).
12 Breton explains the creation of this game in “Perspective cavalière” (1970): “En
quête d’un exemple pour faire valoir ce que je défendais, j’en vins à dire que le
lion pouvait être aisément décrit à partir de l’allumette que je m’apprêtais à frotter.
Il m’apparut en effet, sur-le-champ, que la flamme en puissance dans l’allumette
‘donnerait’ en pareil cas la crinière et qu’il suffirait, à partir de là, de très peu de
mots tendant à différencier, à particulariser l’allumette pour mettre le lion sur pieds.
Le lion est dans l’allumette, de même que l’allumette est dans le lion. [In search of
an example to assert what I defended, I came to say that the lion could be easily
described from the match that I was going to rub. It appeared to me indeed, over-
the-camp, that the flame in power in the match ‘would give’ in a similar case the
mane and that it would suffice from that moment onwards from very few words
tending to differentiate to specify the match in order to put the lion on foot. The lion
is in the match in the same way that the match is in the lion.] (Breton, 1970, p. 53)”
(quoted in Gréa).
This page has been left blank intentionally
1
The surrealist game “one into
another” in Nadja and Les
Détraquées: Reconstructing André
Breton’s ludic dramatic theory

Nous demeurons quelque temps silencieux, puis elle me tutoie brusquement: “Un jeu: dis
quelque chose. Ferme les yeux et dis quelque chose. N’importe, un chiffre, un prénom.
Comme ceci (elle ferme les yeux): Deux, deux quoi? Deux femmes. Comment sont ces
femmes? En noir. Où se trouvent-elles? Dans un parc … Et puis, que font-elles? Allons, c’est
si facile, pourquoi ne veux-tu pas jouer? Eh, bien, moi, c’est ainsi que je me parle quand
je suis seule, que je me raconte toutes sortes d’histoires. Et pas seulement des vaines
histoires: c’est même entièrement de cette façon que je vis.”* …

*Ne touche-t-on pas là au terme extrême de l’aspiration surréaliste, à sa plus forte idée-
limite? (André Breton, Nadja in OC1 690).

[We remain silent for a while, then she suddenly addresses me using tu: “A game: say
something. Close your eyes and say something. Anything, a number, a name. Like this (she
closes her eyes): Two, two what? Two women. What do they look like? Wearing black.
Where are they? In a park … And then, what are they doing? Try it, it’s so easy, why don’t
you want to play? You know, that’s how I talk to myself when I’m alone, I tell myself all kinds
of stories. And not only just silly stories: actually, I live this way altogether.”* …

*Does this not approach the extreme limit of the surrealist aspiration, its furthest
determinant? (Howard 74).]1

Introduction
The above quotation, depicting a young female protagonist named Nadja
playing—and explaining—a spontaneous game with words, will be the focus of
this chapter. The asterisked footnote that accompanies the passage raises it to a
significant moment among the myriad snapshots that comprise André Breton’s
Nadja. First published in 1928 and then again in the 1963 Gallimard edition,
16 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

this sui generis text is like a ludic cryptogram, made up of images, anecdotes,
photographs, and text, arranged in a kind of constellation that invites the
reader to interpret along with its narrator/author the signs of the marvelous
that intrude in his daily life. Likewise, this chapter undertakes a similar act of
interpretation, in an effort to elucidate the above-mentioned footnote’s rather
rhetorical question; the question endows Nadja’s confession about practicing
and experiencing her game as a way of living with the aura of the extreme limit
of the surrealist aspiration.2
In an attempt to grasp what is at stake in this footnote, it is necessary to
make a detailed examination of the main parameters involved in the female
protagonist’s game, and discuss some of the main surrealist tenets that this
game apparently touches upon. By undertaking such an endeavor, it is my hope
that the unexpected revelatory power of Nadja’s game for her interlocutor
will be equally revelatory for our understanding of Breton’s enigmatic attitude
toward the theatre. Such a detailed examination of Nadja’s game will not only
shed light on the importance granted by the narrator/author to the play itself,
but ultimately mark the starting point for a reconstruction of the implicit in this
dramatic theory of the leader of Surrealism. In other words, I examine Nadja’s
game of questions and answers closely in the hope of grasping Breton’s ludic
dramatic theory, which is never explicitly stated yet fully informs his work.
This game, I argue, may be seen as a model-stage that shows Nadja playing/
acting according to the rules that Breton lays out in his prolific writings. Nadja’s
play reflects Breton’s major ideas about language and its surrealist use, along with
its relation to the images and the position of the self before “surreality,” as he had
expressed them in 1924 in the Manifesto of Surrealism, and in the “Introduction
au discours sur le peu de réalité” (“Introduction to the Paucity of Reality.”) Both
texts, along with Nadja, are seminal to our attempt to reconstruct Breton’s
implicit ludic dramatic theory. For Nadja’s game constitutes a rudimentary ludic/
dramatic moment, in which notions such as play and game, dream, theatre and
spectatorship, self-analysis and subjectivity are enigmatically interconnected. In
this schema, concatenate circles encapsulate the fundamental surrealist modus
vivendi, namely, that of the coincidentia oppositorum.
This chapter thus sets out to lay bare all the possible hidden layers of Nadja’s
game that unfolded in a taxi, on the second day after her acquaintance with the
narrator/author of Nadja (October 5, 1926). This game started as a spontaneous
language game, and soon went on to take on the form of mimicry, and
ultimately became an associative type of play that led the parties involved to a
transformational experience. This seemingly “simple” moment invites a reading
that brings forth all the main surrealist tenets as formulated by Breton himself
in his major theoretical writings, besides Nadja, all of which have the potential
to be applied to the stage as a playground that brings together two realms of
reality. To better grasp all these layers, we must meticulously analyze the above
excerpt and unfold its multifarious connections step by step. To this end, next to
ludic theory in general, and some of the tools of psychoanalysis (including the
well-known Lacanian notions of the imaginary and the mirror stage), a brief look
at Breton’s position towards the theatre in relation to his major beliefs about the
use of language and the image is necessary.
 The surrealist game “one into another” 17

Revisiting André Breton’s scattered remarks on the

theatre and the stage
It is noteworthy that even before launching himself as the author of the Manifesto
of Surrealism in 1924, André Breton had already appeared in the public sphere
as both a playwright and an actor. I refer to his Dadaist experiments S’il vous
plaît (If You Please, 1920) and Vous m’oublierez (You Will Forget Me, 1920)—
both included in the Gallimard edition of his famous Magnetic Fields—written
in collaboration with Philippe Soupault by means of automatic writing. These
were short skits in which he himself performed with his friends during the Dada
evening at the Théâtre de l’Œuvre on March 27, 1920, and which, despite their
humor, he soon discarded as being filled with “an infantile skepticism” (OC1
1176).3 S’il vous plaît, according to Breton, treats the theme of the seduction
game in four forms in each one of its four acts: artistic, commercial, amorous,
and theatrical (OC1 1175). You Will Forget Me, which deals with “the conflict of
the ideas of conservation and reproduction” (ibid.) features characters-objects:
specifically, an umbrella, a gown, and a sewing machine placed next to an
unknown person. Breton’s Poisson soluble (Soluble Fish), published along with
the Manifesto of Surrealism (1924), is also the outcome of automatic writing.
Soluble Fish contains one of the most revealing theatrical scenes. Two women
and two men act as Lucie, Helen, Mark the poet, and Satan in a stage setup
consisting of a giant gyroscope that revolves around its vertical axis, with one
point resting on the edge of a glass. The character dialogues challenge logical
coherence within a normal syntax. The value of these dialogues lies in the
extraordinary poetic images they create, while Satan’s final words prefigure a
new form of theatre: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am the author of the play that
we have just had the honor of performing for you. The clockwork is of little
importance, the symbols in this new form of theater being no more than a
promise” (Manifestoes, Seaver and Lane 100; italics mine). His later work, Amour
fou (Mad Love, 1937), as well as many of his poems, also abound in references to
the stage and theatrical magic. In short, while Breton’s attitude toward the stage
remains quite controversial, it is as if he played a game with constantly changing
rules. At least, as Gloria Orenstein Feman states, “a superficial perusal of his
works would indicate a negativism toward theatre—or at best an indifference
to it as an art form. This attitude turned to outright hostility when it came to
Breton’s clash with Artaud over the theatre in Alfred Jarry’s presentation of the
Dream Play by Strindberg” (17–18), as we will see in more detail in the next
chapter.4 However, incidents such as Breton’s clash with Artaud should not be
taken to account definitively for Breton’s negativism towards theatre; for this
negativism might simply be the result of his dissatisfaction with the practice
of theatre up to his time: it was bound to the representational and illusionistic
principle, which was incompatible with the absolute freedom that he sought
everywhere. Besides, for him, any involvement with professional theatre meant
inexcusable compromises, such as the one that forced the leaders of the Théâtre
Alfred Jarry, Antonin Artaud and Roger Vitrac, to yield to “unworthy commercial
instincts, to the extent of wanting to produce surrealist plays in the framework
18 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

of the professional theatre” (Esslin, Antonin Artaud 331). Thus, one must truly
scrutinize Breton’s prolific writings to come to a conclusion with regard to his
debated anti-theatricality. For, as Orenstein Feman stresses,

[a] careful exploration of Breton’s writings reveals that there is an intimate linkage in his mind
between surrealism and theatrical form. This subterranean analogy, which likens the dream
or the inner life of the psyche to the theater, is a recurrent underlying motif, suggesting the
interpretation that theater could one day become the medium par excellence for surrealist
expression, for it is one art form in which imagination can become reality and where I can
become an other (18).

Along the same lines, I believe that Breton envisioned an idealized version of
theatre, which prevented him from giving it its full potential and resulted in a
constant deferral of its materialization to the future. Keeping this idealized
version at the back of his thoughts, he held that new form of theatre perpetually
unrealized or, to quote his own words, he kept it as “a promise of the future.”
Hence his infamous claim in Nadja, for instance, that the only play written for
the stage worthy of recollection was Pierre Palau’s Les Détraquées, performed
by Le Théâtre des Deux Masques in February 1921. A claim that denies an entire
theatrical tradition in this way is clearly anti-theatrical, particularly given the
fact that the quality of Palau’s play has been questioned, as we will discuss in
detail shortly. Unsurprisingly, this challenging statement has prompted several
different interpretations among scholars of surrealist theatre.
Henri Béhar, first of all, the scholar who has most devoted his life to the
study of surrealist theatre, wrote a provocative article, entitled “The Passionate
Attraction: André Breton and the Theatre.” He owes the title of his article to the
following note, written by Breton in Nadja, with regard to the actress Blanche
Derval, who played one of the two female protagonists in Palau’s Les Détraquées
and whom he greatly admired:

Qu’ai-je voulu dire? Que j’aurais dû l’approcher, à tout prix tenter de me dévoiler la femme
réelle qu’elle était. Pour cela, il m’eût fallu surmonter certaine prévention contre les
comédiennes, qu’entretenait le souvenir de Vigny, de Nerval. Je m’accuse là d’avoir failli à
l’attraction passionnelle (OC1 673).

[What did I want to say? That I should have approached her, that at every price I should
have attempted to reveal the real woman she was; to do this, I ought to have overcome
certain reservations against actresses who maintained the spirit of Vigny, of Nerval. Here I
reproach myself for having failed to yield to this passionate attraction.]

In the expression “passionate attraction,” used by Breton about the actress

Blanche Derval, Henri Béhar saw Breton’s attitude toward the theatre:5

I very willingly see it as the ambivalent sign of his attitude toward theatre. On the one hand,
he expects from it a revelation, or at least a great find …

… But, on the other hand, there is the irrevocable condemnation found in “Introduction au
discours sur le peu de réalité” of the two masks …. The theatrical game is impossible from
both sides (“Passionate Attraction” 18).
 The surrealist game “one into another” 19

What Béhar had traced as an obstacle in “Introduction au discours sur le peu

de réalité” was Breton’s overall reaction against the imitative principle of the
theatre. More precisely, this was the moment when Breton imagined donning
a suit of armor, in order to discover some of the consciousness of a fourteenth-
century man. In his failure to do so, he exclaims:

Ô théâtre éternel, tu exiges que non seulement pour jouer le rôle d’un autre, mais encore
pour dicter ce rôle, nous nous masquions à sa ressemblance, que la glace devant laquelle
nous posons nous renvoie de nous une image étrangère. L’imagination a tous les pouvoirs,
sauf celui de nous identifier en dépit de notre apparence à un personnage autre que nous-
même (OC2 266).

[Oh eternal theatre, you require, not only in order to play the role of another, but even
in order to suggest this role, that we disguise ourselves with its likeness, that the mirror
before which we pose returns us to a foreign image of ourselves. The imagination has every
power except that of identifying ourselves, despite our appearance, to a character other
than ourselves (Muller and Richardson 317).]

In these words Breton explicitly confronts the notion of theatre as mimesis,

highlighting its permanent artificiality: an artificiality which is manifest in the
persistent discrepancy between the self and its impersonations on stage.
Employing the familiar mirror metaphor—a favorite among the Surrealists—
he faults theatre for a lack of genuineness and, thus, of truthfulness and
effectiveness. Breton could not, of course, anticipate the path-breaking theories
about the formation of the self that Jacques Lacan (despite Breton’s impact on
him), would later develop.
Surrealism’s influence on Lacan is well documented; as Stamos Metzidakis
states, Lacan, who was to provide structuralism with a radically new language
and a rewriting of the sign, “was largely inspired by the automatic writing to
which André Breton held all his life” (“Breton’s Structuralism” 38). Also, the same
scholar continues, Breton was interested in “the [same] eternal quest for, and
renewal of, desire as Lacan”; indeed, there are striking similarities between Lacan
and early Surrealism with regard to the “probing of the id” and the “stretching
of the limits of the ego” (ibid. 39). Yet, in his seminal study, “The Mirror Stage as
Formative of the Function of the ‘I’ as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience”
(1949), which, interestingly, refers to Breton’s “Introduction au discours sur
le peu de réalité,”6 and which informs my own project, Lacan maintains his
distance from Breton. He argues for the child’s “méconnaissance” (miscognition,
misconstruction of the self) in front of the mirror—in the sense of a false image
of wholeness—as a prerequisite for knowledge. This, I believe, could amply apply
to surrealist theatre, for it is a theatre of imagos that seeks to transform both its
actors and spectators through identification. In Lacanian terms, identification is
“the transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image—
whose predestination to this phase-effect is sufficiently indicated by the use, in
analytic theory, of the ancient term imago” (Sheridan 2).
Being unaware of the seminal role that the notion of “méconnaissance” plays
for the infant in front of the mirror, and of the possible application of this concept
to the theatre in general, Breton continued his attack against theatre. In his view,
theatre unacceptably calls for such a misconstruction of the actor’s self, since the
20 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

actor has to assume the role of the “other.” Thus, Breton closes his “Introduction
au discours sur le peu de réalité” with a more categorical declaration-confession
against disguise: “Je n’aime pas qu’on tergiverse ni qu’on se cache” (OC2 266)
[I don’t like either procrastinating or hiding]. Breton’s denial of mimesis, which is
a prerequisite for the stage, poses a great impediment in our effort to reconstruct
Breton’s dramatic theory, as Béhar also acknowledges. However, as this chapter
will demonstrate, this obstacle is not insurmountable. Rather, it may be seen as
a necessary precondition for establishing a more solid basis for our endeavor.
The denial of representation, as exemplified in the actor’s false identification
with the image of the “other,” may not necessarily mean negation of the theatre;
rather, it may mean the beginning of a transformation, a new conception of this
medium, one that refers to a would-be-non-mimetic theatre. After all, we must
keep in mind that Breton embraced the image of the “demain joueur,”7 in the
sense of “the player of tomorrow.” In this case, emphasis is placed on the future
as capable of playing with its past, allowing for reconsideration and constant
reevaluation. One has only to recall the following words from the Second
Manifesto of Surrealism (1930):

Il est normal que le surréalisme se manifeste au milieu et peut-être au prix d’une suite
ininterrompue de défaillences, de zigzags et de défections qui exigent à tout instant la
remise en question de ses données originelles, c’est-à-dire le rappel au principe initial de
son activité joint à l’interrogation du demain joueur qui veut que les cœurs “éprennent” et
se déprennent (OC1 801).

[It is normal for Surrealism to manifest itself at the center and perhaps at the cost of
an uninterrupted series of faints, zigzags and defections that require at any moment
questioning its original data, that is to say, recall the initial principle of its activity attached
to the interrogation of tomorrow’s player, according to which the hearts “are infatuated”
and then cease to be infatuated.]

This statement made by Breton appears here like a safety valve for our endeavor;
we can reconsider his work on the basis of the transformative principle of “the
player of tomorrow” which determines Surrealism’s position at every moment,
including the disposition of Surrealism toward theatre. It is interesting to
notice here how this ludic principle betrays Breton’s aspiration to originality,
as Metzidakis has defined the latter term, as “a ‘backwards’ or inward-looking
model of the concept [of originality]” (Difference Unbound 150). If, for Surrealism,
it is mandatory to question their original tenets [la remise en question de ses
données originelles]—an action informed by the ludic principle of change—we
can assume that Breton’s own contradictory views on the theatre simply reflect
a deeper, problematic issue on the question of theatre; one that derives from his
desire to achieve “a singular presentation of a different reality, a more holistic,
anterior existence” (ibid. 151). Once Breton’s dramatic theory is reconstructed in
light of such an issue, it will then be possible to offer a clearer explanation for his
overall neglect of theatre, and thus to provide a better account of the so-called
“failure” of surrealist theatre.
Another scholar who has focused on the intimate link between the ludic
principle and theatricality in Breton’s work is Warren Motte. In his study
Playtexts: Ludics in Contemporary Literature (1995), he treats Nadja, among
 The surrealist game “one into another” 21

other texts, as a “playtext,” in the sense of being “animated by a strong ludic

spirit” (27). Motte argues that this anti-literary narrative is the outcome of
the author’s playful experimentation with a variety of literary ludic strategies,
including make-believe theatrical techniques, to the point that a conflation
arises between the words “ludic” and “theatre”:8

In the theater, after all, everything is play. Nadja herself is intimately and explicitly associated
with the theater. She is compared to the actress Derval (64), even to the point of physical
resemblance; she chose her own name, as an actress chooses her stage name (66); she lives
“somewhere near the Théâtre des Arts” (94). Before she actually appears in the text, Breton
alludes to her imminent “entrée en scène” (rev. ed. 69) (46).

He suggests, in this manner, that Nadja will be a player on the textual stage
(ibid.). Breton himself, Motte continues, “speaks of the scenes” of Nadja’s past
life and denotes certain of her actions as “même jeu” [same game], a locution
that closely resembles the stage directions according to which Nadja takes on
various fictional poses (ibid.). In short, Motte concludes, “Nadja plays constantly;
that is, she acts and she plays, in both senses of these two words. This playful
spirit is clearly part of her attraction to Breton, part of the seduction she
exercises upon him: ‘Try it, it’s so easy, why don’t you want to play?’” (ibid.). This
peculiar linguistic game of Nadja’s, that transforms her at once to a performer/
auditor and takes her to another reality, attracts Breton to the point that he
is finally involved in the game, despite his initial reluctance. As Motte argues,
Breton plays the game of transforming Nadja to Nadja: “Breton’s game finally,
is one of expropriation and domestication, and its stake is the authoritative
circumscription of convulsive beauty within the limits of a text” (47).9 Also, in
Marguerite Bonnet’s view, thanks to its “subtle play of the blanks,” among other
games, Nadja becomes something more than a book: “le lieu d’une mutation
décisive du livre, où se modifie son rapport avec la vie” (OC1 1502) [(It is) the
place of a decisive mutation for the book where its rapport with life is modified].
The peculiar fusion of play and life in Nadja reflects Breton’s fascination with
Nadja, who also constantly fuses life and play. This fusion—or rather confusion,
in Nadja’s case, due to her insanity, which nevertheless for Breton and the
Surrealists is seen “as the extreme point of genius” (Wylie 100)—offers the key
to taking Motte’s thesis a step further and starting the reconstruction of Breton’s
dramatic theory. While Motte saw in Nadja a displacement of sexuality into
textuality, this study sees Breton’s vision for the theatre in Nadja’s game, a vision
that started as a fascinating game, only to be abandoned, like Nadja herself,
after she has served “as a catalyst in Breton’s discovery of self” (ibid.).10 This
abandonment was due to the unattainability of the rules for one of its players,
one who became a game-spoiler, namely, the narrator/Breton himself. In effect,
I see Nadja’s game as a “free play” par excellence in the realm of language, which
encapsulates Breton’s overall dramatic theory. In other words, I view Nadja’s
game as an early actualization of Breton’s beliefs regarding language and the
game’s rapport with images and the self within “surreality.” In the following
pages, I proceed with a close reading of Nadja’s game, in order to test it by means
of both intratextual and intertextual references; but first, I will take a closer look
at Nadja’s overall ludic tone.
22 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

The overall ludic tone of Nadja

Ever elusive, Nadja has never ceased to raise controversy among its critics. Michel
Beaujour’s seminal article, “Qu’est-ce que Nadja?” (“What is Nadja?”), offers
an appealing viewpoint: Nadja is an anti-novel that submits itself to the “jeux
du désœuvrement, de l’errance et du hasard” (780) [the games of idleness, of
wandering and of chance]. Furthermore, Beaujour suggests that we see Nadja
“comme un jeu de cartes que l’on peut battre et déployer en un nombre de
réussites, comme un parcours au long duquel ses pas le conduisent maintes fois,
et toujours différent …” [like a game of cards that we can shuffle and unfold in a
number of successes, like a trajectory whose steps guide it many times, and always
different …]. This approach to Nadja, as both the author’s and the reader’s playful
trajectory, is indeed able to bring forth the “marvelous” of one’s daily life.
Whether Nadja was written as a treatise on the “marvelous,” or as the first
prose elaboration of the theory of the “marvelous” that Breton presented in
his Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) (Burke 41), one thing remains undeniable:
this is a preeminently autobiographical text,11 at least in Philippe Lejeune’s sense
of the term. In Lejeune’s view, autobiography is defined as a “[r]etrospective
narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus
is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality” (4). Thus, in Nadja,
Breton focuses on his individual life after experiencing a challenging sequence
of strange incidents, inexplicable coincidences, and unexpected occurrences,
among which is his decisive encounter with an enigmatic young female figure
named Nadja; dwelling in the borders between insanity and reality, she wholly
captivates the narrator, Breton, who names his peculiar, jointly verbal and visual
narrative after her. He is strangely attracted to this inspiring, Sphinx-like creature,
an incarnation of the Celtic mythic figure of Melusina,12 who “represents the
union of opposites, and hence the reconciliation of the world of desire with
that of reality” (Matthews, Theatre 8), and he is fascinated by “the sense of the
marvelous” that this unique creature is able “to release in him” (ibid. 9)—an
experience that forces him to play a part in Nadja’s game and thus, ultimately, to
undergo a transformational experience in the sense of a reexamination of his self.
It is no wonder, then, that Nadja opens with the existential query: “Who am I?”
which could also be translated as “Whom am I following?” making still more
explicit the narrator’s self-alienation and the feeling he has that he is haunted by
another self, or rather that he is haunting someone else. This idea of the “one”
inhabiting the “other” and vice versa (and, in consequence, the idea of an actor
assuming both the subject and the object) is fundamental in Nadja. It is exactly
this concept of “one into another” that Nadja’s game so boldly and successfully
stages, thus making Breton the narrator/author include it in his daily magic and
raise it to the level of the “idea-limit” or “further determinant” (in Howard’s
translation), a seminal point which will be soon revisited. It is also interesting
to note that this game remains unaltered between the first edition of Nadja in
1928 and its 1963 Gallimard edition, bearing proof of this moment’s value for
the narrator/author of this text.
This narrative “pris sur le vif” [taken alive],13 which amply uses ludic
strategies by enlisting the miscellaneous aleatory encounters in the narrator’s
life, also leaves room for Nadja’s free play with words. This free wordplay
 The surrealist game “one into another” 23

seals Nadja’s second encounter with the narrator/author on October 5, 1926,

and, more importantly, is granted a special significance thanks to the author’s
footnote: “Ne touche-t-on pas là au terme extrême de l’aspiration surréaliste,
à sa plus forte idée-limite?” (OC1 690) [Does this not approach the extreme
limit of the surrealist aspiration, its furthest determinant? (Howard 74)].
Thanks to this footnote in this peculiar narrative, the voice of the narrator can
be differentiated from that of the author. More specifically, due to the interval
that separates the actual time of the narrated events and the time of their
narration, one could argue that the two voices correspond to two different
personas of the same person, distinct, yet inextricably connected, affecting
each other like two communicating vessels. These two personas are those of
the player and the narrator/author, respectively, another aspect of the ludic
strategies that Breton applies in Nadja. Another playful element to notice
here is the way in which Breton blurs the boundaries between Nadja’s voice
and his voice. In an attempt to recapture a moment of the past, the narrator
gives voice to Nadja, quoting her in her invitation to him to play. Then he
comments on that moment, by expressing a value judgment, summarized in
the content of the footnote. This fascinating unification of voices in the vivid
narrative present tense is the result of the retelling of an event that fuses the
barriers between dialogue and monologue—another hybrid form that Breton
cherished and practiced since his famous Les Champs magnétiques (Magnetic
Fields, 1919).14
Let us return now to the “idea-limit” that appears in Breton’s footnote
and notice first the demonstrative pronoun this—in the French text, it is
“là,” meaning “there”—which refers to Nadja’s fusion of playing her word
game while also performing it, and experiencing it as reality on a repeated
basis. This fusion of Nadja’s may constitute, according to Nadja’s author, the
ultimate surrealist aspiration, its “idea-limit” or “further determinant,” in the
sense of fusing the imaginary with reality. It is Breton’s rhetorical question
in the footnote, which approximates with Surrealism’s “idée-limite” Nadja’s
vivid playing/acting experienced as reality, that constitutes this chapter’s
point of departure. Detecting a tangible version of Breton’s lifelong quest for
“surreality” in Nadja’s fusion of a word game with acting/living, both as an
actress and as a listener/viewer, this chapter explores the implicit theatrical
elements in Nadja’s game in light of André Breton’s overall surrealist beliefs,
and primarily the so-called notion of surreality, better clarified two years after
Nadja in the Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1930). Here is Breton’s famous
definition of “surreality”:

Tout porte à croire qu’il existe un certain point de l’esprit d’où la vie et la mort, le réel
et l’imaginaire, le passé et le futur, le communicable et l’incommunicable, le haut et le
bas cessent d’être perçus contradictoirement. Or, c’est en vain qu’on chercherait à l’activité
surréaliste un autre mobile que l’espoir de détermination de ce point (OC1 781).

[Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life
and death, real and imagined past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable,
high and low cease to be perceived as contradictions. Now, search as one may one will
never find any other motivating force in the activities of the Surrealists than the hope of
finding and fixing this point (Manifestoes of Surrealism, Seaver and Lane 123–4).]15
24 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

In other words, Nadja’s seemingly simple game that relies on the evocative
power of language, like a predecessor of the famous surrealist game “exquisite
corpse,” reveals Breton’s desire for a more profound unity—the point at which
reality fuses with the imaginary—and illustrates his own notion of theatricality.
The fusion that was a fervent hope for the Surrealists is a “given” for Nadja,
manifested in her natural ability to blur the imaginary with the real, thus almost
effortlessly reaching Surrealism’s “idée-limite” or “sublime point,” as Mary Ann
Caws defines it:

[S]urrealism’s “sublime point” is convergence actualized, the meeting place of opposite

categories, whereas one of its privileged games and several of its privileged images are
based upon the notions of flux and crossing-over, of substances and sentiments and
perceptions merging into others, of the imaginary mixing with the real (xiiv–xiv).

Nadja’s game is a privileged one, based on the notions of flux and crossing-
over, while her effortless achievement of this mixing of opposites is undeniably
what attracts Breton to her and it. This seemingly simple game, composed of
fragmentary questions and answers, bears interesting analogies with the famous,
collective surrealist game “exquisite corpse,”16 while it is also a harbinger of the
“one into another”17 surrealist game that made its appearance later on, and
which we will revisit below. The “exquisite corpse” was a collective surrealist
game that took its name from its first question-answer—le cadavre-exquis-
boira-le-vin-nouveau [the exquisite-corpse-will-drink-the new-wine]—and was
officially introduced in issue 4 of Le Surréalisme au service de la Révolution on
December 19, 1931, although the Surrealists had already practiced it in the form
of the game of the “small pieces of paper.” According to this rule, a paper that
contains a hidden question circulates among a circle of friends, to be followed
by an answer, always creating surprising and funny results. Nadja’s game follows
exactly the same pattern as the “exquisite corpse” later did; the only difference
is that the pattern unfolds in her imagination, rather than on small pieces of
paper, thus both equating her imagination with an invisible writing material,
and splitting Nadja herself into the various players. The fusion of reality with
the imaginary (the latter understood in the Lacanian sense as “the world, the
register, the dimension of images, conscious or unconscious, both perceived
and imagined”) is an ideal that the leader of Surrealism constantly sought in the
notion of “surreality” (Écrits ix, trans. Sheridan), a notion that can be activated
only by means of a surrealist use of language.

André Breton on language

Language, Breton boldly claims in the Manifesto of Surrealism, “a été donné
à l’homme pour qu’il en fasse un usage surréaliste” (OC1 334) [Language has
been given to man so that he may make Surrealist use of it (Seaver and Lane
32)].18 A surrealist use of language is best exemplified in the form of dialogue, yet
dialogue that bears none of the elements of conventionally conceived dialogue,
which is marked by “the exchange and reversibility of the communication”
and which “is often considered to be the fundamental and exemplary form of
 The surrealist game “one into another” 25

drama” (Pavis, Dictionary 98). Nor does surrealist dialogue have any relation to
Mikhail Bakhtin’s “dialogism,” which refers to the polyphonic heterogeneity of a
discourse. Instead, surrealist dialogue has a function of its own:

C’est encore au dialogue que les formes du langage surréaliste s’adaptent le mieux. Là,
deux pensées s’affrontent; pendant que l’une se livre, l’autre s’occupe d’elle, mais comment
s’en occupe-t-elle? Supposer que’elle se l’incorpore serait admettre qu’un temps il lui est
possible de vivre tout entière de cette autre pensée, ce qui est fort improbable. Et de fait
l’attention qu’elle lui donne est tout extérieure; elle n’a que le loisir d’approuver ou de
réprouver, généralement de réprouver, avec tous les égards dont l’homme est capable. Ce
mode de langage ne permet d’ailleurs pas d’aborder le fond d’un sujet. Mon attention, en
proie à une sollicitation qu’elle ne peut décemment repousser, traite la pensée adverse en
ennemi (OC1 335).

[The forms of Surrealist language adapt themselves best to dialogue. Here two thoughts
confront each other; while one is being delivered, the other is busy with it, but how is
it busy with it? To assume that it incorporates it within itself would be tantamount to
admitting that there is a time during which it is possible for it to live completely off that other
thought, which is highly unlikely. And, in fact the attention it pays is completely exterior; it
has only time enough to approve or reject—generally reject—with all the consideration of
which man is capable. This mode of language does not allow the heart of the matter to be
plumbed. My attention, prey to an entreaty, which it cannot in all decency reject, treats the
opposing thought as an enemy (Seaver and Lane 34).]

In other words, dialogue in Surrealism is bereft of the conventional functions

of progressive exchange of information, communication, and pleasure of
argumentation. Thus, it would be in vain to search for any solid logic in it. Instead,
one should consider dialogue as composed of two distinct soliloquies and follow
each of them separately, in order to experience the acrobatics of the characters’
imaginations, and the poetry that it elicits:

Le surréalisme poétique, auquel je consacre cette étude, s’est appliqué jusqu’ici à rétablir
dans sa vérité absolue le dialogue, en dégageant les deux interlocuteurs des obligations de
la politesse. Chacun d’eux poursuit simplement son soliloque, sans chercher à en tirer un
plaisir dialectique particulier et à en imposer le moins du monde à son voisin. …

Les mots, les images ne s’offrent que comme tremplins à l’esprit de celui qui écoute
(OC1 336).19

[Poetic Surrealism has focused its efforts up to this point on reestablishing dialogue in its
absolute truth, by freeing both interlocutors from any obligations of politeness. Each of
them simply pursues his soliloquy without trying to derive any special dialectical pleasure
from it and without trying to impose anything whatsoever upon his neighbor. …

The words, the images are only so many springboards for the mind of the listener (Seaver
and Lane 35).]

This use of dialogue triggers the stimulating free play of imagination, which,
in turn, bears a revelation—obviously quite different from what one expects
of dialogue in the theatre. The value of dialogue does not lie in its significance
as a communicative act but in the enchanting, evocative power of its images.
26 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

In other words, what matters is not what is said, but what is projected/seen
through the fleeting signifiers uttered by the interlocutors. This effect can better
be illustrated by the technique of image-building, also used in Surrealism. Image
building was defined by Pierre Reverdy and wholly embraced by Breton in his
Manifesto of Surrealism:

L’image est une création pure de l’esprit. Elle ne peut naître d’une comparaison mais du
rapprochement de deux réalités plus ou moins éloignées. Plus les rapports des deux réalités
rapprochées seront lointains et justes, plus l’image sera forte—plus elle aura de puissance
émotive et de réalité poétique (OC1 324; italics his).

[The image is a pure creation of the mind. It cannot be born from a comparison but from a
juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the
two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be—the greater its
emotional power and poetic reality (Seaver and Lane 20).]

Anna Balakian, who studied surrealist imagery in poetry and painting

extensively, offers some astute observations; referring to the surrealist
metaphor, she argues that “instead of being based on analogy, [it] is derived
from divergence and contradiction” (The Road 120). As Martin John Bennison
sums up, rather than being a private image that evokes associations and
meanings within the writer’s mind, for Anna Balakian “the surrealist image
was a means of provoking sight or creating thought first within the reader’s
mind; in effect, the Surrealists reversed the process of image or metaphor
composition” (101–2). The result of such a free-for-all treatment of both
dialogue and image in surrealist writing is a sequence of images, scenes, and
visions, with no apparent connection among them, which led to “an intensified
use of all known mental faculties and the exploration of latent ones” (Balakian,
The Road 149). This kind of unrestricted use of language is equally stressed
in the “Introduction sur le discours sur le peu de réalité,”20 where Breton also
emphasizes a need for the liberation of language:

Qu’est-ce qui me retient de brouiller l’ordre des mots, d’attenter de cette manière à
l’existence toute apparente des choses! Le langage peut et doit être arraché à son servage.
Plus de descriptions d’après nature, plus d’études de mœurs. Silence, afin qu’où nul n’a
jamais passé je passe, silence!—Après toi, mon beau langage (OC2 276).

[What keeps me from messing up the order of the words, from challenging in this way all
apparent existence of the things? Language is able and must be freed from its servitude. No
more descriptions after nature, no more studies of morals. Silence, so that I pass where no
one before has even passed, silence! After you, my beautiful language!]

Breton clearly expresses here the need to be finished with the old-fashioned
descriptions based on nature and morality studies; in doing so, he also stresses
the search for a fundamentally new approach to language that will challenge the
limits of reality and inspire an extraordinary lucidity.
Nadja’s game, emerging as it does within the realm of language and make-
believe, is, in effect, like a mirror, which reflects this surrealist use of language;
a mirror, which also challenges the limits of “the little bit of reality,”21 as it leads
its players to an in-formation of the “I,” thus expanding its perception of reality.
 The surrealist game “one into another” 27

The value of this game rests in its power to awaken the players’ imaginations
by bringing them face to face with a cluster of images the assumption of
which in-forms the self, as understood in Lacanian terms: “‘giving form to’
something—whether it be the intuitive form of an imprint as in memory, or
the form that guides the development of an organism” (Muller and Richardson
28).22 Lacan traces the genesis of the imaginary ego back to the mirror stage
of child development. The imaginary is understood here as the idealized ego
formation. With her game, Nadja, like an analyst, breaks the fascination of the
imaginary so as to allow the symbolic order of the unconscious to speak. By
announcing that she has made the discovery of the otherness of the self in
her endless impersonation of a series of other selves, she leads her playmate
to a derangement of all senses. An analysis of the circumstances in which this
curious game unfolds can elucidate the implicit theatrical elements in Nadja’s
game and thus help in our reconstruction of Breton’s fragmented dramatic
theory.

Unfolding Nadja’s game

Although Nadja’s peculiar game appears simple at first glance, it is more
convoluted than it appears precisely because of the way she plays it—combining
a surrealist use of language with the imitative principle that is quintessential for
the theatre. The game follows just one rule: the participants must surrender to
the evocative power of words. Their surrender will enable them to experience
“the marvelous” before a series of images that emerges from a new grouping
of the words, one that defies (logical) syntax and inaugurates its own logic. The
“marvelous” is understood here in the sense that Aragon gave it in Le Paysan de
Paris (1926), that is, as the “apparent lack of coherence” (Burke vii): “[l]a réalité
est l’absence apparente de contradiction. Le merveilleux, c’est la contradiction
qui apparaît dans le réel” (250) [[r]eality is the apparent absence of contradiction.
The marvellous is the eruption of contradiction within the real (Watson Taylor
217)]. Thus, in Nadja, the “marvelous” “is acting upon indefinable emotions,
not ‘things,’ thus it is sensed through ‘emotions felt’ rather than through ‘things
seen’” (Burke 46). Breton also believed that only the “marvelous” is beautiful.
A non-linear, enigmatic imagination seems to be a prerequisite for both players in
Nadja’s game—an element that immediately attracts the narrator/Breton. Such
an imagination is very close to that of a child’s, and Breton wholly embraced
childhood imagination as a way to attack reason. His inclusion in La Révolution
surréaliste in October 1927 of a relevant excerpt from Sigmund Freud’s
“La Question de l’analyse par les non-médecins” is indicative of Breton’s interest
in children’s imaginations, as opposed to that of adults: “Les choses dans
lesquelles le ‘moi’ infantile, épouvanté, avait fui, apparaissent souvent au ‘moi’
adulte et fortifié comme un simple jeu d’enfant” (quoted in Garrigues 27) [The
things in front of which the infantile “ego,” frightened, has escaped, usually seem
to the adult and fortified “ego” like a children’s game].23 In her interlocutor’s
eyes, Nadja seems to be an infant-woman, as it were, who plays a children’s
game in a childlike way.
28 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

In fact, all the major elements of play, as both Johan Huizinga and Roger
Caillois described them in their seminal studies—Homo Ludens (1938) and Les
Jeux et les hommes (1958), respectively—apply to Nadja’s game. It has all the
basic elements of Roger Caillois’ classification of play, namely, alea, mimicry,
agon, and ilinx. Alea (chance) exists in that the two players meet by chance, and
the game also begins in an aleatory manner, spontaneously and suddenly. What
is more, the words come to Nadja at random. Mimicry is apparent in Nadja’s
game from the moment she starts her demonstration as to how her playmate
should play, closing her eyes, pretending she is an actress. Agon, the competitive
element, although not immediately apparent, is also at present in Nadja’s
struggle to involve her fellow player in her game; she tries to win him over, while
he stubbornly resists. The element of ilinx (vertigo) is also less apparent, but it
could be seen to occur in the narrator’s mind through the juxtaposition of the
“two … women … wearing black … in a park” that plunges him into the deepest
perplexity—a kind of vertigo. This perplexity is evocative of the similar effect
created in his mind by the reversal of the Greek myth of Theseus, in his crystal-
like labyrinth with neither the Minotaur nor Ariadne’s thread, in “L’introduction
sur le discours sur le peu de réalité,”—a kind of personal myth for Breton. His
prismatic, vertiginous view of the world around him might be similar to what
Breton experiences when faced with the springboard to verbal freefall that
Nadja’s game is for him.
Turning to Huizinga, he claims that “play” cannot be fully defined, yet offers
to identify its main characteristics. The first of these main characteristics is “that
it is free, is in fact, freedom” (8). Its second characteristic is that “play is not
‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ life. It is rather a stepping out of ‘real’ life into a temporary
sphere of activity with a disposition all of its own” (8) that only children can fully
achieve. He then goes on to attempt the following definition:

play is a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and
place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and
accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy and the consciousness that it is “different” from
“ordinary life” (28).

Thus, for Huizinga, “play” promotes the formation of social groups, which tend
to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the
common world by disguise or other means. He also argues that play is irrational
and enchanting, for it has all the elements of beauty: tension, balance, contrast,
variation, solution, reduction, etc. “Play,” in its higher activities, belongs to the
sphere of festival and ritual, and lies outside the antithesis of wisdom and folly,
and equally outside those of truth and falsehood, good and evil.
Nadja’s game is without question a free activity that has no material gain, but
certainly much immaterial gain. It proceeds within its own boundaries of time
and space, according to rules “freely accepted but not necessarily absolutely
binding.” It unfolds in a taxi, itself a symbol of crossing both time and space,
as the narrator makes his way home accompanied by Nadja, on the second
day after their acquaintance (October 5, 1926). After a moment of silence, and
therefore, of distance between the narrator and Nadja, a word game suddenly
arises in all its spontaneity, bringing the two interlocutors closer as the use of the
 The surrealist game “one into another” 29

intimate “tu” in French indicates. Up to that point, Nadja, an “errant soul” as she
calls herself, had used the more formal “vous” to address Breton, no matter how
confessional her tone, when she spoke to her newly-acquainted friend about her
lifelong adventures.24 Once she joins the play-world—a convergence of Breton’s
text, theatre, and play—she immediately abandons this formula and liberates
herself from the class constraints implied by the use of the formal pronoun
“vous,” and a special bond is achieved between the two players. As in a game,
where all the players have equal status, Nadja now perceives her interlocutor as
an equal, a play-mate. This simple game demonstrates how feasible the promise
in fact is that Breton made in the Manifesto of Surrealism several years earlier
(1924); that is, to give back to the dialogue its absolute truth, in the sense of
liberating the two interlocutors from the obligations of politeness.
Nadja’s game seems to have the elements most characteristic of surrealist
thought: an unconventional dialogue that defies reason and finds its best
expression in the language of children (and the insane), as well as a distinct image-
building technique that, at first glance, looks like a cluster of incongruent images.
Nadja’s irrational, dialogic game acquires a new sense when seen as a form of
surrealist language in the way Breton conceived it. Nadja truly does not aim to
engage her interlocutor in a debate for intellectual satisfaction or to impose
her views on him. Rather, she aims to lead him into a serendipitous moment of
revelation, as she seems to have both a natural gift for making a surrealist use
of language, coupled with an extraordinary lucidity in her communication style.
She herself conceives of her role as one of “voyante,” a medium who predicts at
some point her interlocutor’s future achievements: “André? André? … Tu écriras
un roman sur moi. Je t’assure. Ne dis pas non” (OC1 707–8) [André? André? …
You will write a novel about me. I’m sure you will. Don’t say you won’t (Howard
100)]. Nadja, the infant-woman, sees herself as a source of inspiration. When
she starts her game, she acts like a child dealing with the “marvelous.” She asks
her playmate to play a game according to a fixed rule that consists in saying a
word, any word that spontaneously comes to mind, such as a name or a number.
She demonstrates that shutting one’s eyes facilitates this game, as if this small
gesture could take the participants to a magical yet concrete world, far from
the world of reality and the constraints of reason. The nature of this world is
captured in the following words by Louis Aragon, a close friend and collaborator
of Breton’s, in Le Paysan de Paris, a book also cited in Nadja: “Le fantastique, l’au-
delà, le rêve, la survie, le paradis, l’enfer, la poésie, autant de mots pour signifier
le concret. Il n’est d’amour que du concret” (251) [The fantastic, the beyond,
dream, survival, paradise, hell, poetry, so many words signifying the concrete.
There is no other love than that of the concrete” (Watson Taylor 217)]. Within
this magical realm, Nadja effortlessly closes her eyes, showing how this game
should be played, proceeding from words to action/acting, and then again back
to words, establishing in this way a sense of ritual in her game. Breton himself
much appreciated the element of ritual in Huizinga’s play-model, in which he
saw “a free activity par excellence,” which “confirms in a permanent way and in
the most highly elevated sense the supralogical character of our situation within
the cosmos” [“affirme de façon permanente, et au sens le plus élevé, le caractère
supralogique de notre situation dans le cosmos”] (quoted in Garrigues 218).
30 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Meanwhile, Breton agrees with Huizinga’s conclusion that it is necessary

to “see in poetry the human realization of a ludic exigency at the heart of the
community,” and that “all that is getting recognized in poetry little by little as a
conscious quality: beauty, sacred character, magic power, is inextricably found
from the very beginning in the primary quality of play” (ibid.), one that is best
exemplified in children’s play. Breton valued children’s play for its quality of free
activity par excellence, which has nothing to do with any kind of play prescribed
by adults, or confined by reason. In other words, in children’s games there is
something that is missing from adults’ games; that is, the fusion of the real with
the imaginary, in an entity exclusive to their “magnificent field of experience”
(Breton, OC2 963). Nadja plays exactly like a child, except that she follows rules
less stringently, guided only by the rule of free association. Like another Alice in
Wonderland, she plays with words that form absurd stories, full of nonsense,
which nevertheless lead her to the “other side of the mirror.” In an essay on
Lewis Caroll, Breton states:

La complaisance envers l’absurde rouvre à l’homme le royaume mystérieux qu’habitent les

enfants. Le jeu de l’enfance, comme moyen perdu de conciliation entre l’action et la rêverie
en vue de la satisfaction organique, à commencer par le simple “jeu de mots,” se trouve de
la sorte réhabilité et dignifié (OC2 963).

[Favoring the absurd reopens to mankind the mysterious kingdom that children inhabit.
Children’s play, as the lost medium of reconciling action and reverie for the sake of the
organic satisfaction, starting with the simple “word game,” is found somehow rehabilitated
and dignified.]

Similarly, Nadja, starting with her simple word game, reconciles action and
reverie. The first word Nadja utters, to offer an example to her interlocutor, is
the number “two,” alluding to its inherent dialectical potential: “Two, what?”
Nadja further questions. “Two women,” she answers herself, continuing her
demonstration. This fragmented dialogue between Nadja and “Nadja-playing-
the-other” continues until she brings to the fore the mysterious image of “two
women … wearing black.” Nadja’s game in her double role continues in a similar
stichomythia to the point where a mosaic-like picture of these two women
emerges out of this peculiar, fragmented dialogue-game,25 where all these small
segments find their place: “two … women … wearing black … in a park.” The
absence of a finite verb in this static phrase-image reinforces the absence of
action, graphically stressed in the text by the use of the suspension marks.
This gap in the image might be interpreted as a momentary blockage on Nadja’s
part, but given her proven ample imaginative skills, I do not believe this is a lapse
in her memory. More likely, Nadja the “voyante” (who had already seen in her
mind a few minutes earlier her interlocutor’s wife sitting next to her dog and cat)
stops deliberately at this point. She does so in order to force her interlocutor to
engage in her little game by prolonging the perplexing “image” she has already
created in his mind, one that is ready to be deciphered by him, or rather to lead
him to another reality. Making use of this silent moment in a masterful way,
Nadja resumes her game by asking “[B]ut what are they doing?”, then continues
like this: “Come on, it’s so simple, why don’t you want to play?” Thanks to this
question, a clue is offered, not only about the narrator’s reluctance to continue
 The surrealist game “one into another” 31

this game, despite Nadja’s insistence, but also about Nadja’s sense of meta-play.
She steps out of the game for a moment to discuss its lack of progress and to
question her interlocutor’s resistance to being involved, despite the fact that she
advertizes its consoling effects for her solitude. The narrator’s reluctance to add
a verb to the image of the two women that Nadja’s game has created, or perhaps
that Nadja’s game has restored in his imagination, is worthy of speculation; we
may well find a parallel between this resistance and Breton’s overall attitude
toward theatre.

The player’s silence: Game over or the triumph of the

game?
Several working hypotheses, not necessarily all mutually exclusive, are part
of our investigation of the narrator’s reluctance to be fully engaged in Nadja’s
game. All of these hypotheses take into consideration Breton’s overall surrealist
beliefs as stated throughout his prolific writings. I suggest the following three
interpretive schemes:

a) The game is over because of the narrator/game spoiler.

b) The game is in question because it challenges the narrator/player, who
resists surrendering to techniques of description that pertain to the realist
tradition; at the same time, it reveals his preference for poetic rather than
dramatic intensity.
c) The effect of Nadja’s game reaches its peak as it leads the narrator/player to
a revelatory moment, or an experiencing of the “marvelous.”

a) The game is over because of the narrator/game spoiler

First, such reluctance on behalf of the narrator/player may represent a turning
point for him, in that he finally becomes aware of how fundamentally different
he is from Nadja. At this moment of suspension, he realizes that the game not
only connects words among themselves, but also connects Nadja’s two lives,
in a make-believe world and in the real world. Yet he also comes to realize that
this game cannot connect his own life with Nadja’s, as he now understands how
fundamentally different he is from her. For instance, while she so easily plays
a double game of mirrors between play and life, he is unable to play this word
game even in its initial phase. His unwillingness to give in further by making a
suggestion to Nadja about what the two women wearing black in a park may be
doing makes him a game-spoiler, all the while hinting at the realization to which
Breton will soon come: the lack of attention paid one to the other, the lack of
understanding, agreement, or even communication between the two of them:
“J’avais, depuis assez longtemps, cessé de m’entendre avec Nadja. À vrai dire,
peut-être ne nous sommes-nous jamais entendus, tant au moins sur la manière
d’envisager les choses simples de l’existence” (OC1 735) [I had long since ceased
to get along/agree with Nadja. To tell the truth, we had never perhaps reached
32 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

a level of understanding/agreement between us, at least in the way of seeing

the simple things of existence]. Or, as he later confesses: “Je n’ai peut-être pas
été à la hauteur de ce qu’elle me proposait” (ibid. 736) [I have never perhaps
reached the level of what she was suggesting to me]. In this sentence, Breton
was referring to Nadja’s unique “mad love,” a love that had already started to
take shape during her word-game and soon evolved into a game of seduction.
Confronted by this seductive game, the narrator instinctively refuses to surrender
to Nadja’s magical power, as though he relies on a defense mechanism. Nadja’s
game becomes the proto-stage, in which a child is transformed into a seductress/
actress who is able to lead her interlocutor to a marvelous world.

b) Nadja’s game as a challenge to the narrator/player

The narrator’s reluctance to be wholly involved in Nadja’s game is simply a result
of his deliberate choice not to add anything that would disturb the tranquil
tableau of these two mysterious women in a park. In this case, it is the effect
of Nadja’s game, rather than Nadja herself, that attracts the narrator. The image
itself is intense enough for him to believe it would be demystified, or even
become banal with the addition of a verb that specifies an action and creates
with it a coherent sentence. Such an addition would spoil the inherent poetic
intensity of the image, replacing it automatically with dramatic intensity. Breton
is always clear, after all, about his preference for poetry, particularly in his
Manifesto of Surrealism, overtly devoted to “poetic surrealism” (OC1 336). The
image of “two … women … wearing black … in a park” keeps instead something
of its poetic quality, a certain rhythm that follows a poetics of fragmentation.
The addition of a verb quite simply runs the risk of creating the commonest of
descriptions, reminiscent of the realist attitude, and best exemplified in those
novels of the time that made an abuse of nature as a setting, represented
here by the park. The refusal of the narrator to add this simple, yet powerfully
prescriptive grammatical component is thus equivalent to a surrealist use of
language, wanting nothing to do with the realist tradition, so faithful to futile
descriptions, which Breton attacks in the Manifesto of Surrealism:

Et les descriptions! Rien n’est comparable au néant de celles-ci; ce n’est que superpositions
d’images de catalogue, l’auteur en prend de plus en plus à son aise, il saisit l’occasion de me
glisser ses cartes postales, il cherche à me faire tomber d’accord avec lui des lieux communs
(OC1 314).

[And the descriptions! There is nothing to which their vacuity can be compared; they are
nothing but so many superimposed images taken from some stock catalogue, which the
author utilizes more and more whenever he chooses; he seizes the opportunity to slip me
his postcards, he tries to make me agree with him about the clichés (Seaver and Lane 6).]

According to Breton, these descriptions, which he sees well exemplified in

Dostoïevski’s novel Crime and Punishment, are typical of the realist attitude
that was responsible for the creation and dissemination of offensive plays. Such
an attitude, inspired by positivism, Breton continues, was hostile towards any
intellectual and moral source of inspiration:
 The surrealist game “one into another” 33

Je l’ai (l’attitude réaliste) en horreur, car elle est faite de médiocrité, de haine et de plate
suffisance. C’est elle qui engendre aujourd’hui ces livres ridicules, ces pièces insultantes.
Elle se fortifie sans cesse dans les journaux et fait échec à la science, à l’art, en s’appliquant
à flatter l’opinion dans ses goûts les plus bas; la clarté confinant à la sottise, la vie des chiens
(OC1 313).

[I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today
gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives
strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the
lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog’s life (Seaver and Lane 7).]

In light of Breton’s explicit hostility toward realism, it becomes evident that by

refusing to add a verb to Nadja’s fragmented phrase, the narrator expresses his
determination not to serve the realist attitude that “suffocates” the receiver’s
imagination with its catalogue-like descriptions, whether they are meant for the
page or the stage. It becomes evident now how, in Breton’s eyes, the “paucity of
reality” goes hand in hand with a very limited use of language. We can see how
he envisions a new, pioneering use of language whose aesthetic qualities would
spring from a deliberate disorder in the order of the words. Moreover, opting
simply to gaze at the enigmatic duet of women in the park, the narrator aims to
keep this image free of paraphernalia; he tests himself to see whether he can
be led to a revelatory moment through this image evoked in his mind by Nadja’s
fragmented sentence.

c) Nadja’s game as the path to the “marvelous”

Nadja’s game opens the path to a revelatory moment, in the sense that the most
common and banal image may be transformed to a source of the “marvelous”
when approached by a non-linear, dream-like imagination. It is an imagination
of this kind that is at work in the narrator’s mind, transforming the utterly
unremarkable image of the two women in a park to an enigmatic yet enchanting
image. Breton now brings up another image of two women that left its mark
on his mind, and resurfaces now on the occasion of its approximation to the
sentence-image that Nadja’s game has created. The result of latent dream-
work—in the Freudian sense—triggered by the waking image, the arrival of this
associated image is a good example of the way in which dream and wakefulness
interact; something that has always fascinated Breton:

C’est que l’homme, quand il cesse de dormir, est avant tout le jouet de sa mémoire, et qu’à
l’état normal celle-ci se plaît à lui retracer faiblement les circonstances du rêve, à priver
ce dernier de toute conséquence actuelle, et à faire partir le seul déterminant du point
où il croit, quelques heures plus tôt, l’avoir laissé: cet espoir ferme, ce souci. Il a l’illusion
de continuer quelque chose qui en vaut la peine. Le rêve se trouve ainsi ramené à une
parenthèse, comme la nuit. Et pas plus qu’elle, en général, il ne porte conseil (OC1 317).

[It is because man, when he ceases to sleep, is above all the plaything of his memory,
and because in its normal state memory takes pleasure in weakly retracing for him the
circumstances of the dream, in stripping it of any real importance, and in dismissing the
only determinant from the point where he thinks he has left it a few hours before: this firm
hope, this concern. He is under the impression of continuing something that is worthwhile.
34 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Thus the dream finds itself reduced to a mere parenthesis, as is the night. And, like the night,
dreams generally contribute little to furthering our understanding (Seaver and Lane 11).]

A similar process to that which renders a person a plaything of his/her memory

is at work here in the narrator’s mind, when he is confronted with Nadja’s game.
Between a state of dreaming and waking, he superimposes onto the image of
the two women in the park that of Solange (a dance teacher) and her friend
Mme Marthe Challens (the principal of a girl’s institution), from Pierre Palau’s
play Les Détraquées, in the scene that shows them standing in front of a window
leading to a park where girls play:26

La scène reste vide un long moment, puis par la baie, au fond, une femme paraît. Elle est
jeune, mince, brune, le visage très pur; elle est vêtue de noir, sa tenue très simple mais
élégante doit indiquer une très légère note masculine. Elle tient à la main une petite valise
de cuir. Elle reste un moment à regarder le parc, du haut du perron, puis entre lentement,
sans un geste, les yeux dans le vague, comme automatiquement. Elle pose son baggage
sur le bureau et demeure appuyée, immobile. Un temps. Par la porte de gauche, Mme de
Challens entre. Elle reste figée sur le seuil en apercevant Solange. Celle-ci n’a pas fait un
mouvement (91–2).

[The stage remains empty for a long time, then by the bay window in the background a
woman makes her appearance. She is young, thin, brunette, with a very pure face; she
is dressed in black. Her dress, very simple yet elegant, must indicate a slightly masculine
tone; she is holding a small leather bag in her hand. She remains still for a while looking at
the park from the top of the porch steps; then she enters slowly, without any gesture, as
though automatically, her stare unfocused. She puts her baggage on the desk and remains
still, unmoving. A moment. From the left door, Ms. Challens enters. She remains still when
she perceives Solange. The latter does not make any movement.]

The similarity between the two images of the two pairs of women erases a
spatial and temporal distance in Breton’s mind. Breton justifies this transference
in the following passage from Nadja;

mais il est indiscutable, qu’à la transposition, qu’à l’intense fixation, qu’au passage
autrement inexplicable d’une image de ce genre du plan de la remarque sans intérêt au
plan émotif concourent au premier chef l’évocation de certaines épisodes des Détraquées
et le retour à ces conjectures dont je parlais (OC1 675).

[but it is indisputable that the transposition, the intense fixation, the otherwise inexplicable
passage of such an image from the level of a banal remark to the emotive level, necessarily
includes a reference to certain episodes of Les Détraquées and the reversion to those
conjectures I was speaking of (Seaver and Lane 51).]

In this passage, Breton stresses the amazing, yet inexplicable, capacity of the
human mind to transform a run-of-the-mill image to a powerful one. The power
of metamorphosis, so characteristic of dream in general, is evoked in the above
passage, where Breton attempts to analyze a bizarre dream he had during his
stay at the Manoir d’Ango, where he wrote Nadja. Breton was convinced that
this dream was related to the play Les Détraquées, some scenes of which were
stuck in his mind and never ceased to puzzle him: “Mais, pour moi, descendre
vraiment dans les bas fonds de l’esprit, là où il n’est plus question que la nuit
 The surrealist game “one into another” 35

tombe et se relève (c’est donc le jour?), c’est revenir rue Fontaine, au ‘Théâtre
des Deux-Masques’ qui depuis lors a fait place à un cabaret” (OC1 668–9) [But
for me to descend into what is truly the mind’s lower depths, where it is no
longer a question of the night’s falling and rising again (and is that the day?)
means to follow the Rue Fontaine back to the Théâtre des Deux Masques, which
has now been replaced by a cabaret (Howard 39–40)].
It is in this theatre that the strange Grand-Guignol play Les Détraquées was
staged. A more detailed look at this play is necessary at this point, since this
approximation is the main revelation that Nadja’s game contributes, both for the
narrator and us. Before this analysis, however, let me clarify the term “Grand-
Guignol.”27 This theatrical genre is relevant to Breton’s attitude towards the play
Les Détraquées by Palau, a playwright whose work was featured quite often among
the repertoire of the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. The term “Grand-Guignol”—which
literally means the “big puppet show”—took its name from the popular French
puppet character Guignol, whose original incarnation was as an outspoken social
commentator—a spokesperson for the canuts, or silk workers, of Lyon. Founded
in 1897 by the French playwright Oscar Metenier, the Grand-Guignol theatre had
the audacity to depict a milieu that had never before been seen on stage: “that
of vagrants, street kids, prostitutes, criminals, and ‘apaches,’ as street loafers and
con artists were called at the time—and moreover for allowing those characters
to express themselves in their own language” (Pierron). Metenier was succeeded
as director in 1898 by Max Maurey, who during the years 1898–1914 turned the
Théâtre du Grand-Guignol into a house of horror, particularly under the influence
of de Lorde (who collaborated on several plays with his therapist, the experimental
psychologist Alfred Binet). Insanity became the Grand-Guignolesque theme par
excellence. But “what carried the Grand-Guignol to its highest level were the
boundaries and thresholds it crossed: the states of consciousness altered by drugs
or hypnosis. Loss of consciousness, loss of control, panic: themes with which the
theatre’s audience could easily identify. The passage from one state to another
was the crux of the genre” (ibid.). Maxa Camille Choisy directed the theatre from
1914 to 1930, and in 1917 he hired the actress Paula Maxa. During her career
at the Grand-Guignol, Maxa, “the most assassinated woman in the world,” was
subjected to a range of tortures unique in theatrical history:

she was shot with a rifle and with a revolver, scalped, strangled, disemboweled, raped,
guillotined, hanged, quartered, burned, cut apart with surgical tools and lancets, cut into
eighty-three pieces by an invisible Spanish dagger, stung by a scorpion, poisoned with
arsenic, devoured by a puma, strangled by a pearl necklace, and whipped; she was also
put to sleep by a bouquet of roses, kissed by a leper, and subjected to a very unusual
metamorphosis, which was described by one theater critic: “Two hundred nights in a row,
she simply decomposed on stage in front of an audience which wouldn’t have exchanged its
seats for all the gold in the Americas. The operation lasted a good two minutes during which
the young woman transformed little by little into an abominable corpse” (ibid.).

Jack Jouvin directed the theatre from 1930 to 1937 and the repertoire shifted
from gore to psychological drama, but it was the war that dealt the now
struggling theatre a final death-blow. Reality overtook fiction, and attendance at
post-war performances dwindled. In the spring of 1958, Anaïs Nin commented
on its decline in her diary:
36 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

I surrendered myself to the Grand-Guignol, to its venerable filth which used to cause such
shivers of horror, which used to petrify us with terror. All our nightmares of sadism and
perversion were played out on that stage … The theater was empty (quoted in Pierron).

In an interview conducted immediately after the Grand-Guignol closed in 1962,

Charles Nonon, its last director, explained: “Before the war, everyone believed
that what happened on stage was purely imaginary; now we know that these
things—and worse—are possible” (ibid). In the narrator’s eyes, Nadja’s game
functioned as a re-enactment of one such Grand-Guignol play, that is, of Palau’s
play Les Détraquées.

Nadja’s game as a stage for Les Détraquées: From a

banal image to an emotive image
In Les Détraquées, two insane, sadomasochistic, drug-addicted lesbian
pedophiles, the principal of the institution for girls called “Les Fauvettes”
(“Little Birds”) and her friend Solange, a dance teacher, are responsible for the
disappearance at the end of the school season of a girl called Lucienne. This is the
second girl to disappear in two consecutive years under the same circumstances,
so an investigation immediately begins and the girl’s body is found in a cupboard
in the principal’s office. Lucienne’s sudden disappearance from the stage (and
life) is announced by her balloon that unexpectedly falls onto the stage,28 the
last trace of her once vivid life and a great source of mystery to both the female
protagonists and, especially, for the narrator-reviewer of the spectacle. What
happened next bemused Breton each time he saw or restaged this play in his
imagination; to use his own words, “[l]e manque d’indices suffisants sur ce qui
se passe après la chute du ballon, sur ce dont Solange et sa partenaire peuvent
exactement être la proie pour devenir ces superbes bêtes de proie, demeure par
excellence ce qui me confond” (OC1 673) [the lack of adequate indications as
to what happens after the balloon falls and the ambiguity about precisely what
Solange and her partner are prey to that transforms them into these magnificent
predatory beasts is still what puzzles me par excellence (Howard 50)].
It was questions such as this about Palau’s female duet as predatory beasts
that led Breton to correlate it with a repugnant dream he had. In this nightmare,
a moss-colored insect, about 20 inches long, is transformed into an old man who
is just heading toward some kind of coin-fed machine, and has slipped one penny
into the slot instead of two. Breton, the dreamer and dream-observer, feels this
shortcoming is somehow unacceptable and he strikes the man/insect with a
cane, only to feel two of its huge hairy legs on his throat. He is subsequently
enveloped by a feeling of inexpressible disgust; the sensation of being suffocated.
He stresses this dream’s value as “symptomatic of the repercussion such
recollections, provided one surrenders to them with a certain violence, may have
on the course of one’s thought” (Howard 50). Following this strand of thought,
Breton also associates the suffocating effect of his dream to a recent, disturbing
experience with a bird, as well as his recollection of specific scenes in Palau’s play
as a double play of mirrors. The real event to which he referred consisted in his
 The surrealist game “one into another” 37

observation of a bird, which was nesting in the ceiling of the loggia where Breton
was writing, chirping and hopping around its nest in disgusting glee whenever it
brought home its prey (Howard 50–51). For the Freudian Breton, there was no
doubt that his dream about the moss-colored insect, with its two huge, hairy
legs wrapping around his throat, represented the disturbing image of this bird
playing with its prey, and the equally distressing acts of the female couple in Les
Détraquées. This kind of over-determination thus clarifies the way in which the
self is in-formed through the constant exchange of the real with the imaginary:

La production des images de rêve dépendent toujours au moins de ce double jeu de glaces,
il y a là l’indication du rôle très spécial, sans doute éminemment révélateur, au plus haut
degré “surdéterminant” au sens freudien, que sont appelées à jouer certaines impressions
très fortes, nullement contaminables de moralité, vraiment ressenties “par-delà le bien et
le mal” dans le rêve et, par suite, dans ce qu’on lui oppose très sommairement sous le nom
de réalité (OC1 675).

[Since the production of dream images always depends on at least this double play of
mirrors, there is, here, the indication of the highly special, supremely revealing, “super-
determinant”—in the Freudian sense of the word—role which certain powerful impressions
are made to play, in no way contaminable by morality, actually experienced “beyond good
and evil” in the dream, and, subsequently, in what we quite arbitrarily oppose to dream
under the name of reality (Howard 50).]

In such a framework, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that the

approximation of the sentence/image of the “two … women … wearing black
… in a park,” with the scene of Solange and Madame Challens seen at the
window facing a park, is just such a product of over-determination, as defined
by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams. Freud describes the
transformation of latent dream-thoughts into a manifest content, in terms of the
“condensation of multiple thoughts into one image or the displacement of one
thought to another. The manifest content or image is thus ‘over-determined’ by
the multiplicity of elements that become meaningful in their relation” (Taylor
and Winquist 268). Likewise, the superimposition of the two pairs of women in
Breton’s case is the outcome of the passage from a banal image to an emotive
one, due to a transformational process that has all the elements of over-
determination. This inexplicable, dream-like passage can be seen as the source
of the narrator’s reluctance to participate in Nadja’s game, as he does not want
to spoil the mysterious sensations of being first caught by surprise (thanks to a
new disposition of objects, embedded one into another, before his eyes), and
then, being captivated by a sense of revelation.29
In our effort to explain Breton’s fixation with Palau’s play, it is important to
keep in mind the similarities between Les Détraquées and Nadja’s “play.” Breton
was without doubt fixated on Les Détraquées, if we consider that he revisited
the play, publishing it in Le Surréalisme même in 1956, almost 30 years after his
original detailed account of it in Nadja. In this account, Breton has unwittingly
assumed the difficult role of a performance analyst who is in favor of Palau’s
play, four years after experiencing a range of intensely negative emotions while
watching and re-watching this play on stage, and recalling the experience
in his memory. We will follow Breton as he undertakes this task, drawing on
38 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Patrice Pavis’s model of performance analysis, the so-called “vectorization or

semiotization of desire”: “the desire of the body of the performance, as much
as that of the spectator” (25). According to this semiotic model, developed in
Analyzing Performance (2003), the goal of the performance analyst is to link
networks of signs: “it consists of associating and connecting signs that form parts
of networks, within which each sign only has meaning through the dynamic that
relates to other signs” (17). Thus, we will follow Breton the performance analyst
as he steps back and traces the contours and itineraries of the performance of
Palau’s play “from the perspective of the desiring, observing subject” (ibid. 20).
Perhaps through this tactic we will retrace Breton’s fixation with the notion of
originality, in the surrealist sense of a “retrospective”—the necessity of always
going back to the original.

The narrator’s/player’s past experience as a performance

analyst: The acting style of Le Théâtre Moderne
This is not the first time that Breton undertook the role of performance analyst.
He had already done so in his description of the Théâtre Moderne in Nadja at the
end of the passage of the Opéra precisely where Breton meets Nadja. Breton had
expressed his enthusiasm for the Théâtre and its new ludic acting techniques.
Because they corresponded to his ideal for the stage, he overlooked the quality
of plot of the plays staged there:

Le jeu dérisoire des acteurs, ne tenant qu’un compte très relatif de leur rôle, ne se souciant
qu’à peine les uns des autres et tout occupés à se créer des relations dans le public composé
d’une quinzaine de personnes tout au plus, ne s’y fit jamais l’effet d’une toile de fond. Mais
que retrouverai-je pour cette image la plus fugace et la plus alertée de moi-même, pour
cette image dont je m’entretiens, qui vaille l’accueil de cette salle aux grandes glaces usées,
décorées vers le bas de cygnes gris glissant dans des roseaux jaunes, aux loges grillagés,
privées tout à fait d’air, de lumière, si peu rassurantes, de cette salle où durant le spectacle
des rats furetaient, vous frôlant le pied, où l’on avait le choix, en arrivant, entre un fauteuil
défoncé et un fauteuil renversable! Et du premier au second acte, car il était par trop
complaisant d’attendre le troisième, que reverrai-je jamais de ces yeux qui l’ont vu le “bar”
du premier étage, si sombre lui aussi, avec ses impénétrables tonnelles, “un salon au fond
d’un lac”, oui vraiment? (OC1 663–9; my emphasis).

[The ridiculous acting30 of the performers, who paid only the faintest attention to their parts,
scarcely listening to each other and busy making dates with members of the audience,
which consisted of perhaps fifteen people at the most, always reminded me of a canvas
backdrop. But what could I find for the fleeting and so easily alarmed image of myself,
that image I am talking about, which is worth the welcome of this hall, with its great, worn
mirrors, decorated toward the base with gray swans gliding among yellow reeds, with its
grillwork loges entirely without air or light, as suspicious-looking as the hall itself where
during the performance rats crept about, running over your feet, where, once inside, you
had your choice between a staved-in chair and one that might tip over at any moment! And
between the first act and the second—for it was too preposterous to wait for the third—
what would I ever see again with these eyes which have seen the “bar” upstairs, terribly
dark too with its impenetrable bowers, “a living room at the bottom of a lake,” yes really?
(Howard 38).]
 The surrealist game “one into another” 39

However challenging it might be to extract Breton’s implicit dramatic theory from

this highly eccentric account, it is important to point out here that the author is
concerned with the fleeting and alarmed image of his “self” amidst a canvas-like
backdrop that is composed of both the stage and the animated auditorium. In
effect, what Breton looked for and expected from the stage becomes clear in
the above passage; certainly, he did not look for something “serious” that would
intellectually engage the spectators. Rather, he was looking for the quality of
“a vector” that would connect the characters on stage with the audience—no
matter how disconnected the actors might appear toward one another—and
comply with the surrealist ideal of a dialogue that treats the interlocutors as
enemies. These vectors or connections with an intimate audience are more
easily formed through hilarious acting and the laughter that results from it. This
kind of acting, judged by the standards of conventional theatre, clearly shows
disrespect for the stage itself, where representation is traditionally conveyed
through imitation. It also reveals a deliberate effort to abandon the “fourth wall”
of the illusionist stage tradition that Breton hated so much.
This unconventional acting style—so appealing to Breton in his desire to defy
seriousness on stage—coupled with the decadent ambiance that emanated from
the ready-to-be-demolished theatrical space of the Modern Theatre, stresses the
elements of entertainment, surprise, and revelation. All these elements suffice
for Breton “the analyst” to live through an unusual experience, best exemplified
in the mirror-like image of a “salon au fond d’un lac,” an image situated on the
borders of art and reality. The expression “un fauteuil défoncé et un fauteuil
renversable,” referring to the spectator’s choice of seat, is also indicative of the
magical power of the otherwise worthless space of the Modern Theatre. Within
this strange theatrical space, surrounded by old, worn mirrors, their reflections
bringing together the most incongruous images, the spectator’s mode of seeing,
perceiving, and imagining was reversed. This theatrical experiment might suggest
that the marvelous can be contained in the most negligible elements of one’s
daily life. Thus, Breton’s theatre is an “open door” that leads to obscure spaces,
where free or illicit desires find their place, or where an unusual experience
associated with love is offered to the spectator.31 For the repertoire of this theatre
was devoted exclusively to the subject matter of love, as Louis Aragon, who also
describes the acting style practiced by the Modern Theatre in Le Paysan de Paris,
states: “Ce théâtre qui n’a pour but et pour moyen que l’amour même, est sans
doute le seul qui nous présente une dramaturgie sans truquage, et vraiment
moderne” (131) [This type of theatre whose sole aim, whose sole means, is love
itself, is without doubt the only one offering us a truly modern dramaturgy free
of all fakery (Watson Taylor 120)].32 Here, Aragon complements Breton’s view in
“L’Introduction sur le discours sur le peu de réalité” about the need for the stage
to get rid of its fakery.
Both Breton and Aragon thus share the same view as far as the style of the
Modern Theatre is concerned: its exclusive focus is on love. Aragon, for instance,
states: “[L]a morale est celle de l’amour, l’amour la préoccupation unique:
les problèmes sociaux ne sauraient y être effleurés que s’ils sont prétexte à
exhibition. La troupe n’est pas payée et prend des libertés avec ses rôles, elle
vit d’aventures” (133) [The moral is love; love is the sole preoccupation: social
problems are never touched upon unless they provide the pretext for a display
40 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

of nudity. The troupe is unpaid: the members take liberties with their roles,
and they all exist on intrigues and love affairs (Watson Taylor 122)]. Irreverence
towards money, as well as the amateurism of the actors of the Modern Theatre
are things that Breton appreciates enormously; the equation of life with the
stage, so desired by Breton, becomes a reality in the case of the Modern Theatre.
Aragon goes on to specify in more detail the ambiance created by the natural
communion of the audience with the stage, that retains something of a primitive
spirit:

L’esprit même du théâtre primitif y est sauvegardé par la communion naturelle de la

salle et de la scène, dû au désir, ou à la provocation des femmes, ou à des conversations
particulières que les rires grossiers de l’auditoire, ses commentaires, les engueulades des
danseuses au public impoli, les rendez-vous donnés établissent fréquemment, ajoutant un
charme spontané à un texte débité de façon monotone et souvent détonante, ou ânonné,
ou soufflé, ou simplement lu au pied-levé, sans fard (133).

[The very spirit of the primitive theatre is preserved here through a natural communion
between audience and performers, arising out of desire on the one side and the girls’
provocative behavior on the other, as well as out of the impromptu conversations
frequently initiated by the audience’s vulgar laughter, its comments, the tongue-lashings
given by the dancers to rude individuals, the rendezvous exchanged across the footlights,
conversations which add a spontaneous charm to a text delivered in a shouted or mumbled
monotone, urged on by frequent prompting, or simply read straight from the script without
any pretense (Watson Taylor 121).]

In the above passage, it is interesting how Aragon stresses the “primitive spirit
of the Modern Theatre” that, at first glance, seems like an oxymoron. Yet, by this
term, he stresses the sense of initiation, as opposed to representation, where
the spectators cease to be spectators and become instead initiates. They want to
feel an experience that is “marvelous,” rather than to watch a spectacle; in other
words, they expect to be personally transformed.
All these elements of the fragmented “poetics of theatre” of the Modern
Theatre, pieced together on the basis of the accounts of its acting style that
Breton and Aragon offer,33 must be taken into consideration when one attempts
to explain Breton’s detailed focus on Les Détraquées, staged in the Theatre of
the Two Masks.

From the aesthetics of the Théâtre Moderne to the

aesthetics of the Théâtre de Deux Masques
Warren Motte briefly establishes the connection between the two theatres
that drew Breton’s attention, the Modern Theatre and the Theatre of the Two
Masks, when he attempts to explain why Breton as narrator lingers so strangely
over the description of Les Détraquées. For Motte, Breton does so because “it
constitutes an aesthetic model for his own text, a model wherein the shocking
marginality of the grand guignol is remotivated as innovative technique in a
sustained attack on literary conventionalism” (47). The narrator’s confession,
that his desire to watch the aforementioned play was kindled by the harsh
 The surrealist game “one into another” 41

criticism it had received from established theatre critics, certainly supports Motte’s
point: “Bravant mon peu de goût pour les planches, j’y suis allé jadis, sur la foi
que la pièce qu’on y jouait ne pouvait être mauvaise, tant la critique se montrait
acharnée contre elle, allant jusqu’à en réclamer l’interdiction” (OC1 669)34 [I once
went there, though I have never been able to tolerate the theatre, supposing that
the play being put on couldn’t be bad, so harsh—to the point of demanding that
the play be banned—had the criticism of it been (Howard 40)]. Nevertheless,
Motte implies that Breton did not really see any value per se in Palau’s play, other
than the reactionary, shocking marginality of its characters. However, I believe that
Breton did see something more than just this in the play, which became a fixation
in his mind. Breton was truly fascinated yet troubled by Les Détraquées, in the
same way that he was fascinated each time he entered the Modern Theatre. He
must have become aware of how tangible his ideal personal esthetic of convulsive
beauty could be. “Whether it be induced by a natural spectacle or by a work of art,
the experience of authentic beauty is revealed when a shudder of a sudden feeling
of inner disturbance (un trouble) occurs without warning” (Cauvin 23). In this light,
I see Henri Béhar’s explanation of Breton’s account of Palau’s play in Nadja as more
accurate: “Neither his willed perversity, nor the desire to defend a work which had
been disparaged, seemed to me to justify the detailed account of this play which
he gives” (“The Passionate Attraction” 16). Judging from the mark that this play left
on Breton, Béhar thought there was something else that attracted Breton to Les
Détraquées: “More than five years after seeing the play the impression is still just
as vivid, and the writer seems to relive his emotions as he transcribes only what
floats to the surface” (ibid. 16). Béhar rightly states that “[w]ith Les Détraquées
Breton’s attention focuses on the stage. The play seems to him to be exclusively
of the dramatic genre, in terms of its content as well as in the performance of the
actors. And he has eyes only for the actress, whose expressions are for him the
source of great mystery” (ibid. 18). For Béhar:

[o]nly the atmosphere of the theatre, the staging, the acting, the intimate emotion of
the spectator could have given rise to such admiration. Thinking of the definitive words
pronounced by Breton to describe Blanche Derval, “the most admirable and without a
doubt the only actress of our time,” I [he] wanted to know more about this actress whose
name I had never seen elsewhere … (ibid. 15).

Béhar indeed investigated the relationship between Breton and the actress
Blanche Derval, and he discovered that Breton had sent her four letters.
The first time he wrote, on January 29, 1922, was to solicit her collaboration
for the Congress of Paris. He addressed her as follows: “It is to you and you
alone that we made this request, because we know of no one other than you
who incarnates the modern spirit in the theatre today” (ibid.).35 Although this
invitation never received an answer, “the actress was the only person, in the eyes
of her admirer, to incarnate modernity in the theatre” (ibid. emphasis mine).
This statement acquires its fuller sense when seen in the light of Breton’s and
Aragon’s descriptions of the Modern Theatre. The two theatres now match
perfectly. The two communicative spaces of the Modern Theatre—the stage
and the auditorium—correspond exactly to the two masks of the homonymous
theatre where Les Détraquées was staged.
42 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

In that space, Breton was able to experience something new which captured
the spirit of modernity, and had nothing to do with the fake image of the self
emanating from the mask of the eternal theatre of “L’Introduction sur le discours
sur le peu de réalité.” The Théâtre des Deux Masques, in other words, became in
his eyes an ideal space that managed to put into practice the so-called “wireless”
modern philosophy, first coined by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the leader of
futurism. Marinetti had used this term in his Manifeste technique de la littérature
futuriste, dated May 11, 1912: “Together we will invent the wireless imagination.”36
Making an explicit reference to Marinetti, Breton claims in “L’Introduction sur le
discours sur le peu de réalité” that “wireless imagination” (a term modeled after
“wireless telegraph,” or “wireless telecommunications,” and with which he opens
the essay) is not only easily achieved, but also “permissible.”37 Coming from this
perspective, he imagines himself as a new Theseus on the island of Crete, but
with neither Ariadne’s thread, nor the Minotaur; instead, he sees himself as
one who is forever cloistered in his own labyrinth made of crystal, thrown in
front of a constant aporia, both miraculous and wondrous in the face of modern
invention.38 For “[l]’invention, la découverte humaine, cette faculté qui, dans
le temps, nous est si parcimonieusement accordée de connaître, de posséder
ce dont on ne se faisait aucune idée avant nous, est faite pour nous jeter dans
une immense perplexité” (Breton, OC2 265) [invention, human discovery, this
faculty which we are hardly able to get to know through time, that is, to get to
acquire that of which we had no clue before, is made in order to put us in an
immense perplexity]. Breton seems to have made a similar invention when faced
with both Nadja’s game and Blanche Derval’s acting as Solange, equivalent to a
new experience in a place of existence, as Béhar rightly states: “[T]he stage was
for this ideal spectator, on one certain occasion, the place of existence” (“The
Passionate Attraction” 17). This is exactly the impact that Derval’s portrayal of
Solange has on the viewer/reviewer Breton; it makes him feel he is within a place
where motion is suspended, a place of existence. For this he feels grateful to
Blanche Derval:

These photographs of Les Détraquées are far from giving me the extraordinary impression
which certain episodes in the play left on me, and above all certain expressions which I saw
you adopt during it. Such as they are, though, they are still infinitely moving, and I thank you
for having given me the means of confronting my faithful and passionate memory of several
evenings at the Two Masks with this all too fixed and objective a test (ibid. 16).39

Such a confession forms the link that pieces Nadja’s game and Breton’s experience
together, first as a viewer and then again as a “reviewer” of Palau’s play. More
than the stage itself then, the transformational effect on the spectator’s
perception most interests Breton in that it owes its power precisely to the fact
that there is no split between actress/character in the cases of both Nadja and
Blanche Derval as Solange. What he so categorically denied in “Le Discours sur
le peu de réalité” becomes possible in the cases of these two women, leaving
him in a state of deep perplexity. Breton, as a witness to the spectacle of Les
Détraquées, found a place of existence in the same way that Nadja did when she
performed various imaginary roles and listened to herself as another auditor/
spectator. Both “plays” (Nadja’s word game and the staging of Palau’s play) have
 The surrealist game “one into another” 43

the same perplexing effect upon the narrator/author as their goal. It is important
to notice here that the effects of both kinds of play transform the narrator/
author from a stupefied object to a newly-awakened subject, who finds a place
of existence in a newly-discovered world—that of surreality.40 Now we can see a
new element that encompasses both Motte’s and Béhar’s explanations as to why
Breton so highly praised an otherwise worthless play, devoting several pages of
commentary to it.
My belief is that Breton, motivated by more than simply a desire to go against
theatrical conventionalism, tests himself in terms of how intense his emotions
remain through time. This test is congruous with his lifelong experiment with
the interaction of the states of dreaming and waking, in an ultimate attempt
to reach a state of absolute freedom. Portraying himself as a plaything of his
memory, he embarks on a random juxtaposition of remarkable events in his
life that, curiously enough, through the mechanisms of dream work, prove to
have a latent coherence. In this light, then, the “wireless” connection of Nadja’s
game with Blanche Derval’s portrayal of Solange becomes undeniable. Equally,
a displacement mechanism, characteristic of the interaction between dream
and waking, makes the identification of Nadja with Solange/Blanche Derval in
the narrator’s view. This triple identification, or over-determination, takes form
in Breton’s mind at the moment he first encounters Nadja’s eyes, before even
knowing her name. Her theatrical-looking, unfinished eye make-up immediately
evokes Blanche Derval in the role of Solange in his mind:

Il est intéressant de noter à ce propos, que Blanche Derval, dans le rôle de Solange, même
vue de très près, ne paraissait en rien maquillée. Est-ce à dire que ce qui est très faiblement
permis dans la rue mais est recommandé au théâtre ne vaut à mes yeux qu’autant qu’il est
passé outre à ce qui est défendu dans un cas, ordonné dans l’autre? Peut-être (OC1 683–5).

[It is interesting to note, in this regard, that Blanche Derval, as Solange, even when seen
at close range, never seemed at all made up. Does this mean that what is only slightly
permissible in the street but advisable in the theatre is important to me only insofar as it
has defied what is forbidden in one case, decreed in the other? Perhaps (Howard 64).]

Nadja looks as though she is made-up for the stage and Derval is almost without
its gaudy aid; this inversion of stage-like make-up immediately attracts Breton.
Such an exchange between stage and reality could be considered a concrete
image of the constant exchange of the two states of mind: dreaming and waking,
imaginary and real. The composite of Nadja/Solange/Blanche is elevated to a
symbol that reveals the possibility of the “marvelous” for this ideal spectator.41
Finally, Breton created this triple identification, when he signed (with the puzzling
initials G.L.) a four-page “plaquette,” entitled “Nadja/Blanche,” published in the
1980s, which contained four letters from Breton to Blanche Derval.42
The focus on the spectator is evident in both plays (that is, in Nadja’s game and
the staging of Les Détraquées). As if a transparent vector connects him with one
of the stage protagonists, Solange, the spectator, experiences this connection
as a magical moment and ignores the other character on the opposite edge of
the stage. In fact, it may be possible that such wireless connection between the
spectator and Solange goes even further back, to the time of Poisson soluble
(Soluble Fish, 1924), where Breton talks about another Solange, who plays a
44 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

love game with him that consists of multiple transformations and hide-and-seek
games: “Quand il s’agit de Solange … Huit jours durant nous avons habité une
région plus délicate que l’impossibilité de se poser pour certaines hirondelles”
(OC1 397) [When it’s Solange … For a week we lived in a region more delicate
than the impossibility of alighting for certain swallows (Seaver and Lane 107)].
Thus, no matter how disconnected from each other the characters may seem on
stage, this does not affect the spectator or his connection with one or more of
them; we are reminded of Breton’s statement in his first manifesto of Surrealism
about dialogue as two simultaneous soliloquies.
My concern here has been to see how well the narrator carries out the task
of the performance analyst. For, due to the passage of time, instead of being
a mere viewer, he becomes rather a performance reviewer: Breton performs
the function of a meticulous performance analyst, who is unconcerned by the
absence of clear indicators in the plot. Instead, he relates the flow of dream-like
images on stage to his own self-quest, a kind of a double play of mirrors between
his states of dreaming and waking. From a novice, he becomes an initiate; from
a player, he becomes a spectator of a continuously concatenated spectacle that
foregrounds the same image. This image within an image that favors a new mode
of seeing and perceiving announces another game that Surrealists have practiced
since 1953, the famous game “l’un dans l’autre” (the one into another), which for
some is equivalent to “the manifesto of the Surrealist games” (Garrigues 37).43
Seen in terms of this game—almost an enigma to be solved by the viewers—
Nadja’s game becomes more coherent, offering clues about the impact on the
narrator/author who is newly acquainted with it.

Conclusion
Breton is the “demain joueur,” who lets himself become the plaything of
memory during Nadja’s game, a game that germinates both the “exquisite
corpse” and the “one into another” games in which surrealist ludic activity
culminate. This “player of tomorrow” has seen in Nadja’s game a free activity
par excellence that tests the limits of language and effortlessly fuses the real
with the imaginary. As a participant on the margins of Nadja’s peculiar game,
despite his initial reluctance, he experienced a full range of irrational states
of mind: surprise, confusion, bewilderment, challenge, resistance, fear, and a
voyage to the “marvelous.” As a playmate of Nadja’s, Breton became at once a
game-spoiler44 and a game-validator. By surrendering to the evocative power
of language, he was led on an inner journey back to what he thought were
long-gone experiences in front of the stage. Nadja’s game reawakened and
reaffirmed the major themes at the heart of all surrealist imagery: the states
of dreaming and waking, desire and mad love, sexuality, criminality, black
humor (see Grand-Guignol), infancy-puerility, and myth reversal. In addition,
the game featured all the major dream mechanisms that Freud discussed, such
as condensation, displacement, consideration of figurability, and secondary
revision. In short, her game was a microcosm of Breton’s unstated dramatic
theory.
 The surrealist game “one into another” 45

It is now safe to argue that, for Breton, theatre should be like play, in the
sense of a free activity par excellence aspiring to no material gain; this kind
of play is related to the festival and the ritual, in the sense that it is methectic
(initiative and participatory) rather than mimetic. Thus, there is no fourth wall
present on this kind of stage. Furthermore, the stage is seen as an application
of the concept of the surrealist dialogue that goes against conventional theatre.
The subject matter of love is the exclusive focus of this kind of theatre. Nadja
and her game had the power to force Breton to confront himself. She led him
to re-create ex nihilo the image that had so much perplexed him as a spectator/
analyst at his repeated attendance of Les Détraquées. Her game, resonating
with the perplexing scene functioned as a stage on which it re-appeared,
serving in some way as a model stage and a mirror for her playmate. More
specifically, Nadja’s game functioned for her playmate as follows: first, as an
ideal stage, modeled after a children’s play-world where Nadja acts like Alice in
Wonderland. Second, Nadja’s game is perceived through the eyes of Nadja-the-
“voyante.” Nadja’s playmate feels the anxiety caused by the metamorphosis of
a child transformed into a woman-enchantress. Finally, and most importantly,
Nadja’s game is a mirror-stage, in the sense of a particular case of the function
of the imago—“the transformation that takes place in the subject when he
assumes an image” (Sheridan 2). The receiver’s “I” is transformed and is led to
the “marvelous.” How is this achieved?
The Lacanian model elucidates this process. The narrator/author’s “I,”
prior to his encounter with Nadja’s revealing imagos that issued from her
game, felt “dismembered,” in the sense of being suffocated by the “paucity
of reality.” Once the narrator/author’s “I” encounters his own reflected image
as Nadja’s playmate—in a Gestalt form, that is, in its wholeness—he begins
to assume this image, and thus he begins to be transformed. Such wholeness
in his self is conveyed by Nadja’s own wholeness, in sharp contrast to what
he had thought in “Le Discours sur le peu de réalité,” when he attempted to
don a medieval soldier’s armor. At that time, he felt fragmented, but after
his encounter with Nadja’s marvelous world, he became aware that such a
passage from one persona to another is in fact possible, provided one allows
a fusion of the real with the imaginary. He therefore reorients himself and
starts anew within the world of surreality, which restores the magical power
of words and images.
Any attempt to reconstruct Breton’s theory should place the spectator at
the center and take into consideration the play element that Nadja’s game has
activated. With her game, Nadja holds the promise, as her nickname in Russian
suggests (“hope”), of a modern, inventive, “wireless,” spectator-oriented stage.
Such a theatre would comply with what Breton had expressed by means of
automatic writing in his skit S’il vous plaît. This playlet reenacts a clash among
the spectators in a theatre. One of them expresses his disappointment and
indignation with regard to what he sees on the stage and leaves the theatre
with his fist pointing out toward the scene, as if he wants to kill the actors:

Depuis quelque temps, sous prétexte d’originalité et d’indépendance, notre bel art est
saboté par une bande d’individus dont le nombre grossit chaque jour et qui ne sont, pour la
plupart, que des énergumènes, des paresseux ou des farceurs (OC1 153).
46 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

[For some time now, under the pretext of originality and independence, our fine art has
been sabotaged by a gang of individuals whose number increases every day and who in
their majority are fanatics, idles or farce makers.]

These words are quite telling, given the fact that they were the product of
automatic writing. They reveal how deeply rooted in Breton’s mind was the
concern for the reaction of the public toward the new kind of theatre that he
intended to implement. This new theatre was to stand in opposition to the
conventional, well-made play, represented by the grand figures of French theatre
such as Montaigne, Diderot, Voltaire, or Ernest Renan.
Breton became the model of a performance analyst in front of Les Détraquées
and the Modern Theatre. His analysis was not one of a specialized critic, but
one of a deeply troubled spectator guided by desire, just as Nadja was in her
game. With it, she tested the limits of language in the same way that both the
“exquisite corpse” and the “one into another” surrealist games did, both of which
were somehow present in Nadja’s game. The “paucity of reality” that Breton had
perceived in the conventional use of language was challenged. He had already
started to defy it when he and Philippe Soupault employed automatic writing
to compose the series of poetic dialogues significantly entitled “Les Barrières”
(“The Barriers,” 1919). Breaking the barriers of limited reality, Nadja’s verbal
game serves as one of the means through which Surrealism became more valid,
as it was defined in the Manifesto of Surrealism: “a psychic automatism in its pure
state by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word
or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought” (Seaver and Lane 26).
Such a psychic automatism is directly dictated by thought, in the absence of any
control exercised by reason. To use Matthew’s words, “to the surrealist, language
is not the faithful record of previously formulated thought, logically expressed
so as to appeal to ‘desiccated reason’” (Theatre 277–8). Nadja’s game is situated
in accord with Surrealism’s belief “in the disinterested play of thought” (Seaver
and Lane 26). Through free association, dream work, and the imagination’s free
play, the Surrealists tested the limits of language, with a use that was equal to:

an enrichment of the active vocabulary of poetry, a release from verbal inhibitions, a

selection of word association beyond the barriers set up by logic, a new metaphor built
upon these incongruous word groupings, and the images resulting from the association of
the metaphor with another—which one might call the square of the metaphor (Balakian,
The Road 135).

Nadja’s game stands as an imaginary stage for Breton’s ludic dramatic theory,
as it discloses the relation between conscious and unconscious and leads to a
derangement of all senses. Like the “one into another” surrealist game, Nadja’s
playground forms the fluid dream-like stage, which is magically transformed to
interchangeable similar stages. Nadja herself melts into at least two other female
characters (Solange/Blanche Derval) presenting thus the ultimate challenge for
her playmate-observer: her game debunks Breton’s fantasy of a unified “total”
personality, leading him back to the unconscious depths of language as the
play of multiple meanings, which subverts all ego-formation. Whereas she has
come to terms with the otherness of the self, the narrator/author Breton finds it
impossible to reconcile himself with such an idea. His fixation with the imaginary
 The surrealist game “one into another” 47

makes him resist Nadja’s game as if it were a case of counter-transference. Rather

than accepting her multiplicity of selves, he abandons her in order to elevate her
to a permanent symbol of the eternal feminine, who strangely blends beauty
with sexuality and mystery. Yet, one fact remains undeniable: through her game,
Nadja has irreparably transformed her playmate. She makes him clearly see the
reversibility of the realm of reality with that of the stage. What he so stubbornly
denied in the latter—that is, the identification with the other—he experienced
himself in Nadja’s game. Nadja became an iconic figure of the function of the
theatre as an endless play of meanings far from a fixed idealized meaning. She
became the demain jouer herself, the deferred player of tomorrow, always to
remain unattainable and forever desired. This is indeed the ideal stage of which
Breton had been dreaming, as an ideal successor of the Romantics; it was a stage
that had inherent in it the ludic element. Such a stage was too fluid, too cinematic,
too playful, and too dependent on the spectator’s imagination to be put into
practice at Breton’s time, when stage techniques were not developed enough.
Such a theatre is not impossible in today’s world, however, with the advanced
use of light and space on stage as well as the presence of intermediality—that
is, the incorporation of various media. Breton’s supposed hostility towards the
theatre may simply have been his awareness of the impossibility of putting into
practice at the time the ludic element he held to be the ideal. The ever-elusive
and fluid nature of play—more akin to the cinematic form—that so attracted
Breton was quite simply incompatible with the more static nature of the stage
as he had experienced it. The very element, which so fascinated the leader of
Surrealism in the element of play was ironically the main impediment to its
practical realization on stage.
The following chapters explore the major techniques and themes that Nadja’s
game encapsulated and revealed (with a particular focus on desire culminating in
“mad love”) in a variety of surrealist and post-surrealist plays. What Breton himself
refused to put into practice, for fear of failing to reproduce the authenticity of the
ludic element inherent in surrealist language, was ironically attempted in the name
of Surrealism by two ex-members of the surrealist group. I refer to Roger Vitrac and
Antonin Artaud, founders of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry, who made the first attempt
at putting Breton’s implicit ludic dramatic theory into practice when they produced
The Mysteries of Love: A Surrealist Drama in 1927. Their experiment was repeated
more systematically three decades later, by the Greek playwright Nanos Valaoritis.
How all these attempts to “play” with Breton’s ludic dramatic theory transpired
will be the subject matter in the next chapter.

Notes
1 See Breton, Nadja, trans. Richard Howard, 74. Hereafter, I will refer to this translation
of Nadja. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. In each case, I offer the
original quotation along with my translation, when no other translation is available; I
wish the reader to have access to both texts and the chance thus to evaluate my choice
of translation. The original is based on the first volume of the latest Gallimard edition
of Breton’s Œuvres complètes edited under the direction of Marguerite Bonnet, in
collaboration with Philippe Bernier, Étienne-Alain Hubert, and José Pierre (1988).
48 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

2 It is interesting to note that, in an effort to clarify the expression “the extreme limit of the
Surrealist aspiration,” Breton’s footnote is accompanied by yet another footnote in the
1988 Gallimard edition. I refer to footnote n. 4 on page 690, which is developed on page
1544. The entire footnote in the original reads: “Aspiration à la conquête de la liberté
par la disponibilité, l’errance, l’attente (voir n. 3, p. 681) et la puissance de l’imaginaire.
Mais notons qu’il s’agit ici de cette aspiration à son extrême, ‘à sa plus forte idée limite’.
Un des problèmes majeurs de Breton et du surrêalisme consiste à aller au plus loin dans
cette quête, mais sans basculer au-delà de la limite, en cheminant sur la crête étroite
qui domine le précipice. Périlleux équilibre, qui ne fut pas accordé à tous” (OC1 1544).
[Aspiration to conquer freedom by the availability, wandering, waiting (see n. 3, p. 681)
and the power of the imagination. But note that this is the aspiration to its extreme, ‘to
its highest idea-limit.’ One major problem of Breton and Surrealism is to go further in this
quest, but without tipping beyond the limit, walking along the narrow ridge overlooking
the precipice. Perilous balance, which was not granted to everyone.]
3 More specifically, the first three acts of S’il vous plaît premiered during the Dada evening
that took place in the Théâtre de l’Œuvre on March 27, 1920, with Breton and Soupault
being among the cast of actors, along with Miss Doyon, Paul and Gala Eluard, Théodore
Fraenkel, Henri Cliquennois, and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes. These three acts also
appeared in issue number 16 of the revue Littérature in September–October 1920. As far
as Vous m’oublierez is concerned, its two first acts appeared in the first issue of Cannibale,
on April 25, 1920, while the entire text appeared in the fourth issue of the new series
of Littérature on September 1, 1922. It was also staged in the Dada “happening” in the
Gaveau room on May 27, 1920 with the following cast: Breton, playing the role of un
umbrella; Philippe Soupault in the role of a bathrobe; Paul Eluard in the role of a sewing
machine; and Theodore Fraenkel playing an unknown person.
4 Pierre Brunel chronicles the clash between Breton’s surrealist circle and Antonin Artaud
over the staging of Strindberg’s Dream Play. See Brunel, “Strindberg et Artaud.”
5 For more details, see Béhar, “The Passionate Attraction.”
6 The reference in question is: “I have myself shown in the social dialectic that structures
human knowledge as paranoiac why human knowledge has greater autonomy than
animal knowledge in relation to the field of force of desire, but also why human
knowledge is determined in that ‘little reality’ ([ce peu de réalité]), which the Surrealists,
in their restless way, saw as its limitation” (Sheridan 3–4). For more details, see Lacan,
Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan.
7 Marguerite Bonnet notes that this epithet was attached to Breton on several occasions as
a posthumous homage to him. For example, Maurice Blanchot published a text entitled
“Le Demain joueur” in the special issue of the journal Nouvelle revue française, dedicated
to Breton, on April 1, 1967. Also, an internal resolution, entitled “Pour un demain joueur,”
was undertaken by the editorial board of the literary review Archibras on May 10, 1967.
See endnote 3, Breton, OC1 1608.
8 Warren Motte devotes to Nadja the second chapter of his book Playtexts, 31–47.
9 Motte borrows Breton’s term “beauté convulsive” (“convulsive beauty”) with which he
closes Nadja: “La beauté sera CONVULSIVE ou ne sera pas” (OC1 753) [beauty will be
CONVULSIVE or will not be at all (Howard 160)]. Breton employs again the same term
in Amour fou (Mad Love) and enhances it. More specifically, he closes the first chapter
of this work with this sentence: “La beauté convulsive sera érotique-voilée, explosante-
fixe, magique-circonstantielle ou ne sera pas” (OC2 687) [Convulsive beauty will be
veiled-erotic, fixed-explosive, magic-circumstantial, or it will not be (Caws 19)]. Its
first appearance, however, was in an autograph by Breton, dated April 15, 1934, and
 The surrealist game “one into another” 49

its first publication was in the surrealist revue Minotaure (May 12, 1934, 9–16). Cauvin
argues that this phrase resumes Breton’s concept of esthetic emotion, characterized by
unpredictability and surprise. “Convulsive beauty,” he states, “is defined by Breton not as
motion but as ‘l’expiration exacte de ce mouvement,’ that is, motion in suspension” (23).
10 Béhar, André Breton 198. The affair between Nadja and Breton was ephemeral. This is
how Henri Béhar sums up Nadja’s fate: “Due to a crisis of hallucinations in her hotel,
she was led to the asylum on March 21, 1927, then at the St. Anne’s and later on at the
Perray-Vaucluse asylum in the Department of the Seine. At her parents’ request she was
transferred next year to the North. Nadja will remain interned in a psychiatric institution
until her death in 1941.” Marguerite Bonnet offers more details about the tumultuous
relationship of Nadja and Breton in her notes to Nadja included in OC1 1502.
11 At least Marguerite Bonnet, the editor of André Breton’s Œuvres complètes does not
leave any doubt about this: “Nadja est incontestablement un récit autobiographique où
tout s’efforce non seulement à la vérité, mais à l’exactitude, malgré la place essentielle
qu’y tient le non-dit, les rétractions de l’écriture, le halo des silences dont, néanmoins,
la réverbération secrète projette sur le texte une sorte de lumière incertaine” (OC1
1496). [Nadja is undoubtedly an autobiographical narrative in which everything is forced
not only toward truth, but also to exactitude, despite the essential place that the non-
expressed takes there, along with the retractions of writing, the aura of the silences the
secret reverberation of which at least projects on the text a kind of uncertain light.]
12 According to Claude Maillard-Chary, in her article “Melusine entre Sphinx et Sirène, ou
la ‘queue préhensile’ du désir rattrapé” [Melusina between Sphinx and Siren, or the “Tail
Able to Seize” the Regained Desire], Melusina is the ending and the key to the surrealist
quest. In her, “tout interdit levé, toute transcendance désavouée et reniée, l’amour
passionnel rejoint l’humour léger, l’humour ‘sublime’ et ‘libérateur’, celui des jeux de
mots ensorcelants …” (228) [every raised interdiction, every disavowed and renounced
transcendence, the passionate love rejoin the light humor, the “sublime” and “liberating”
humor, one of the enchanting word games …]. For more details, see Maillard-Chary,
“Melusine entre Sphinx et Sirène, ou la ‘queue préhensile’ du désir rattrapé.”
13 See André Breton, OC1, 646 and 1516. This is how André Breton thinks of Nadja, thereby
stressing its anti-literary character.
14 In this first writing sample Breton’s voice is fused with Philippe Soupault’s voice thanks
to the use of automatic writing. The most characteristic example of this dialogue-
monologue type bears the interestingly liminal title “Les Barrièrres” (“The Barriers”).
15 See Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism, trans. Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane, 123–4.
16 For more details on this game, see Garrigues, Les Jeux surréalistes 29–30 and 69–70.
This is the fifth volume of the Surrealist Archives. Here, Garrigues quotes the following
definition of this game offered in Le Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme, which served as
a catalogue in the Exposition de 1938: “Jeu de papier plié qui consiste à faire composer
une phrase ou un dessin par plusieurs personnes, sans qu’ aucune d’elles puisse tenir
compte de la collaboration ou des collaborations précédentes” (31) [Game of a folded
paper consisting of a phrase or a drawing made by many people being unaware of the
previous collaborations]. See also Cauvin, “Literary Games of Chance.” Cauvin describes
this parlor game as follows: “Cadavre exquis (‘exquisite corpse’) is the surrealist version
of a parlor game in which various players add to a sentence or drawing without seeing
the preceding entries, the latter being concealed from view by a folding of the sheet. The
first sentence so composed gave the game its name” (18).
17 This game first appeared in Medium, n. 2 (February 1954) and n. 3 (May 1954). It started
one evening in the café of the place Blanche in which Breton, referring to the power of
analogy, argued that a lion could be well described as the flame of a match he had lit.
50 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Philippe Audoin describes this game as follows: [Striking a match, Breton recognized a
lion. Why indeed couldn’t a lion be an inflamed match? The game begins there. One of
the players leaves the room and identifies himself secretly with some object, a chocolate
bar, for example. During his absence the other players decide that he is a boar. The bar
of chocolate is going to describe itself in the language of a boar until it is discovered.
“I am”—it will say—“a boar of very small dimensions that lives in a copse with a brilliant
metallic look, surrounded by rather dangerous foliage. My dentition is exterior to me: it
is made up of millions of teeth ready to sink into me”] (quoted in Orenstein Feman 28–9).
For more details see Garrigues, Les Jeux surréalistes 38.
18 The following examples are characteristic of the dialogue in the sense that Breton defined
it, taking place between a doctor and a patient in certain pathological states of mind:
“Q. ‘How old are you? A. You,’ (Echolalia) Q. ‘What is your name? A. ‘Forty-five houses’
(Ganser syndrome, or beside-the-point-replies)” (Seaver and Lane 34). Obviously, in both
examples there is a clear lack of logical coherence; however, there is a newly-emerged
logic, that of the image-building technique.
19 Michael Riffaterre’s contribution to the process of metaphor formation in surrealist
poetry is also illuminating/ instructive: “Ce qu’on appelle métaphore filée est en fait
une série de métaphores reliées les unes aux autres par la syntaxe—elles font partie
de la même phrase ou d’une même structure narrative ou descriptive—et par le sens:
chacune exprime un aspect particulier d’un tout, chose ou concept, que représente la
première métaphore de la série” (Text Production 47) [What we call web-metaphor is
in fact a series of metaphors linked among themselves through syntax—they make part
of the same phrase of the same narrative or descriptive structure—and by means of the
content: each one expresses a particular aspect of a whole, thing or concept that the first
metaphor of the series represents].
20 This expression is an explicit reference to the aforementioned significant text
“Introduction sur le discours sur le peu de réalité” (“Introduction to the Discourse on the
Paucity of Reality”), written by André Breton in September 1924.
21 It is not only the relevance of the seminal Lacanian essay “The Mirror Stage” to some of
Breton’s surrealist beliefs about language that makes indispensable the co-examination
of these two leading French figures. Basing their statement on Anna Balakian’s findings,
Muller and Richardson also assert that “Lacan was one of his [Breton’s] numerous well-
known friends, and he apparently had a significant influence on Lacan’s thought and
style” (316–17). Likewise, Stamos Metzidakis leaves no doubt about Breton’s impact
upon Lacan’s thought. For more details, see his article “Breton’s Structuralism.”
22 Muller and Richardson expand on this issue in the following passage: “In any case, the
image is a form that in-forms the subject and makes possible the process of identification
with it. Identification with a constellation of images leads to a behavioral pattern that
reflects the social structures within which those images first emerged. It is through
the complex that images are established in the psychic organization that influence the
broadest unities of behavior: images with which the subject identifies completely in
order to play out, as the sole actor, the drama of conflicts between them” (28).
23 Freud’s “La Question de l’analyse par les non-médecins” was cited in the issue 9–10 of La
Révolution surréaliste on October 1, 1927.
24 Nadja—whose real name, according to Marguerite Bonnet, was Leona-Camille-
Ghislaine—was born in the region of Lille on May 23, 1902 (OC1 1509). During her first
meeting with Breton on October 4, 1926, among other things, she talked about her
father and her mother, her friends, and her wanderings in the streets of Paris in search of
small jobs. She also learned about Breton’s marital status and saw Breton’s wife as a star
towards whom her interlocutor was directed.
 The surrealist game “one into another” 51

25 In fact, Nadja introduces in the text of Nadja what a year later would become the official
game of the surrealist circle, led by Breton, and called “The Dialogue in 1928.”
26 The term “détraquées” has multiple meanings revolving around insanity. According to the
dictionary Le Robert quotidien (ed. 1996), it means “dérangées” (deranged), “troublées”
(troubled), “déréglées” (unruled), “désaxées” (unaxed), “abîmées” (destroyed),
“déséquilibrées” (unbalanced), “fous” (mad), “détériorées” (deteriorated). According to
Harrap’s New Standard French and English Dictionary (rev. ed. 1972), the term means:
“broken in health, broken down, shattered in mind and body.” It is in the latter sense
that the playwright himself, Pierre Palau, means the term “détraquées,” while admitting
the adventure of the title before its finality. Inspired by some incidents that happened
in a girl’s institution in the Parisian area, he asked Paul Thiery’s help because he would
deal in his play with a case of periodical and circular insanity and therefore needed a
doctor’s expertise to advise him on the scientific aspects of his work. This expertise was
offered to him by the preeminent Joseph Babinsky, Breton’s own professor when he was
a medical student at the Salpetrière Hospital. The initial title he had chosen for his play
was “Mademoiselle Solange, professeur de danse et de maintien,” but the director of the
theatre in which it was agreed to be staged objected and suggested instead the title “Les
Vicieuses.” Palau, in turn, completely disagreed with this title because, in his view, the
case of insanity with which he was dealing had nothing to do with any kind of vice. Finally,
they came to an agreement with the title Les Détraquées. All the above information is
given in a note signed by Pierre Palau that accompanies the publication of this play in the
first volume of Le Surréalisme même (third trimester of 1956), 121.
27 Information gathered from Pierron “House of Horrors.”
28 One wonders here whether Breton’s attention to the balloon on stage is not also
associated, at some latent level, with another similar scene in the famous play by
Guillaume Apollinaire that Breton overtly admired. I refer to the play Les Mamelles de
Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias). The term “surrealist” appears for the first time in this
play’s prologue, which Breton borrowed to use in a different manner. There the balloons
symbolize Thérèse’s breasts, which she releases at the end of the play along with other
balls to serve the audience both for feeding and playing. It’s interesting also to note the
last line of the play: “Luck is a game win or lose/just keep your eye on the play” (91).
29 Breton admired the feeling of surprise expressed in the work of the surrealist painter
Giorgio De Chirico. In Nadja, he writes: “De Chirico a reconnu alors qu’il ne pouvait
peindre que surpris (surpris le premier) par certaines dispositions d’objects et que toute
l’énigme de la révélation tenait pour lui dans ce mot: surpris” (OC1 649). [De Chirico
understood then that he would not be able to paint but while being surprised (surprised
the first) by certain dispositions of objects and that every enigma of revelation was
comprised for him in this word: surprised].
30 Howard’s translation here leaves out the ludic element of the performers’ acting. “Le jeu
dérisoire des acteurs” literally translates as: “the ridiculous game of the actors.”
31 Louis Aragon, in his own detailed description of the Modern Theatre with which he closes
the first part of Paysan de Paris (1926)—a text which is also cited in Nadja—locates these
illicit desires in the audience’s voyeuristic wish to see the nude “skin” of the actresses
(131).
32 Aragon, Paris Peasant, trans. Simon Watson Taylor, 120.
33 There is no doubt about the influence of one on the other in their work. Breton himself
quotes Le Paysan de Paris in Nadja, while they are both living in the same area in 1927
when Breton is composing Nadja and Aragon the Traité du style. Marguerite Bonnet
informs us that during this period the two friends see each other on a daily basis and
exchange views to the point that they comment on each other’s different writing styles.
52 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Thus, Breton talks about Aragon’s playful style of writing: “comme en se jouant, moi
d’autant plus difficilement que la narration n’a jamais été mon fort” [as if playing, while
for me it was much more difficult since narration has never been my strength]. He
continues: “Il me disait, il est vrai, l’autre jour qu’il avait par rapport à moi l’impression,
lui, d’écrire d’une manière si creuse” [he was telling me, it is true, the other day, that he
had the impression in regard to myself that he was writing in an empty manner] (OC1
1503).
34 Palau’s account of the controversial reception of his play is interesting: “La répétition
générale eut lieu le samedi 19 février 1921. Ce fut un scandale sans précédent.
L’indignation de ces messieurs-dames de la Critique atteignit à son paroxysme. Je fus
littéralement accablé sous les injures; entre autres, une certaine dame qui devait par
la suite s’illustrer dans la littérature, après avoir été elle-même quelque peu malmenée
sur la scène du Moulin Rouge, hurlait plus fort que les aboyeurs accrédités, au point
de s’attirer ce rappel cinglant de Fernand Nozière: ‘Ah non! … surtout … pas vous!’ En
compensation, Les Détraquées se jouèrent 278 fois de suite devant des salles pleines,
et reprises par la suite déjà trois fois, toujours avec la même fortune et même, curieux
retour des choses d’ici-bas, avec les louanges de la presse … Parmi ces louanges, l’une m’a
toujours été au cœur, et je la reçus d’André Breton, qui a bien voulu consacrer à ma pièce
un chapitre enthusiaste dans son livre Nadja” (121). [The dress rehearsal took place on
Saturday the February 19, 1921. It was a scandal without precedent. The indignation of
those ladies and gentlemen of the Critique reached its paroxysm. I was literally harmed
by these injuries; in addition, a certain lady who would soon be portrayed in literature,
after having been somehow ill-brought to the stage of Moulin-Rouge, hurled more than
the most renown dogs to the point that she recalled this rappel of Fernand Nozière:
“Ah no! … certainly … not you!” In recompense, Les Détraquées was put on stage 278
consecutive times in front of full audiences and staged again later on three occasions,
always having the same chance and even, a curious return of events happening here on
earth, with the appraisals of the press … Amidst those appraisals, one which I always
cherish, I received from André Breton, who also wanted to devote to my play a chapter in
his book Nadja.]
35 It is interesting to point out that Nadja is also explicitly associated with the modern spirit
in Nadja, when Breton implies that Nadja had cut the pages entitled “L’esprit nouveau”
from his book Le pas perdus given to her the previous day. The following quotation from
Nadja describes the relevant passage of Les pas perdus where Breton and his friends
Louis Aragon and André Derain came across an irresistible sphinx, in the form of a
charming young lady, “allant d’un trottoir à l’autre interroger les passants, ce sphinx qui
nous avait épargnés l’un l’autre et, à sa recherche, de courir le long de toutes les lignes
qui, même très capricieusement, peuvent relier ces points-le manque de résultats de
cette poursuite que le temps écoulé eût dû rendre sans espoir, c’est à cela qu’est allée
tout de suite Nadja” (OC1 691).
36 According to Marguerite Bonnet, Breton started writing this text immediately after he
completed the Manifesto of Surrealism, but he finished it only in January 1925 and
published it in March 1925, in the winter 1924 issue of the journal Commerce. For more
details see OC2 1438–46.
37 It is also interesting that Breton closes Nadja with a broken message transmitted through
a threadless telegraphy about a lost plane in the area of l’Ile de Sable. The message
begins thus, “Il y a quelque chose qui ne va pas” (OC1 753), to be followed by this famous
phrase, which closes Nadja: “La beauté sera convulsive ou ne sera pas” (OC1 753).
38 See André Breton, OC2 265. This reference to Greek mythology acquires a greater
significance once one recalls that this is the only myth cherished by the Surrealists from
Greek mythology, an otherwise neglected mythology in their circle.
 The surrealist game “one into another” 53

39 The play in question was Les Détraquées, performed by Le Théâtre des Deux Masques in
February 1921. In a letter dated September 26, 1927, Breton thanks Derval for giving him
permission to use her photographs in Nadja by explaining to her: “Yours, first, Madame,
because I have admired you more than any artist in the world, which I state with
unmistakable clarity in my book, and then one of a scene from the play as well, because
my memories of it will never fade” (Béhar, “Passionate Attraction” 16). Breton’s following
words, also addressed to the actress Blanche Derval in a letter, dated September 14,
1927, are characteristic: “I am about to publish, as I briefly told you, a work which is,
properly speaking, neither an essay nor a novel, in the course of which I evoke among
other significant and decisive episodes of my life, two or three evenings which I once
spent at the Two Masks, and I speak of you, and you alone, in this connection” (16).
40 This issue is evidently related to the explicit question that operates in Nadja, namely,
“Qui suis-je?” [Who am I?] or [Whom am I following?].
41 A fourth persona could also merge into this triple female identification in this ideal
spectator’s case. I refer to Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire’s muse whose name sounds similar
to Derval’s, a connection further supported by the general affinities between Baudelaire
and Breton. In any case, both Derval and Duval function as muses.
42 Marguerite Bonnet offers more details on this issue in Breton, OC1 1536.
43 See note 8, above.
44 One could also justify the narrator as a game-spoiler if he/she sees him as a tentative
psychoanalyst who has to remain silent in order to censure the cure of his/her patient,
who in this case is Nadja herself.
This page has been left blank intentionally
2
Staging “mad love” in the
Théâtre Alfred Jarry: Breton’s
ludic dramatic theory in practice

Si le théâtre est un jeu, trop de graves problèmes nous sollicitent pour que nous puissions
distraire, au profit, de quelque chose d’aussi aléatoire que ce jeu, la moindre parcelle de
notre attention. Si le théâtre n’est pas un jeu, s’il est une réalité véritable, par quels moyens
lui rendre ce rang de réalité, faire de chaque spectacle une sorte d’événement, tel est le
problème que nous avons à resoudre (Artaud, OC2 11; my emphasis).

[If the theatre is a game, so many serious problems require that we be able to distract, to our
advantage, the smallest part of our attention by something so aleatory as this game. If the
theatre is not a game, if it is a true reality, by which means we should give it back this rank
of reality and make of each spectacle a kind of event—this is the problem we have to solve.]

Introduction
André Breton may have been too cautious to practice his own notion of surrealist
theatre for fear of compromising its ludic nature and, thereby, its free and aleatory
character, particularly after he made several minor attempts when he was still
under the influence of Dada.1 After these attempts, he became convinced that
no stage director would ever accept any surrealist play; a conviction that allowed
him to pursue, unhindered by the issue of any potential staging, his quest for
absolute freedom when writing his theatrical pieces. His collaborator Philippe
Soupault is very explicit in this regard. In his letter to Tristan Tzara, of January 14,
1920, as Marguerite Bonnet informs us, he writes: “Écrire une pièce de théâtre
était une entreprise qui n’était qu’un défi. Nous savions qu’une pièce ‘surréaliste’
… ne serait jamais ‘reçue’ par aucun directeur de théâtre. Cette conviction nous
permettait d’écrire en toute liberté” (quoted in Breton, OC1 1174) [Writing a
theatrical piece was an undertaking, which was nothing but a challenge. We
knew that a “surrealist” play would never be “accepted” by any stage director.
Such a conviction allowed us to write in absolute freedom].
56 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

However, two ex-members of the surrealist movement—Roger Vitrac (1848–

1948) and the well-known Antonin Artaud (1899–1952), who was himself a
stage director—dared for the first time to give “flesh and bones” to Breton’s
latent ludic dramatic theory, two years before Nadja’s publication. In an attempt
to infuse the stage with “surreality,” ironically enough immediately after their
excommunication from the surrealist group by Breton, they founded the Théâtre
Alfred Jarry in Paris in November 1926 along with Robert Aron.2 Together
they announced a theatre that would break with the strict conventions of an
illusionistic theatrical tradition and would instead function as a game—but a
serious one. If the kind of theatre they envisioned was a game, Béhar remarks,
they wanted to play it out within their own being, as well as the spectator’s. They
hoped, Béhar adds, that a spectator would “give himself/herself to a veritable
operation in which not only his/her spirit but also his/her senses and flesh
participate in this game” (Un réprouvé 136). Vitrac and Artaud thus transformed
the Théâtre Alfred Jarry into a playground, where they played with and risked
their own inner lives and those of the spectators. Treating play as a serious thing
complies with the Surrealists’ desire to obliterate all antinomies. As they claim
rather characteristically in the program of the 1926–1927 season of the Théâtre
Alfred Jarry, “the spectator and we personally cannot take ourselves seriously if
we do not have a very clear impression that a part of our inner life is at stake in
this action that has as a frame the stage. Comic or tragic, our game will be one of
those games during which we laugh heartily” (Artaud, OC2 15).
Drawing on the revolutionary spirit of Alfred Jarry, the creator of Ubu-roi, after
whom their theatre was named, Vitrac and Artaud set out to enact the well-
assimilated notion of the surrealist dialogue (as defined in the previous chapter),
and to test its validity on stage in its quintessential theme of “mad love.” In 1927,
they staged Les Mystères de l’amour: drame surréaliste (The Mysteries of Love:
A Surrealist Drama), labeling their play quite overtly as surrealist. According to
Philip Auslander, this play represents the culmination of Vitrac’s experimentation
with surrealist drama, utterly justifying its subtitle (362). In it, “the author
combines tendencies shown in his short plays of 1922 into a drama that attempts
to unite life and theatre through the medium of dreams” (ibid.). Written by Vitrac
at approximately the same time as the Manifesto of Surrealism appeared (1924),
Les Mystères de l’amour was included in the first bill of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry
in 19273 under Artaud’s direction. Nanos Valaoritis,4 the “last Greek Surrealist”
and a member of Breton’s surrealist circle during the 1950s, resumed Artaud and
Vitrac’s experiment with Surrealism and the stage in his play L’Hôtel de la nuit qui
tombe (The Nightfall Hotel, 1957), premiered on April 27, 1959, in Paris.
The present chapter will demonstrate how Breton’s implicit ludic surrealist
dramatic theory was gradually put into practice over a span of 30 years, in the
form of staged “mad love.” We will look at how it took flesh for the first time in
the Théâtre Alfred Jarry and how it reached its peak in Valaoritis’s self-conscious
experimentation with the surrealist games, after he joined the surrealist group
in its last phase, before its “official” expiration in 1969.5 Vitrac’s The Mysteries
of Love and Valaoritis’s The Nightfall Hotel, quite apart from their thematic
similarity that culminates in the treatment of “mad love,” are examined here
jointly because of their shared modeling of Breton’s concept of the surrealist
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 57

dialogue-game. Through a comparative study of these two plays, I shall show

that surrealist ludics brings the subject of language into play even when applied
to the stage. I argue that surrealist theatre remains faithful to the basic tenet of
Surrealism: it functions entirely within the surrealist concept of language, which
seeks to change one’s perception of reality. Therefore, this theatre can indeed
exist and be fruitful despite Breton’s doubts and consequent reluctance to put
into practice his dramatic principles.
With a focus on the theme of “mad love” in these plays, we will revisit some
of Breton’s surrealist credo, as well as some seminal theoretical texts, heavily
influenced by Breton’s ideas, signed by both Vitrac and Artaud and published
during the period 1927–30. Among these, emphasis is given to the seminal text
“Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry et l’hostilité publique” (“The Alfred Jarry Theatre and
Public Hostility”), written in 1930 by Vitrac, after the staging of The Mysteries
of Love, but published, interestingly, under Artaud’s name.6 Finally, several
theoretical excerpts about Surrealism from Valaoritis’s books—Για μια θεωρία
της Γραφής (For a Theory of Writing) (1990) and Για μια θεωρία της Γραφής B
(For a Theory of Writing B) (2006)—are also examined here to illustrate better
the development of the reception of Breton’s ludic ideas.

The Mysteries of Love: A Surrealist Drama as a serious

playground
The Mysteries of Love: A Surrealist Drama premiered on June 1, 1927, at the
Théâtre de Grenelle under Artaud’s direction, with his beloved Génica Athanasiou
playing the female lead, Leah. Based on the first three of the play’s five tableaus,
this production revolved around the multitudinous games in which “mad love”
appeared, Surrealism’s hallmark theme. In it, Leah and Patrick experience love in
the way Breton conceived of it in his Manifesto of Surrealism (much earlier than
in either Nadja or Mad Love, his more exclusive treatises on love and insanity);
that is, they experience “an exceptional situation” to which normal man is no
longer equal and in which all games are permissible (4). The love felt by Patrick
and Leah is a perfect illustration of the Surrealists’ proclamation “amour fou,
amour unique” [mad love, unique love]. Maurice Nadeau explains:

fou in that it broke down all barriers within which society wanted to imprison it, in that it
takes all the licenses compatible with its nature; unique in that it makes the beloved, the
“other” into the epitomized and living world which it is henceforth permissible to possess,
in which it is henceforth possible to lose oneself (223).

Vitrac borrows “mad love” from Surrealism and presents it in a way that reflects
its disjointed complexity. To use Benjamin Crémieux’s words, “Mr. Vitrac put in all
the images that the word ‘love’ can connote, without linking them through any
plot at all” (quoted in Artaud, OC 52). No plot exists in the Aristotelian sense. The
whole plot, in fact, consists of one single tableau: the depiction of the tumultuous
relationship between Leah and Patrick through a series of smaller tableaus that
capture all possible aspects of this relationship. Annette Levitt summarizes the
58 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

plot as follows: “a young couple, Leah and Patrick, moves from courtship through
marriage, unhappiness, separation, and finally reconciliation” (250).
Vitrac then enriches and polishes the theme of surrealist love by incorporating
the element of the absurd that he found in Jarry’s Amour absolu, which expresses
Jarry’s belief in absolute love. “Jarry used to say: I believe in absolute love because
it is absurd, like believing in God” (Andreoli 374). This echoes Vitrac’s belief in
an absolute theatre in the sense of a theatre devoted to absolute freedom. In
a collection of press releases on Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry, dated from around
December 15, 1926, and paraphrased by Béhar, it was written:

Un groupe de jeunes écrivains réunis pour ressusciter l’idée d’un théâtre absolu va fonder,
sous le nom du Théâtre Alfred Jarry une companie théâtrale nouvelle. Leur effort vise à
créer un théâtre qui se développera dans le sens d’une entière liberté et qui n’aura d’autre
but que de satisfaire aux exigences les plus extrêmes de l’imagination et de l’esprit” (Un
Réprouvé 135).

[A group of young authors, united to revive the idea of an absolute theatre, will found
under the name of Théâtre Alfred Jarry a new theatrical company. Their effort aims at the
creation of a theatre that will develop in the sense of an entire freedom and which will not
have other aims but to satisfy the most extreme needs of the imagination and of the spirit.]

Vitrac admired Jarry’s Amour absolu, because it placed poetry in the foreground
in a unique way: “God, Family, Logic, Intelligence, Thought, Language intermingle,
dissolve, and reemerge in the form of startling constructions. Everything here is
set under doubt. Only poetry remains intact” (quoted in Andreoli 374). Vitrac
named such an absurdity of love “mysteries of love,” in his homonymous play
The Mysteries of Love, where he illustrates an interplay of shadows that is love:
“Surrealism perceived a duality of love in the way lovers can both adore and despise
the object of their passion” (Auslander 364). In this dual relationship of love and
hatred, “the mysterious feelings of love transcend all possible communication via
language” (Orenstein Feman 107). The ludic principle of transformation presides
and materializes “mad love.” Love “is not just courtship, marriage, and children,
but also the sometimes violent disruption of these patterns and the revelation of
deeper, often painful fears and desires which may lead to fuller understanding”
(Levitt 269). An understanding of this kind lies in the unrestricted release
of emotions, particularly as they are released by the transformational play/
acting concept in the minds of both characters and the audience. During such
transformational play/acting, the most contradictory feelings give way to each
other, accompanied by the most puzzling and contradictory transformations of
the characters on stage, ranging at times from the animate to the inanimate,
a typical device in Vitrac’s work. This transformational game was well shown,
for instance, in Génica Athanasiou’s acting, in which she was able to transform
herself multiple times “from a butcher to become at once docile, enchantress,
passionate esthete” (Artaud, Messages 67). A revue on the Théâtre Alfred Jarry,
observes:

Well, such a spectacle is the ideal theatre. This anxiety, this feeling of guilt, this victory, this
comfort at once describe the tone and the state of mind in which the spectator must leave
our theatre. He will be disturbed and terrified by the inner dynamism of the spectacle that
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 59

unfolds in front of his eyes. And this dynamism will be related to the anxieties and concerns
of his entire life (Artaud, OC2 13).

Exploding “in violent action and startling scenic effects,” the tension develops
in this play-spectacle, “in keeping with surrealist methods, by the juxtaposition
of startling images or stage effects against one another, rather than from the
interaction of the characters or ideas contained within the play” (Bennison
130–31). In The Mysteries of Love, surreality infuses the stage, in effect, through
the workings of the surrealist ludic techniques that engage the imagination of
both the actors and the audience. At the same time, these techniques expose
their own role in creating the fictive unity of the human subject. The “one
into another” surrealist game, in particular, that was detected in Nadja’s game
and was refined in the 1950s within Breton’s surrealist circle, seems to have a
significant role avant la lettre, in various avatars in The Mysteries of Love. This
technique is vividly demonstrated in the 12-minute animated film Dimensions
of Dialogue by the Czech surrealist Jan Švankmejer, included in the film Jan
Švankmejer, Alchemist of the Surreal (1990). Dimensions of Dialogue illustrates
Breton’s concept of dialogue in a captivating way, as two thoughts treat each
other as enemies. These two thoughts are illustrated by two mouths, composed
of all kinds of things, such as kitchen or bathroom materials. Each time one of
them devours the other it acquires a new form, only to be restored to its prior
form after throwing out the devoured things. In this way, one is quite literally in
and into another, and the game goes on endlessly—a game of jeopardy between
the two mouths that at the same time devour each other and renew each other
(both in terms of eating and of speaking, and thus, exposing each other’s fragile
fictive unity). If we imagine Patrick and Leah in The Mysteries of Love as two
Švankmejer-esque mouths, we can uncover the ever-elusive identities formed
from their linguistic exchanges, particularly through a version of “the one into
another” game, all of which can be summed up in a multifaceted love–hate
game with all its power-driven implications. Understanding Leah and Patrick’s
mad love as a new dimension of dialogue in Švankmejer’s terms puts their
love’s inherent concept of Breton’s dialogue-game at the foreground, and helps
the reader/viewer find coherence in this otherwise obscure and, at the time,
controversially received play.7 In the following pages, I highlight the way in which
the game “one into another” appears in The Mysteries of Love. Vitrac’s approach
to “mad love” reflects his understanding of the game in one of its earlier versions,
an understanding acquired during several years’ involvement in Breton’s circle.8
The Surrealists’ favorite ludic strategy of transformation permeates both
the script and the production of The Mysteries of Love in the pivotal role of
the lovers’ relationship. As Martin John Bennison explains, “innumerable
possibilities abound in the play for the juxtaposition of the central relationship to
persons, places, and events without regard to logic or course” (124). Almost all
relationships are interchangeable and can assume multiple roles at once, except
in the case of Leah, even though the traditional role of the character is minimized
here: “characters tend to be skeletal at best. Complex psychological portraits of a
specific nature do not occur in surrealist drama. Usually, motivations are totally
lacking in any of the characters’ actions” (Bennison 197–8). Similarly, places are
interchangeable. Thus, in this play one place can be at once a railway station,
60 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

a dining car, the seashore, a hotel room, a draper’s shop, or a public street.
Such successive transformation of the place echoes Arthur Rimbaud’s letter to
Paul Demeny of May 15, 1871, known as La lettre du voyant. There, Rimbaud
argues for a dérèglement de tous les sens [a disorientation of all senses],
explicitly embraced by Breton himself: “Car je est un autre. Si le cuivre s’éveille
clairon, il n’y a rien de sa faute” (OC 254) [For I is another. If the copper wakes
up as a trumpet, it is not at all its fault]. The unusual transformational scenic
requirements of surrealist drama, Bennison explains, “indicate an awareness, on
the part of the writers involved, of the possibilities for picturing on stage the
surrealist dimension of reality—the magical or super-real” (108).
Of course, one might wonder how much the theatre can sustain this endless
spatial transformation, as it stands on the limit of possible presentation. Antle
wonders, for example, if Vitrac’s sketches are in fact impossible to present.
She suggests that the use of film or video screen would be a solution, but for
Vitrac “film was never the equal for theater” (“Towards Re-Presentation” 24).
The novelty of Vitrac’s sketches, she concludes, “resides in the fact that they
are addressed to the reader as much as to the spectator, since they require
an imaginary stage” (ibid.). In other words, the scenic space in Vitrac’s work is
a virtual space in which virtual images unfold. It is an imaginary stage or off-
stage and “calls for a poetics of space, constantly questioning the concept of
traditional presentation,” while leading the way to modern theatre, as it is “the
meeting point of all arts: performance (theatre/dance) as well as non-figurative
painting” (ibid. 25). In the next section of this chapter, I focus on several forms
of “one into another” ludic surrealist techniques, including one artistic medium
into another artistic medium (for example, painting within a play, cinema within
a play, play within a play), dream into reality and its reverse, as well as character
into another character, or space into another space.

The “one into another” game-dialogue: From one

artistic medium into another
The short prologue of The Mysteries of Love, which has not received much
attention to date, introduces the spectator to the surrealist principles that guide
the play. The most obvious and immediate example is its version of the “one
into another” ludic technique, implemented here through the incorporation of
a painting into the play—one artistic medium into another. The play opens onto
a striking portrait of a woman, hung on the wall of a house in a public square
that forms the stage’s background. This portrait—with a full-lipped, smiling or
smirking lip-stick-darkened mouth; black, lash-like, mascara-heavy markings;
and a fiery, single eye, rising vertically from the forehead, bizarrely staring out
alongside the woman’s hair—brings the audience face to face with the “eternal
feminine,” with all the sensuality and terror this evokes. This mixture of feelings
is further emphasized by the disproportionate hair of the woman in the portrait,
composed of 10 sinuous lines in all shades of black; framed by two strong, thick
black lines, one of which seems to be the brow to her “third” eye; and finally,
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 61

with the vertical eye balanced on the other side by something that resembles
the blade of a large knife, or a pen, or even a finger nail—the open top of which
is marked by a finger-print-like constellation of fine dots. Anyone familiar with
surrealist paintings immediately understands that this portrait, with its startling
dis-placement of elements, belongs to their group. The most startling image, both
in its arbitrariness and in its aggressive overtones, is the knife, which becomes a
recurring image in the play. The surrealist artist’s technique of the picture does
double duty by also embodying the surrealist game “one into another.” But this
version of the game—this one artistic medium into another—does not stop with
the portrait, but interlocks further with the stage and the action of the prologue.
The action of the play opens with Patrick on his knees, drawing lines in the
mud. Soon a policeman enters and asks him in an authoritative voice what
he is doing. Patrick calmly responds: “Vous le voyez, monsieur, je termine sa
chevelure. Il sort en traçant une ligne sinuesque. Le rideau tombe lentement”
(13) [As you see, Sir, I’m finishing off her hair. He leaves, tracing a sinuous line.
The curtain slowly falls (Gladstone 229)].9 At first glance, such a response seems
nonsensical, but in the context of the portrait on the wall, Patrick’s line of
thought is easy to follow. He simply continues woman’s hair.10 But what does his
gesture mean? Perhaps Patrick is consoling himself in some way, as Nadja did in
playing her word-game. Or perhaps, by playing a similar game to Nadja’s in which
fantasy and reality are blurred, Patrick is bringing a lifeless female creature to
life. Through this gesture of Patrick’s, Vitrac illustrates in the most natural way
the basic surrealist principle of the unity of the opposites. Placing Patrick at the
opening of the play, drawing strokes of hair in the mud, immediately establishes
his refusal to distinguish life from art or dream from reality. Like another
Pygmalion, who carved his ideal woman, Galatea, from a piece of ivory that was
then brought to life, Patrick attempts to bring to life his own ideal woman. At
the same time, his response to the policeman, who represents here the rule
of reason, indicates his determination to ignore any kind of censorship. Also,
by transforming the mud that is represented reality into art, he shows his will
to transform an ugly reality into something marvelous, part of his endeavor to
give life to this woman (who hangs lifeless on the wall of the public square). As
Breton himself defines it, “the marvelous is the element of surprise with which
man greets each of his discoveries of new facets of reality” (quoted in Balakian,
“André Breton as Philosopher” 40). It is as if Patrick wanted to withdraw her from
the public place where she hangs as a decorative object of art, and make her part
of his own life.11 Or, he expresses his desire to possess this woman so as to give
vitality to his own life. Love, as the absolute means of redemption and truth,
is something that Breton will also stress in his Second Manifesto of Surrealism
(180). For him, woman—particularly the child-woman—is the key to the beyond.
As Simone de Beauvoir states:

[t]here is in Breton the same esoteric naturalism as was in the Gnostics who saw in Sophia
the principle of Redemption and even of the creation, as was in Dante choosing Beatrice for
his guide and in Petrarch enkindled by the love of Laura. And that is why the being who is
most firmly anchored in nature, who is closest to the ground, is also the key to the beyond.
Truth, Beauty, Poetry—she is All: once more all under the form of the Other, All except
herself (237).
62 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Patrick, then, becomes the mythical creator who attempts to give life to his first
creature from the clay, and thereby gain his own redemption. In one gesture,
Vitrac introduces his audience to both a real and mythical world, where reality,
dreamland, fantasy, and imagination coexist just as they do in surrealist poetry
and painting.
As soon as Leah is introduced in the following scene, this initial painting (on the
wall and in the dirt) makes more and more sense. Thus, a surrealist aura infuses the
stage through the unified female portrait(s) and prepares the audience for a highly
emotional effect. In essence, with the incorporation of painting in his theatre,
Vitrac embraces the surrealist tenet of the prevalence of image, even on stage,
and his intent to produce a theatre of creation, in which man’s innermost desires
are visually externalized. This “surrealist beam” (in Béhar’s words; also “a denial of
realism” or “a poetic dimension”) forms one of surrealist theatre’s main features,
along with “the extraordinary place it gives to man and his problems” (quoted in
Baranska 35). Both of these elements are present in The Mysteries of Love from
its very beginning. The importance of the visual component introduced by the
painting soon becomes more dramatically expressive. More precisely, a chaotic
mise-en-scène will triumph, where a surrealist dialogue evoking violent images
will assault the audience’s sensibility. In this mise-en-scène, visual and auditory
elements, along with dream and its mechanisms, take priority to create a kind of
magical theatre, such as Vitrac envisioned in his 1921 article “The Alchemist,” in
which he calls for a sacred and ritual character of scenic (re)presentation.
Such is the case, for instance, in the following tableau from the first act,
where a play within a play takes place between an old man with a long, dirty
beard trailing on the ground and his son, a young man. The latter seems to be
a magician, as he pulls a bird out of his pocket, while predicting his own death:

LE JEUNE HOMME (tirant un oiseau de sa poche). Papa, tu as devant toi celui qui va mourir” (23).

[THE YOUNG MAN (pulling a bird out of his pocket). Dad, you have before you one who is
about to die (238).]

This scene is the product of automatic writing that brings to the stage an echo
of Jesus’ talk with his Father before his crucifixion. This “brief symbolist drama,
in which the characters are less people than abstractions representing the stages
of man’s life” (Levitt 262) is a foreshadowing of what will soon happen between
Patrick and his newborn son, who will die because his father deliberately lets him
fall down. Such a controversial act is not the only one in The Mysteries of Love.
Rather, it is a typical feature of the play. The disjunction of diction and action in the
play’s dialogue constitutes the most blatant evidence of Breton’s new concept of
dialogue as one in which the interlocutors treat each other as enemies.

Applying Breton’s dialogue-game: Action against diction

The audience is constantly caught by surprise during The Mysteries of Love. In
fact, the play is a tour-de-force of surprise due to “the uninhibited use of space
and the auditorium” (Bennison 122). The first act, for example, does not take
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 63

place on stage but in a lodge in front of the stage in the audience, generating
confusion vis-à-vis its traditional role, one might even say threatening it. But
more than that, the incompatibility of words and gestures that the characters
demonstrate throughout the play surprises the audience to such a degree that
its members are actively involved and give voice to their feelings of frustration
and protest:

UNE VOIX (dans la salle). Mais, pourquoi? Juste ciel! Pourquoi? Êtes-vous malades? (18).

[A VOICE (in the audience). But why? Merciful heavens! Why? Are you both ill? (233).]

This is the scripted reaction of a member of the internal audience to Leah’s

opening vow to the audience:

LÉA (à la salle). J’aime Patrice. Ah! J’aime ses tripes. Ah! j’aime ce pitre. Ah! j’aime ce pitre.
Sous toutes ses faces, sur toutes ses coutures, sous toutes ses formes. Regarde-les, Patrice.
Écoute-les. Ah! ah! ah! … (Elle rit aux éclats.) (18).

[LEAH (to the audience). I love Patrick. Oh! I love his guts. Oh! I love the clown. Oh, I love
the clown. From every viewpoint, from every seam, from every form. Look at them, Patrick.
Listen to them. Oh! Oh! Oh! … (She bursts into laughter.) (233).]

This confession, culminating in Leah’s laughter, puzzles the audience. In fact,

Leah’s laughter echoes ideas by Vitrac and Artaud about the primacy of laughter
on stage. Interestingly, the flyer “Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry and Public Hostility”
(1930) sets extreme laughter as its final goal: “Basically, we propose as theme:
current events in all directions; as medium: humor in all its forms; and as our
goal: extreme laughter, laughter that goes from conspicuous immobility to
bursting into tears” (Béhar, Théâtre ouvert 191). Perhaps Leah’s laughter would
not have surprised the audience, if they had not witnessed another surprising
disjunction earlier, when Patrick slapped Leah in the face at the very moment he
offered her a bouquet of flowers:

LÉA. Patrice! Que faites-vous?

PATRICE (toujours agenouillé). Mais rien, Léa, rien. Vous le voyez; je me promène. Ah! mais
à la fin, voulez-vous avouer?
LÉA. Non.
PATRICE. Acceptez ces quelques fleurs. (Il la gifle.) (14).

[LEAH. Patrick! What are you doing?

PATRICK (still kneeling). Why, nothing, Leah, nothing. You can see: I’m out for a walk. Ah!
But will you confess now?
LEAH. No.
PATRICK. Then do accept these few flowers. (He slaps her.) (230).]

Far from any logic, it is the physical language that is more telling here than the
verbal, which seems inadequate to express the characters’ inner feelings. The
characters’ gestures contradict their verbal language or, rather, their actions
treat their words as an enemy as they act out the opposite of what their
verbal language indicates. In other words, physical language reacts against the
64 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

communicative value of verbal language and transforms it purely into a bearer of

emotion, devoid of meaning yet full of feeling. This is one of many examples in this
play that clearly demonstrate how “surrealist aspirations impose the inversion
of established modes of communication through language” (Matthews, Theatre
279). The inversion of theatrical tradition in this particular episode is coupled
with the inversion of the traditional courtesy code. Like a new Romeo, Patrick
kneels in front of Leah, not to confess his love to her as one would expect but,
on the contrary, to extract with force her confession of love. Seen in this light,
the slap Patrick gives Leah is not so paradoxical. It is less paradoxical still, if one
considers that he acts like a clown in front of an audience; his duty is to make
the audience burst into laughter. Or perhaps, this act simply confirms Patrick and
Leah’s mad love for one another, a love that masochistically flatters her instead
of making her feel abused by him.
A similar incompatibility between words and actions is shown in the
relationship between Leah and her ex-lover, Dovic, Patrick’s double. Leah
continues to be mistreated, this time by Dovic, who claims that he still loves her:

DOVIC. Ah! non. Pas de scandale ici, n’est-ce pas? Je proteste Léa. (Il la gifle.) Je t’ai toujours
aimée. (Il la pince.) Je t’aime encore. (Il la mord.) Il faut me rendre cette justice. (Il lui tiraille
ses oreilles.) Avais-je des sueurs froides? (Il lui crache au visage.) Je te caressais les seins
et les joues. (Il lui donne des coups de pied.) Il n’y en avait que pour toi. (Il fait mine de
l’étrangler.) Tu es partie. (Il la secoue violemment.) T’en ai-je voulu? (Il lui donne des coups
de poing.) Je suis bon. (Il la jette à terre.) Je t’ai déjà pardonné. (Il la traîne par les cheveux
autour de la loge. Patrice se lève.) (21).

[DOVIC. Oh, no! No scandal here, right? I protest, Leah. (Slapping her.) I’ve always loved you.
(Pinching her.) I still love you. (Biting her.) Give me credit for that? (Pulling her ears.) Did I
have cold sweats? (Spitting in her face.) I caressed your breasts and your cheeks. (Kicking
her.) Everything I had was yours. (Making as though to strangle her.) You left me. (Shaking
her violently.) Did I hold it against you? (Striking her with his fist.) I am good-natured.
(Throwing her on the ground.) I have already forgiven you. (He drags her around the box by
the hair. Patrick rises.) (236).]

This word/action incompatibility reaches its peak in this sadomasochist episode,

when Leah subsequently presents Dovic to Patrick as “a real gentleman” (236).
When the latter asks the former what interests him in life, Dovic replies that
love in the form of Leah interests him, incarnating the Surrealist’s fusion of an
abstract idea with a concrete image: Leah is Love, a love that is threatening, not
only to Leah, but also to the audience. This assault on the audience is for Vitrac
and Artaud one of the explicit goals of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry:

The spectator who comes to us knows that he/she will agree to undergo a true operation,
where not only his spirit, but also his/her flesh will be endangered. From now on he/she
will go to the theatre as he/she is going to the surgeon or the dentist. In the same state of
mind with the thought that obviously he/she will not come out intact from there (Artaud,
OC2 14).

This sense of personal physical threat culminates in the following scene from
the first tableau, reminiscent of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu-roi. In this tableau, the house
lights go off and the box alone is half-lit; Patrick behaves in a totalitarian way, as
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 65

if he were another King Ubu performing his provocative “trap scene,” only in this
instance with Leah’s consent, which stands in sharp contrast to Mother Ubu’s
objections to her husband’s acts of massacre. I refer to the following scene from
Ubu-roi, in which Père Ubu throws all the nobles in a pit:

NOBLE. Count of Vitepsk.

PÈRE UBU. What’s your income?
NOBLE. Three million six-dollars.
PÈRE UBU. Condemned! (He grabs him with the hook and passes him to the pit.) What
beastly savagery! Second Noble, who are you? Are you going to answer, buffoon?
NOBLE. Grand Duke of Posen.
PÈRE UBU. Excellent! Excellent! That’s all I want to know. Down the trap door. Third Noble,
who are you? You’ve got an ugly mug.
NOBLE. Duke of Cousland, of the towns of Riga of Revel, and of Mitau.
PÈRE UBU. Good! Fine! Is that all?
NOBLE. That’s all!
PÈRE UBU. Down the trap door, then! (64–5).

The scene from The Mysteries of Love that echoes the above trap scene is the
following:

PATRICE. Tais-toi. Et maintenant, monsieur le Préfet, enchaînez-moi tout ce joli monde.

UNE VOIX (dans la salle). Monsieur Patrice, vous êtes un criminel (19).

[PATRICK. Shut up. And now, Commissioner, please chain all these fine people up for me
A VOICE (in the audience). Mr. Patrick, you are a criminal. (234–5).]

In an absurd way, Patrick immediately denies the accusation of being a criminal by

shouting that he loves Leah, as if this declaration alone could render groundless
all kinds of accusations. Then he accuses the audience member by stating:

PATRICE. Moi, monsieur? Non, monsieur. Êtes-vous sourd? J’aime Léa. Il fallait crier que
vous aimiez Julie, Marie, Thérèse, Michelle ou Esther et Léa serait dans le tas (19).

[PATRICK. I, Sir? No, Sir. Are you deaf? I love Leah. You should have shouted out that you
love Julie, Marie, Theresa, Michelle, or Ester, and Leah would naturally have been among
them (235).]

Patrick then addresses Leah and tells her that a lot of people are signaling
to them. They return friendly gestures to the audience while the house
lights come on. The lights go off again for violence to occur (a stage device
reminiscent of French neo-classical tragedy) and Leah shoots a spectator,
confirming the danger that comes with this new kind of theatre—a theatre
that is inseparable from real life and where all barriers have been taken down,
the traditional barrier between stage and audience, as well as that between
reality and dream. Indeed, dream and reality in this play are inseparable,
appearing in a constant interplay; for theatre in Vitrac’s view is “the meeting
point of all artistic media of expression,” as “a true alchemy of dream and
reality” (Antle, Théâtre 87).
66 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

“Dream into reality,” “reality into dream”: “One into

another” again
The Mysteries of Love unfolds in a series of five tableaus divided into three
acts, defined by a transformational, dream-like quality, which betrays affinities
with cinema. Annette Levitt makes a distinction between “reality” and “dream”
scenes; according to her, “the opening scenes of each of its three acts develop
the prosaic plot” (250). The “reality” scenes, she continues, “are offered with
minimal set directions, while the dream scenes appear in the context of extremely
detailed and realistic, believable settings” (251). The interplay between “reality”
and “dream” scenes unfolds at a frenetic pace, more appropriate to the cinema.
The game-like, frenetic rhythm of cinematic images is particularly appealing
to Vitrac, who vividly describes the cinematic image in an article on surrealist
cinema:

The image enters the movement. It neighs, it becomes impatient. It embarks on agitated
tours throughout the world. Everything becomes a gallop, disheveled pursuit, frenzy. The
engine starts moving rapidly. The mystery is automatic. It is a game (quoted in Antle,
Théâtre 76; my emphasis).

In the dizzying, cinematic game of The Mysteries of Love, Vitrac expressly

emphasizes the role of dreams. After its performance he describes it as “an
ironical work which renders concrete on stage the disquiet, double solitude,
dissembled criminal thoughts and eroticism of lovers. For the first time, a real
dream was realized on stage” (Artaud, OC2 38). Also, in the preface of his
completed works, he offers the following comment on the mysteries of love that
the young couple, 22-year-old Patrick and 18-year-old Leah, experience: “‘To live
as dreaming.’ ‘To dream as living’” (9).12
Once again, the mingling of dream and reality in this play that deals with
love and its unconscious ramifications “blurs the barriers between reality and
dream, extending to the ones between the auditorium and the stage. These
barriers have fallen apart, and there lies its difficulty and attractiveness at once
for the spectator” (Auslander 364). To borrow Matthews’ words, Vitrac “has
given up establishing boundaries between the true and the false, the fanciful
and the factual because, apparently, such boundaries no longer have any validity
in his estimation” (quoted in Cardullo and Knopf 331). While many reviewers
were critical of this fluidity of boundaries, some critics, nevertheless, saw
originality in this technique and claimed that Artaud and Vitrac had quite simply
found their “new language.” Fortunat Strowski, for example, finds “freshness,
authenticity, diversity and sometimes an original profundity” in the Théâtre
Alfred Jarry (quoted in Artaud, OC 54). Part of this originality, however, is that
the spectator has to come to terms with the unprecedented violence of this play,
as it “seeks to depict the sadomasochism of love, the violence inherent in the
human subconscious” by “condensing the ambiguous experience of love into a
short narrative” (Auslander 366). Indeed, as Stamos Metzidakis argues, bizarrely
violent images are a common feature of many modern literary quests for
originality (Difference Unbound 128). Below are some scenes from each tableau
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 67

characteristic of the strange interplay between often harsh or brutal reality and
dream.
The first tableau opens with Patrick and Leah arguing in the presence of Leah’s
mother, Mme Morin. Patrick is shouting at Leah: “Au nom du ciel! avouez, Léa”
(14) [In the name of God, confess, Leah]. The two of them look like children
playing a love scene in front of Mme Morin. Patrick in particular behaves in a
childish way, provoking Leah’s mother with insulting questions and comments,
which she calmly disregards:

PATRICE (même jeu). C’est vous, le bœuf?

MME MORIN. Et toi, l’aimes-tu?
LÉA. Comme de juste.
PATRICE (même jeu). Mouchez le homard votre père. Fillette!
MME MORIN. Il grandira peut-être, ma chérie (13).

[PATRICK (still shouting). Are you the ox?

MRS MORIN. And you, do you love him?
LEAH. Why, naturally.
PATRICK (still shouting). Go blow that lobster your father’s nose, Girlie!
MRS. MORIN. Perhaps he will grow up, dear (231).]

Patrick’s insistence on continuing his own game, in spite of Mme Morin’s refusal
to be drawn in, indicates his stubborn and rebellious nature. Leah then anxiously
asks him about her face, to which he cynically replies:

PATRICE. Allons bon! Tu me rappelles un coup de couteau. Une blessure (20).

[PATRICK. Come now! You remind me of a slashing knife. A wound (235).]

This response is pivotal, shedding further light on the relationship between Leah
and the portrait of a woman that Patrick tried to modify at the start of the play.
Leah’s ambiguously perceived, virtual facial wound is identical to that of the
painting. It is the first sinister hint of what is to come, the unfolding throughout
the play of a nightmare both virtual and real. This interplay between reality and
dream, conscious and subconscious is conveyed through the concrete stage
device of an on-off light effect and the curtain’s repeated rise and fall. Patrick’s
indifference to Leah’s past, despite her insistence that he ask her about it, only
serves to increase Leah’s inner wounds:

LÉA. Dis? Tu ne me demanderas rien de ma vie, mon Patrice?

PATRICE. Non (23).

[LEAH. Tell me: You won’t ask me anything about my past life, Patrick?
PATRICK. No (238).]

Patrick simply replies “No.” At this moment a woman in a nightgown enters,

whose presence torments Leah, who believes the woman is having an affair
with Patrick. When she asks him who she is, ironically Patrick replies that she
is the Virgin. This scene is obviously not part of reality, but rather one of the
scenes that Leah’s mind creates. The first tableau ends with the theatre manager
68 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

appearing and informing the audience that the play is over and that its author,
Théophile Mouchet, has just killed himself. The author then appears on stage,
according to the following stage directions:

Le rideau se relève. L’auteur apparaît. Il est en bras de chemise. Son visage et ses vêtements
sont couverts de sang. Il rit. Il rit aux éclats. Il rit de toutes ses forces en se tenant les côtes.
Les deux rideaux tombent brusquement (24).

[The curtain rises again. The Author appears. He is in his shirt-sleeves. His face and clothing
are covered with blood. He laughs. He laughs heartily. He laughs with all his might holding
his sides. Both curtains suddenly fall (239).]

This episode that suggests great violence remains a mystery as it throws the
internal and external audience into great confusion. Who is this author? Is he the
author of the drama enacted by Leah and Patrick? The author of the play within
the play, that took place between the Old Man and the Young Man? Or, is he the
author of his own drama, his attempted suicide? And then, in what state does
he appear? Is his auto-sarcastic laughter the result of an unsuccessful suicide
attempt? Is he in a ghost, or simply another actor who tests the audience’s
tolerance for violence and for the inexplicable shifting of realms with his hideous
appearance on stage? All these questions blur the boundaries between reality
and illusion, while the laughing, blood-covered author creates a shock effect in
the audience, similar to the laughter of Ionesco’s Tueur sans gages and Jean
Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos. We can see a meta-theatrical element inserted here at
random by Vitrac to test the audience’s limits, by introducing a “twilight zone
where horror and laughter commingle … and where the dead and the living
converse” (Cardullo and Knopf 330).
The second tableau continues in the same kind of twilight zone, but the dead
and the living coexist in an increasingly intense rhythm. The stage is divided into
three sets, all visible at the same time. Bert Cardullo offers a concise summary
of the scene:

On the Quai des Grands-Augustins in Paris, Patrick is seen as a lieutenant of Dragoons. Leah
is carrying a doll. She says it is his child, but Patrick drops the baby in the Seine anyway. In
his bedroom Lloyd George (played by Dovic, he looks like a certain British prime minister)
lifts the sheets on a bed, showing Leah, who recognizes it with horror, the head of a little
girl resting on the pillow. When he pulls the sheets right back to uncover the child, “It is
naturally only a bust of flesh sawn off at the shoulder level.” In the presence of Leah and
Patrick, Lloyd George proceeds to demonstrate his skill by sawing off the head of a young
boy he has carried in under his arm (330).

Lloyd George, played by Dovic, is a new character. He makes his appearance

advising Leah on how to make the necessary arrangements to conceal that a
crime has taken place, while her father continues telling this story: “However,
that evening the sea was rough. Sardines were being taken by the netful. But the
night, the thunder, the lighting, and especially, the Negroes in the boiler room,
not to mention the leopard …” (242). This story uses typical surrealist poetic
imagery, the product of automatic writing—in this case, that of a thunderous
night—full of revelations and intimations, such as Breton imagined in his image
of “la nuit des éclairs.”13 The reference to a leopard is striking here, alluding as
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 69

it does to Dante’s Inferno; a reference made all the more convincing by being
uttered by the dead Mr Morin. In The Inferno, the leopard appears at the very
beginning of Dante’s journey through the wilderness. It constitutes the first of
his numerous dreadful encounters. Here, this key reference prepares the next
scene, in which the subconscious, insanity, and a released dream all intermingle
in Leah’s mind immediately after Mr Morin’s interlude. Lloyd George agrees that
Leah is mad, for she walks with her mother toward the bed, where “two arms are
being raised which resemble two dead branches, but whereon are flowering two
enormous, very white hands” (243). In spite of her mother’s warning (“Ah! My
child! Don’t go near. She has leprosy”), “Léa kneels by the bed, recognizes the
victim’s resemblance to herself, and concludes, ‘You really must agree that one
doesn’t die of love’” (Matthews, Theatre 123). The scene is easily understood
as a nightmare of Leah’s, as Matthews explains, since “she has the last word,
and we see her lying in bed as the next tableau opens the second act” (ibid.
123). In her nightmare, Leah’s beloved ones are all present: to judge her (like the
Lloyd George Dovic), to protect her (like her mother), to draw her attention (like
her dead father), and in each case, to draw her away from her doomed love for
Patrick. When she sees a figure like herself lying in the bed and being distorted
by leprosy (a mirror image of herself? her child with Patrick? Patrick himself?),
she faces reality and accepts it as a sacrifice for love’s sake. After all, no one dies
of love, she concludes, keeping in her mind the image of the two dead branches
in blossom.
Leah’s unconditional love for Patrick is shown again in the third tableau, which
opens the second act. It takes place in a hotel room, showing Leah stretched
out on the bed next to Patrick. After a coded conversation that shows Patrick’s
visions, Leah asks him to kiss her hands. When he does so, he is burned by smoke
rising from her hands. Leah then goes toward the washstand and plunges her
hands into the water. This surrealist scene, so vividly and concretely illustrating
Leah’s burning passion for Patrick, reminds us of Vitrac’s idea of the “théâtre
de l’incendie” (“incendiary theatre”), as the author wished to call the plays he
wrote during the period of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry, including The Mysteries
of Love.14 Leah’s passion for Patrick stumbles, however, due to his stubborn,
visionary character. Leah falls into despair:

PATRICE. À l’avenir occupe-toi donc de tes yeux et laisse les miens tranquilles.
Léa pleure
PATRICE. Ce n’est pas une raison pour pleurer.
LÉA. Le monde m’ennuie.
PATRICE. Où est-il, le monde?
LÉA. Je suis là, mon Patrice, je suis là.
PATRICE. Pardon, Léa. Le monde s’il te plaît.
Léa s’allonge sur le lit.
LÉA. Viens, Patrice. (31–2)

[PATRICK. So in the future take care of your eyes, and leave mine alone.
Leah weeps.
PATRICK. That’s no reason to cry.
LEAH. The world bores me.
PATRICK. Where is this world?
70 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

LEAH. Here I am, Patrick; here I am.

PATRICK. Pardon Leah. The world, if you please.
Leah stretches out on the bed.
LEAH. Come, Patrick (245).]

Patrick remains indifferent to Leah’s invitation. Both characters are self-

absorbed, making it impossible for them to understand each other. It is as if they
are engaged in an antagonistic game, as was exactly the case between Breton
and Nadja. Likewise, the audience cannot grasp the above dialogue according to
any rational standards. If we read it as a surrealist dialogue, however, in which
one thought treats the other as enemy, upsetting the interlocutors’ innermost
emotions, their exchange becomes meaningful: when Leah associates the world
with herself and provokes Patrick’s reaction, we now have a harbinger of her
mental and emotional deterioration. More than that, Leah’s desperate desire to
reach Patrick creates tension. When she says that the world bores her, she means
it, since Patrick is still reluctant to be connected with her. And when she tells him
“here I am,” her thought has already jumped to another one: that she herself is
the world. This equation (cosmos=Leah) seems an exaggeration to Patrick, but
not to Leah, of course. Leah’s feelings and desires transcend language, or rather
transform language into a state of feelings. Leah expresses her unhappiness
again after a dark episode with a butcher, who arrives to collect a parcel tied
with string and then complains that the parcel is too little. Patrick questions Leah
about him in these terms:

PATRICE. Toi, c’est la bouche qui t’éclaire. Elle est comme une carrière de sang.
LÉA. Et allez donc! La poésie.
PATRICE (la giflant). Attrape!
LÉA. Je ne suis pas heureuse avec toi.
PATRICE (la giflant). Et cette fois?
LÉA. Je suis malheureuse!
PATRICE (la traînant par les cheveux). Je serais curieux de savoir si je serai toute ma vie une
pendule. Ou plutôt le pendule d’une pendule, ou mieux le pendu d’une pendule.
LÉA. Grâce, Patrice, grâce! Je ne recommencerai plus, je serai toujours heureuse (34–5).

[PATRICK. You, it’s the mouth that lights your way. It’s like a quarry of blood.
LEAH. What nonsense! What about poetry?
PATRICK (slaps her). Take that!
LEAH. I’m not happy with you.
PATRICK (slaps her again). And now?
LEAH. I’m unhappy.
PATRICK (dragging her around by the hair). I’d be interested to know if I’ll be a clock all my
life. Or rather a clock’s pendulum, or even a pendant from a clock.
LEAH. Have mercy, Patrick; have mercy! I won’t start up again. I’ll always be happy (248).]

Patrick’s violence toward Leah extends now to himself. He expresses the idea
of committing suicide, something that forces Leah to lie again and insist that
she is happy with him, although he is completely cut out from Leah’s world,
abandoned to his own imagination:
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 71

LÉA. Tu te fais des idées.

PATRICE. Je ne fais plus rien. Je suis la machine à tourner dans le vide. Il y a le cerveau,
dis-tu? Il est empoisonné par le travail. Il est à l’état tétanique. Gentil animal celui-là. Hier
encore, je pouvais manger. Aujourd’hui c’est bien fini, Léa. Le cerveau est dans le ventre. …
Ma pauvre cervelle, cette pâte divine, se plie à toutes les besognes (32).

[LEAH. You’re imagining things.

PATRICK. I’m not doing anything any more. I am the machine that is to turn in a vacuum.
That’s the brain, you say? It’s poisoned by work. It’s at the stage of tetanus. A nice animal
that one. Only yesterday I could still eat. Today, Leah, it’s all over. My brain is in the belly …
My poor brain, that divine dough, bends under any yoke (246).]

Patrick’s unpredictable behavior, coupled with his defying of reason, continues

when he strikes down both Mme Morin and Dovic, whom he had summoned,
while Leah was giving birth to a boy offstage. Meanwhile, a conversation takes
place between him and the author:

AUTEUR. Écoutez, mon garçon, votre cas ne m’intéresse guère. Il n’intéresse guère le public
non plus.
PATRICE. Croyez-vous? (38)

[THE AUTHOR. Listen, my boy, your case doesn’t interest me very much. It doesn’t interest
the public very much, either.
PATRICK. You don’t think so? (251)]

This strange interference by the author at this point, who seems, moreover, no
longer to be the Théophile Mouchet of the earlier tableau, could simply be an
allusion to Vitrac himself; like Breton, who had expressed concern about the
reception of his playlet S’il vous plaît, Vitrac was also anxious that his creation
would not meet the public’s expectations. The third tableau finally closes with
the death of Leah and Patrick’s son, after Patrick attempted to set the child on
a pedestal over the fireplace, from which he could (and did) easily fall. When
an officer shows up once again to examine the case, Leah simply tells him that
her son fell and caught scarlet fever. Leah deliberately lies again, holding all her
sadness within herself to save Patrick. But Patrick had deliberately killed his son,
who, he admitted, “infinitely disturbed him” (249). Thus, by end of this tableau,
Patrick has committed infanticide (in killing his child); matricide (in killing his
mother-in-law); and fratricide (when he kills his double, Dovic, whom Mme
Morin called also called son-in-law). It is as if Vitrac, by including here in one
scene all the crimes that inflamed Greek tragedy, wanted to parody the kind
of drama upon which the entire Western dramatic tradition was founded, thus
aligning himself once more with Breton, in this instance with his overall attitude
toward the Greek legacy.15 Parody, that both criticizes and generates laughter, is
indeed an intrinsic part of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry.
It was at this point—with Patrick having committed a triple murder—that
the staged play ended. The following tableau, according to Matthews, lacks
the inventiveness of the previous ones and, not surprisingly in his opinion, was
omitted in performance in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry. Nevertheless, I consider
the unperformed scenes from the play to be vital to our understanding of this
surrealist drama. Matthews offers the following summary:
72 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

the fourth tableau shows us Patrick as Mussolini and Madame Morin as a stranger in
mourning. Madame Morin disappears as soon as she has entrusted her two dogs and child
to someone she does not know—Leah, who finds the little boy looks like “the one I have at
home, like my Patrice.” Unable to get rid of the child she gives us a chance to observe that,
as she remarks, “A love is always a big nuisance” (Theatre 125).

In contrast to Matthews, I believe this tableau is key to the drama and that its
omission from the staged play could lie not in any inherent defect, but in practical
considerations, whether financial restrictions, time restrictions, or problems
with the physical staging of the play. For here, more than anywhere else, we
see Leah’s gradual slipping into madness. We see her desire for motherhood.
She is fond of the child she is given and takes good care of him, as if she has
found a substitute for her dead child. She buys a pair of blue booties for the
boy, although they do not fit him. Mussolini, her interlocutor, remarks: “Well!
It’s obvious you’ve never had a child before. You’re running like a madwoman,
running as though you were alone, and you’re dragging the brat on the floor”
(256). The bizarre choice of Mussolini as a character here adds the weight of his
extreme authority to his judgment about Leah. After he makes his statement,
Leah runs around the stage like a true madwoman, holding the child in her hand
while stating:

LÉA. Oh! C’est vrai. Maintenant il court aussi vite que moi, il court aussi vite que moi, il court
aussi vite que moi.
Elle s’arrête et prend l’enfant dans ses bras.
LEA. Mon petit, mon petit, maintenant nous ne nous quitterons plus. Tu n’auras plus de
perruque. Et pour qu’on ne te reconnaisse pas, je te teindrai les cheveux en noir (45).

[LEAH. Oh! It’s true! Now he runs as fast as I, he runs as fast as I, he runs as fast as I. (She
stops and takes the child into her arms.) My little one, my little one, now we will never part
again. You will have no more wigs. And so that you may pass unrecognized I will dye your
hair black) (256).]

No more wigs for her and no more disguise; only madness and death. Leah exits,
followed by the dogs, while Mussolini holds his head in his hands, confirming his
belief in her madness.
The fifth tableau, which introduces the third and final act of the written
play, seals Leah’s madness as a fact that leads her to another reality, where
communication with Patrick is finally, miraculously achieved on the plane of
surreality, and where words regain their magical power. In this tableau, Leah
goes down in a hotel elevator and stands between two policemen, her hands
bloody, and her white dress in shreds. We learn, Matthews summarizes, that she
has broken the mirror-wardrobe, demolished the dressing table, set fire to the
drapes of her room, and strangled the goldfish. She has done all this, it appears,
because Patrick did not keep a few impossible promises, such as taking her to the
North Pole and giving her stars of his own fabrication. “In the vestibule Léa shows
strange faculties, giving testimony to the magic power of words. She announces
that a door will open of its own accord; it does so” (Matthews, Theatre 125–6).
Then, she intones the word “Patrick” like an incantation and Patrick appears in
front of her, justifying what Artaud believed of Vitrac—that he granted words
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 73

unprecedented freedom of action.16 Leah and Patrick then kiss each other and
thunder sounds, as if to acknowledge their bond, and the two of them finally
agree that “today is Corpus Christi day” (260), a moment of ultimate salvation
for both. At this point, three children enter and have a strange conversation with
them. But more strange than their conversation is their disparate identities: one
of them is the son of the bakery’s horse, another is the offspring of his mother’s
sewing machine, and the third is the father of a colonel of Zouaves, but he will
always be the son of love, Patrick’s son. When one of the children shoots the
other two, Leah and Patrick express their exasperation with them all, and Patrick
tells Leah a story about the harvesting of factory smokestacks. The author then
enters and asks Patrick if he needs him. Although the latter replies negatively, the
author hands him a revolver, assuring him that it will be of use to him. Patrick
tries to shoot the author, but the bullets cannot penetrate him. When Patrick
then returns the revolver to him, the author replies: “Please. If you won’t do it
for me, then do it for the sake of the drama you are enacting. I assure you that
a shot at the end of the play is absolutely necessary for the development of
the plot” (264). These words echo the unprinted and unperformed fourth act
of Breton’s and Soupault’s If You Please in which, according to Alain Jouffroy,
“one of the authors picked at random must shoot himself on stage by means
of a shot of a revolver” (quoted in Breton, OC1 1173). A fatal shot does indeed
come at the end of the play, not from Patrick, but from Leah, to whom the author
had previously given another revolver at her request. Her revolver is aimed at
the internal audience and a spectator is killed. Does Leah make a bad shot? Did
she mean to shoot Patrick instead of the spectator? Does she simply relieve her
pain this way, in order not to harm Patrick for whom she has waited so long?
Whatever her motive, this final shot confirms not only her descent into madness,
but also the denouement of the drama that she and Patrick have enacted—the
mysteries of their peculiar love. Auslander offers an interesting approach to the
play’s depiction of Leah’s madness:

True to the plays’ origins, its meaning can only be assessed by comparison between the
emotions it evokes and the viewer’s or reader’s own emotional life. Vitrac’s rendering of
love is altogether poetic, both in its language and its visual aspects, but largely unromantic.
It is love as seen by Léa, who chooses Patrice over Dovic only to be abandoned by him, only
to be fettered with symbols of domesticity (children and dogs) only finally to go mad alone
in a hotel, awaiting the return of her beloved. The play charts Léa’s descent into madness
and the cynicism she acquires from it while implying that her madness is not madness at all,
but simply the intensity of emotional experience that is love (366).

Such an idea of love, which encompasses pain, kindness, forgiveness, and death,
gives meaning to the final dialogue between Leah and Patrick, just before Leah’s
fatal gunshot embodies Breton’s definition of “the simplest Surrealist act”
(quoted in Levitt 268):

LÉA. Il y a la mort.
PATRICE. Oui, la mort. Mais la mort comme le pardon. Comme la neige sur la montagne.
Le pardon, comme le feu que l’on coupe au couteau. Le pardon, comme l’eau dont on fait
les maisons. Le pardon, comme l’assassin dont on fait d’autres crimes. Le pardon, comme
les vivants dont on fait d’autres morts … Le pardon, comme moi, dont je fais un coupable.
74 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Le pardon, comme toi, dont je fais le vitriol. Le cœur est déjà rouge. Coule, Léa. Les mains
sur le cuivre des ombres. Le cœur est déjà rouge jusqu’au fond du théâtre où quelqu’un va
mourir.
LÉA. Assez, Patrice (Elle tire un coup de feu) (58).

[LEAH. There is death.

PATRICK. Yes, death. But death like forgiveness. Like snow on the mountain. Forgiveness,
like fire you slice with a knife. Forgiveness like the water houses are made of. Forgiveness,
like the murderer other crimes are made of. Forgiveness, like the living other dead are made
of …. Forgiveness, like me, whom I am making criminal of. Forgiveness, like you whom I
am making a deadly acid of. The heart is red already. Flow, Leah. Hands on the copper of
shadows. The heart is red already as far as the end of the theatre where someone is about
to die.
LEAH. Enough Patrick! (She fires a shot) (267).]

“The heart is red,” Patrick claims; his own heart, Leah’s, and the audience’s as
well. Everyone present has undergone a real, alchemic transmutation due to the
mysteries of love. For love “is the site of ideal occultation of all thought” (Seaver
and Lane 181). Its revitalizing force gives credit to Vitrac’s idea of incendiary
theatre that is able to reconcile man with both life and pain.
This close reading of The Mysteries of Love reveals, I believe, not only Vitrac’s
attempt to create a “théâtre de l’incendie,” but also his faithful use of surrealist
ludic strategies, exemplified in the free interplay between reality and dream,
between the various artistic media, as well as the fluidity of the characters
(except in the case of Leah). Characters and theatrical spaces continuously flow
“one into another” on both the page and the stage. It portrays a fascinating
game of sameness and otherness that catches the spectator by surprise, and
creates, avant la lettre, the “one into another” surrealist game. One element
of this dialogue game is especially well exemplified in the hostile disjunction of
the words and actions of the characters. At first glance, there is no common
element between the inimical terms that are brought together. But soon, this
hidden common element. Patrick’s declaration of love to Leah, for instance,
as we have seen in the opening tableau, is accompanied by his offering her a
bouquet of flowers and a subsequent slap in her face. These verbal and physical
languages are brought together here in a most strange and incompatible fashion
that overturns all logic and decorum.
However, for the reader or the spectator of this act, a new logic is established—
one that could be summed up in this formulation: “Patrick to Leah: I love you like
I hate you,” modeled after the “one into another” surrealist game. Furthermore,
in this reformulated logic, the spectator sees the common element that links
love and hatred together, particularly when Leah, at some point, refuses to
declare her love to Patrick; something he then attempts to get from her through
violence. We see in this example Vitrac’s attempt to illustrate the surrealist
ludic use of language—both verbal and non-verbal—as if he wanted to reveal
its hidden, magical potential. This treatment of language transposes the core
dramatic element of conflict from the level of action to that of diction, which is
now identical to action.
A similar dialogue-game was employed 30 years later by Nanos Valaoritis
in his play The Nightfall Hotel (1957)—the focus of the next section of this
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 75

chapter. The main difference between Vitrac and Valaoritis is that the younger
playwright’s game used the concept of the surrealist dialogue in a self-conscious
manner, making use of the entire gamut of surrealist games mastered during his
association with the Surrealists. Where Vitrac’s play proved the error of Breton’s
skepticism (about the possibility of there being a truly surrealist theatre),
through an intuitive embracing of Surrealism and Breton’s basic tenets, Valaoritis
set about a systematic disproving of Breton’s claims, using the surrealist leader’s
very own ludic techniques.

The ludic techniques of The Nightfall Hotel

Nanos Valaoritis wrote The Nightfall Hotel in French in 1957 when, as a member
of Breton’s surrealist circle, he actively participated in its last phase of surrealist
ludic activity.17 Valaoritis was a true disciple of Breton and Surrealism; as
Valaoritis himself states, “With André Breton, I met in 1954, and until 1960 we
kept a quite close relationship, often on a daily basis” (For a Theory of Writing
B 47). Emmanuel Garrigues, when he examines the famous surrealist game
of analogies that took place during the excursion at the Saint-Cirq-La Popie,
cites Valaoritis’s name, along with the answers he gave during the game.18 The
Nightfall Hotel is the first of Valaoritis’s plays that was staged outside Greece.
The International Art Studio staged it on April 27, 1959, for four consecutive
evenings, in the Theater of the American Artist’s and Student’s Center under
Marc O’s direction. In the main roles were Georges Vander and Marpessa Dawn,
already well known from Marcel Camus’s film Orfeu Negro (Black Orfeus). The
18-year-old Filipino-American actress-dancer magnetized the audience and
captured the attention of almost all theatre critics, particularly as she would be
a special guest at the then Cannes Film Festival.
Despite the prominent celebrity of the case, this play did not receive great
reviews. It would be easy to claim that Valaoritis was simply not familiar with
the rules of playwriting, in the sense of the “well-made” play, where action is
the secret of success. Yet, this is not the case. Valaoritis is simply envisioning a
new way of “writing for the stage” and this is why he stubbornly dares to keep
writing plays where all action is transposed to the level of “talking” as opposed to
“acting.” He has faith in the so-called “speech-act” that one performs simply by
making an utterance. His faith stems from his belief in the “alchemy of the word,”
a transmutation of the word that constitutes one of the surrealist principles.
This transformation draws on Arthur Rimbaud’s own “alchimie du verbe,”
according to which words emerge in all their sonority and imagistic majesty.19
It is essentially a poetic use of language par excellence, where the uttering of
words is an attempt to reveal the magical power of those words. In many cases
this happens by eliminating the distance between a metaphorical use of a word
and its literal meaning. Such a deep concern with the effects of the words in
people’s lives fascinated Valaoritis, and is deeply rooted in the surrealist use of
the language. His initiation into the liberating language of Surrealism came about
through a series of encounters: in his youth, his friends Odysseas Elytis and
Nikos Gatsos in Greece first introduced him to this world; later, during his stay
76 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

in England, he associated with Toni Del Renzio and the gallery-owner Mesens,
who hosted surrealist exhibitions, through both of whom he met Nicolas Calas,
a major theoretician of Surrealism. After this, Valaoritis was already eager to
adhere to Breton’s spirit of Surrealism when the opportunity came in 1954 in
Paris. There, he followed Breton’s entire itinerary and choices “with the attention
of a novice” (For a Theory of Writing B 171). “Without this six-year internship
with the Parisian group,” Valaoritis admits,

it would have been impossible for me to complete my knowledge on the most secret
and invisible and most personal aspects, since I met there so many other people, such as
Alain Jouffroy, Victor Brauner, Wilfredo Lam, Maurice Henry, Matta, Marcel Jean, and of
course Calas. Surrealism at that time seemed to have been erupted and its fragments were
dispersed everywhere, like a newly-appeared constellation and not only under Breton’s
control, Peret’s and of the group of the younger members (For a Theory of Writing B 171).

The Nightfall Hotel is a curious blend of loyal discipleship to Breton and Surrealism,
and a desire in Valaoritis to prove his emancipation from this relationship, using
the very tools acquired from his association with the movement to strike at its
ideas. Yet, most reviewers at the time saw this play simply as a new version of
Romeo and Juliet20 and thus, few of them paid attention to its ludic structure.
Stéphane Vallaire, in Les Lettres françaises of May 7, 1959, stated negatively:
“C’est un jeu. Celui de l’histoire improvisée à plusieurs” [It is a game. That of
improvised collective history]. Also, Marcelle Capron of the newspaper Le
Combat noticed the “strange game” that was played on stage by the young
duet, and confessed that she was “un peu agacée par ce jeu obscur” [somewhat
annoyed by this obscure game] and by the inundation of words and endless talk.
But, when this chatter is finally transformed into barks and growls, the same
critic concluded that the young couple was playing dog [“ils jouent au chien”]
precisely in order to put an end to the empty talk. Capron admits that Georges
Vander plays the loyal dog of Marpessa Dawn very well, and concedes that Dawn
also delivers an astonishing monologue.
The scene is indeed the acme of this play—it alone would suffice to give the
play a surrealist aura. Nevertheless, I would argue that what best identifies this
play as surrealist is its self-conscious experimentation with surrealist games
throughout. In these games, Valaoritis discovered the surrealist dialogue par
excellence, as in the text “Barriers,” by Breton and Soupault. This is, at least,
what Valaoritis himself, in one of his interviews, claims for this play, as well as
for the still unpublished 40-odd plays he wrote between 1954 and 1960, the
period of his interaction with Breton’s circle in Paris. In this interview, he also
states that he was deeply influenced by Roger Vitrac’s work; indeed, it was to
Vitrac’s Mysteries of Love that he turned to find the support he needed in his
first attempt at creating a surrealist theatrical work meant not only to be read,
but also staged. It is no accident, then, that Martha and Yves, the couple in The
Nightfall Hotel, suggest a reincarnation of Patrick and Leah rather than of Romeo
and Juliet, as several French critics pointed out when they initially reviewed the
play. In light of Valaoritis’s own admission, it is imperative to read The Nightfall
Hotel in conjunction with Vitrac’s play, since they are both organized on the same
ludic surrealist principles.
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 77

The Nightfall Hotel is in effect a guessing game about the players’ identities
that the young couple agrees to play in a competitive spirit. As in the “one into
another” game, the game/play is guided by some logic-bound rules that aim to
shed light on a hidden point, namely, each players’ true identity. For example,
the couple guesses the motivation behind their meeting in the room of a soon-
to-be-demolished hotel. This game immediately involves the members of the
audience, as the element of suspense is dominant. At the beginning of the play,
we get the impression that the audience is the real opponent in this game of
“identification” that Martha and Yves play against them. However, as the play
unfolds, we realize that both Martha and Yves are desperately trying to find the
truth out about each other’s identity, since they do not have any clue about each
other’s past. Thus, instead of opponents of the pair, the spectators gradually
become co-players, free to choose sides. The ever-changing character of this
game owes much to Nadja’s game of questions and answers that we examined in
the previous chapter; Martha and Yves’s game is founded on the same principle
of appeal to the listener’s imagination in an attempt to unearth poeticism. One
poses a question and the other makes up a story using free association. Then, the
other person starts or continues his own version of the story by picking up the
narrative thread each time the other player stops. The only difference here with
Nadja’s game is that both players are eager to play the game. They both throw
themselves into it, into a frantic game of story-telling and guessing that cancels
each previous version, as if they were trying to prove Breton’s point about the
interlocutor as the enemy. It behooves us here to follow step-by-step the various
versions of the game that Martha and Yves begin immediately after their stage
entrance. Their labyrinth-like game forms the plot of the play and unfolds in a
total of 14 scenes, modeled after Vitrac’s tableaus or snapshots. Interestingly,
in Valaoritis’s manuscript, eight variants are offered for the third scene, two
variants for the seventh scene, and another two for the twelfth scene, indicating
the inherently ludic character of this play from a structural as well as a thematic
point of view.
The first scene is a banal, realistic scene. It introduces the couple as they are
having a conversation with the hotel owner, who explains to them that they
could not find a better room for the price offered, despite its darkness, its lack of
windows and hot water, and its similarity to a medieval crypt. The couple takes
the room while they and the hotel owner repeat these two key phrases: “et pour
ce prix-là” [and for this price here] and “et puis?” [and then?], as in the following
example:

JEUNNE HOMME. Nous avons un plancher pour ce prix-là …

JEUNNE FILLE. Et un toit pour ce prix-là!
JEUNNE HOMME. Et deux chaises pour ce prix-là!
JEUNNE FILLE. Et un lit pour ce prix-là!
JEUNNE HOMME. Et de l’air pour ce prix-là!
JEUNNE FILLE. Et du silence pour ce prix-là!
HÔTELIER. Et puis?
JEUNNE HOMME (menaçant). Et puis?
HÔTELIER (déconcerté). Et puis?
JEUNNE HOMME (plus menaçant). Et puis? Allons!
HÔTELIER (faible). Et puis …
78 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

JEUNNE HOMME. Vous hésitez; vous renoncez à nous dire pour ce prix là …
HÔTELIER. Il n’y a plus rien! (1)

[YOUNG MAN. We have a floor for this price here …

YOUNG GIRL. And a roof for this price here!
YOUNG MAN. And two chairs for this price here!
YOUNG GIRL. And a bed for this price here!
YOUNG MAN. And air for this price here!
YOUNG GIRL. And silence for this price here!
HOTEL OWNER. And then …
YOUNG MAN (threatening). And then?
HOTEL OWNER (uneasy). And then?
YOUNG MAN (more threatening). And then? Come on!
HOTEL OWNER (weak). And then?
YOUNG MAN. You hesitate; you renounce telling us for this price here …
HOTEL OWNER. There is nothing left!]

Several conclusions can be drawn from this child-like conversation between the
couple and the hotel owner, marked by repetition (there are 10 occurrences
of the conjunction “and”; seven of the phrase “for this price here”; five of the
segment “and then?”; and seven exclamation points). First of all, this elementary
dialogue shows the young couple’s excitement, mixed with self-irony, as they
enumerate the objects they get for the unknown “price here.” These objects are
both concrete and abstract, brought together in accordance with the favorite
surrealist tenet of the approximation of dissimilar objects. The dialogue also
betrays the young man’s ill-tempered character as he threatens the hotel owner
twice while addressing him with the question “and then?” Perhaps this elliptical
question, however enigmatic, is a hint of the young man’s frustration at the
hotel owner’s limited use of language, a linguistic narrowness that perhaps goes
hand-in-hand with the limited worldview of the bourgeois hotel owner. The lack
of imagination in his language bores the young man, who threatens him into
coming up with something different. And this happens immediately afterwards,
when the hotel owner is suddenly transformed into a more eloquent user of
language with poetic qualities:

HÔTELIER (malin). Et puis, et puis, et puis, n’en parlons plus. Ce sont des vieilles histories sans
importance. Elles vous tracassent la nuit. Et puis un beau dimanche bleu, tout disparaît, la
terre disparaît, le ciel disparaît, les fleurs disparaissent, les fruits disparaissent des marchés.
Les vendeurs disparaissent, les boutiques disparaissent, les poteaux télégraphiques
disparaissent, la lune disparaît, le soleil disparaît, l’océan disparaît. Et puis … (2–3).

[HOTEL OWNER (sneaky). And then, and then, and then, let’s not talk about this anymore.
They are old stories without importance. They torment you at night. And then a nice blue
Sunday, everything disappears, the earth disappears, the sky disappears, the flowers
disappear, the fruits disappear from the markets. The sellers disappear, the stores
disappear, the telegraph poles disappear, the moon disappears, the sun disappears, the
ocean disappears. And then ….]

The hotel owner suddenly becomes talkative and philosophic, although his
speech remains repetitive. The young couple remains mostly silent, while he
continues to talk about disasters, as if he wanted to justify his prior reluctance
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 79

to use language more completely. While this “conversation” ensues, the hotel
owner tries to lock the young couple in the room while the cracks in the
hotel’s walls become more and more pronounced, completing the ambiance
of a suffocating room. Whether the hotel owner is just a bad person or simply
executes the order given to him by the young man is not clear at this point. All
we know is that, in such a claustrophobic atmosphere, the only way to get out
is through playing a game or dreaming or a combination of both. Thus, their
game now functions as escape. This, at least, is what the young man claims in
the second scene, when asked by the young girl whether they are locked in or
not: “Comme on est enfermé dans un rêve. On n’à qu’à se réveiller pour en
sortir” (4) [As if we were locked in a dream. We have but to wake up in order
to get out of it].
The second scene begins with the story-making game of “Who am I?” which
corresponds to the surrealist game “The Dialogue in 1928.”21 The basic rule
of this game is as follows: each player has to improvise as quickly as possible
in response to a question posed at the beginning of the game such as, “What
part of the female body do you like the most?” or “Is suicide a solution?” or
“Would you open the door if Freud visited you at night?” (see Garrigues, Les Jeux
surrealistes, for a compilation). Each question lies at the heart of Surrealism’s
concerns and aims to disclose the players’ innermost desires and fears, provided
they comply with another general rule of the game, namely, that they dare to
tell the truth, uninhibited by any constraint. To help eliminate the possibility of
constraint, each player must give his answer as quickly as possible, supported
by free improvisation. The sum of the players’ input, despite their fragmentary
production, creates a new form of dialogue on the subject matter introduced
by the initial question. Thus, the young couple’s game in The Nightfall Hotel is
similar, with similar rules. The only difference is that instead of many players,
there are only two, although they are in a sense multiplied through the diverse
identifications that emerge from each player’s improvised story-telling in
response to the opening question of “Who am I?” Thus, the young man tells the
young girl (we still do not know their names) that she likes being noticed and that
this is why she once walked naked through the crowds. The young girl replies
indignantly that this is nonsense, since he just met her in a railway station and
told her when he first approached her that, in case she were asked by anybody,
she should pretend that he had an appointment with her, that his name was
Alain Champeret, that he was 22 years old, and that he was an acrobat. She was
also to pretend to have met him the previous night. All these made-up stories
would save him from being condemned for either an illegal act or perhaps a
putsch against the state. Or, perhaps this was simply a farce. But she pretends
that none of them was the case. Rather, it was love at first sight that made her
follow him. This declaration of hers is soon turned upside down when the young
man shows some jewelry from his pocket:

JEUNNE HOMME. Tu vois que tu as tout changé de notre histoire. Ça ne s’est pas passé
comme ça du tout. Voyons! Moi, je suis venu à côté de toi. Je t’ai passé un paquet en te
disant: “Ne me demandez rien. Gardez ça pour une minute. Et je reviens! Ne bougez pas.
Vous ne me connaissez pas. À tout à l’heure.” Quand je suis revenue, je t’ai remercié pour
le risque que tu avais accepté de courir pour moi. J’ai repris mon paquet, et alors … (5).
80 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

[YOUNG MAN. You see that you changed everything in our story. This has not happened
like this at all. Look! I myself came to your side. I handed you a package while saying to you:
“Don’t ask me anything. Keep this for a minute. And I’ll be right back. Don’t move. You don’t
know me. Later.” When I came back, I thanked you for having taken the risk for me. I took
back my package and then ….]

The young girl laughs at this version and says that it is her turn now to tell her
own version of their relations. Taking an imitative tone she changes her voice
and pleads with an unknown gentleman in the railway station to protect her
from somebody suspicious who is following her, since it is too dangerous for a
woman to wander in a big city. The young man admits that this is a nice story
and they kiss each other. At this point the spectators might suspect that they
are watching an anonymous young couple playing a game of inventing and
re-inventing their own identity. Like Nadja, who in her game invented innumerable
stories about herself, the young couple does the same. They get involved in the
game, not necessarily as a means of escape from boredom, locked as they are in
the hotel room, but rather as an attempt to know each other better, regardless
of how feasible this might be.
In the third scene, their imaginative game takes as its point of departure a hole
in one of the walls of their room. They start inventing stories about the occupant
of the next room, whom they imagine to be a naked woman. The “hole” and the
“naked woman” function as marker-words for the two players to play a game that
I like to call “parallel stories,” similar to several of the Surrealists’ games. Within
this game, they are bound by the rules to incorporate some marker-words into
their stories, as “each player independently writes the ‘automatic’ account of an
identical event, one which they all could have witnessed” (Gooding 148). As they
give free rein to their fantasies, they end up by acting out eight different versions
of their game of parallel stories, reminiscent of the surrealist “game of variants.”
Both these games resemble the parlor game “telephone” or “Chinese whispers,”
where “the first player whispers a sentence to his neighbour, who whispers the
same sentence to the next player, and so on. The first and last sentences are
then compared” (ibid. 32). All of their eight versions are an organic part of the
play, and are not options the author gives the stage director to decide upon for
inclusion into the final stage production. Interestingly, among these variants, one
is a reenactment of the moment in the taxi between Nadja and Breton, when
she first introduced her game to him; Valaoritis purposely alludes to Nadja’s
game with his own variant of the taxi ride. Finally, it is worth mentioning that,
in this frantic exchange of made-up stories between the young man and the
young woman, whose name—Martha—is finally revealed in one of these eight
versions, there may be some elements that are part of their real lives. Mingling
reality with fantasy, all these invented stories that the young couple acts out blur
the boundaries between truth and falsehood and give illusion its literal meaning,
that is, “in play” (from inlusion, illudere or inludere), as Huizinga points out (11).
The fourth scene is another example of illusion. The young man tells a made-
up story about the jewelry that he holds in his hands, the outcome of a robbery.
In his story, he entered an apartment and, as he was picking up the jewelry
from a dresser, he felt as though somebody was watching him. That somebody
turned out to be a naked woman with thick hair, lying on a red sofa. He thought
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 81

all this was a dream and yet also felt that the woman had invited him. But, at
that moment, everything disappeared. The next day he awoke with a terrible
headache and found that he was holding in his hands the jewelry soaked in tears
or dew. This detailed description is, of course, a typically surrealist event that
evokes Breton’s following excerpt from Nadja:

J’ai toujours incroyablement souhaité de rencontrer la nuit, dans un bois, une femme
belle et nue, ou plutôt, un tel souhait une fois exprimé ne signifiait plus rien, je regrette
incroyablement de ne pas l’avoir rencontrée (OC1 668).

[I have always, beyond belief, hoped to meet, at night and in the woods, a beautiful naked
woman or rather, since such a wish once expressed means nothing, I regret, beyond belief,
not having met her (Howard 39).]

Martha reacts to the above story with no surprise, so the young man teases her
that she has ruined everything. Meanwhile, her reaction leaves some hints that
the couple is perhaps like another Bonnie and Clyde, or they at least imagine
themselves to be. Martha’s statement that they are imprisoned in the desert
of love reinforces this idea. In the next scene they try to recite a poem together
while performing a kind of chorus on a very pessimistic theme.
In the sixth scene, their multi-faceted linguistic game, modeled after Nadja’s
game, becomes unbearable for Martha as she complains that she is the loser and
is not playing anymore: “Arrête, arrête! Je suis battue. Tu as gagné. Je ne joue
plus. (Elle se bouche les oreilles) (11) [Stop it! Stop it! I am beaten. I’m not playing
anymore. (She shuts her ears)]. These words constitute the first explicit sign that
the audience is witnessing a verbal and mimetic game. Martha utters them after
being scared by two consecutive cracks occurring in the building walls, but even
more, by the words she hears coming out of Yves’s mouth. His words depict the
rotten hotel, with its horrifying termites and crumbling walls, and their starvation
imprisoned in the room. Yves continues to describe these terrible images, which
he calls “marvelous,” while Martha stops her ears. Meanwhile, Yves refers to
himself for the first time by his name and mentions his father, whom he has not
yet forgiven for an unknown reason. Martha seems now after all to re-enter the
game, which now takes the form of a guessing game where she is required to
keep her ears closed. She keeps teasing Yves by repeating this sentence “Ton
père est un réchaud, et ta mère est une pantoufle” (12) [Your father is a utensil
and your mother a shoe]. Yves remains calm, however, as he continues their
game by replying with nonsensical sentences in the same way that Patrick did
to Leah’s questions in The Mysteries of Love. Appearing unconquerable, Yves
switches to another game, the “If/When” surrealist game, part of the “Dialogue
in 1928,” according to which one writes a conditional clause, while another
writes a principal clause without knowing the content of the conditional clause.
Here, however, Yves undertakes the job for both players:

JEUNNE HOMME. Et si je te bandais les yeux aussi?

Comme ça tu serais aveugle.
Et si je te remplissais la bouche avec un mouchoir?
Tu deviendrais muette.
Et si je t’attachais les pieds et les mains?
82 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Tu serais alors une aveugle, sourde, muette.

Enchaînée.
N’est-ce pas? C’est pas mal! (13).

[YOUNG MAN. And if I stripped your eyes as well?

You would be blind in this way.
And if I filled your mouth with a handkerchief?
You would become speechless.
And if I chained your hands and your feet?
You would then be blind, speechless, voiceless
In chains.
Right? It’s not bad!]

At this point, the “if” game has become sadistic, nevertheless Martha challenges
him to put it into practice. Yves claims to be too tired for this.
In the next scene and the next game, also given in two versions, Martha,
keeping her ears closed as another way to elicit the power of imagination, has
the leading role. Her goal is to create a reaction in Yves when she accuses him of
“being afraid” in a series of short strophes of free verses such as this: “Tu as peur
de connaître le goût sucré et amer de tous les jours. Tu as peur des cérémonies
creuses de la naissance, des mariages et de la mort. Peur de m’embrasser trop
souvent! (13). [You are afraid of knowing the bitter-sweet taste of everyday.
You are afraid of the hollow ceremonies of birth, wedding, and death. Afraid of
kissing me too often!]. Yves replies in a nonsensical, yet confessional tone. Both
of them seem to have achieved a deeper understanding now, since they pay
close attention to each other in their new stories, despite Martha’s covered ears.
These new stories, like a Greek tragedy, seem to evoke mostly past traumatic
experiences of the couple, including Martha’s experience as a lover of her
mother’s lover that follows her like a shadow all her life. After the release of
their stories, Martha removes her hands from her ears while Yves now ties a
handkerchief around her head to cover her eyes.
Next comes a hide-and-seek game that unfolds in the eighth scene. This is not a
regular hide-and-seek game, as Yves takes a knife out of his pocket, reminding us
of the knife in The Mysteries of Love. He challenges Martha to find him, as Nadja
once challenged Breton to find her and, through her, to find himself: “Regarde-
moi bien. Tu me vois? Qui suis-je? Où suis-je? Cherche. Trouves-moi!” (15)
[Look at me well. Do you see me? Who am I? Where am I? Look for me. Find
me!]. After a while, Martha manages to get Yves’s knife and throws it at the wall.
Yves takes off her blindfold to bring their game to an end, without wanting to
admit that he is the loser. They continue the game by quoting verses to impress
each other until they hear some steps outside their room. They blow the candle
out and rush toward the hole in the wall, while Martha puts on the jewelry.
After an intermezzo, the ninth scene begins in the form of yet another game,
the goal of which is to describe the hole and what it reveals on the other side of
the wall, a device typical of many surrealist films. The tenth scene then reaches
its climactic moment in the description of the hole that overtly uses surrealist
symbols, such as the ones that haunted Breton all his life: long white gloves, a
hut, a beam of light and of obscurity, like in la camera obscura, an early form of
cinema. The “one into another” game is also applied here quite literally, as Yves
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 83

reveals to Martha what lies behind each object he sees in the hole and what is
contained in each object he sees. Thus, there is an open window that gives way
to another open window, behind which there is a long, empty hut, lying on a
bed of roses along with a pair of gorgeous hands and a shadow that caresses the
curtain in a mild wind. There is also the sky and another shadow on a wall that
resembles a face smiling like the falling night. The dark smile seems familiar to
both of them. This series of interlocking descriptions constitutes the culmination
of the couple’s “one into another” game and ends with the personification of
the falling night that appears in the title of the play. This interwoven “one into
another” game finally unlocks all the mysterious layers of the marvelous yet
terrifying encounters of the young couple, who finally feel more comfortable
with each other. This endless game ultimately offers them a sense of acquiring
an identity, as the last scene clearly illustrates: to Yves’s question of exactly what
she wants from him she replies:

MARTHE. Une identité. Une espèce de réalité qui dépasse l’ordinaire. Cesse d’être un
fantôme et deviens toi-même. Explique-moi exactement ce que tu as ressenti en me
voyant. Me désires-tu vraiment ou pas? Je suis capable de disparaître à l’instant sans laisser
aucune trace (18).

[MARTHA. An identity. A kind of reality that surpasses the everyday. Cease being a phantom
and become yourself. Explain to me exactly what you felt when you first saw me. Do you
really desire me or not? I am capable of instantly disappearing without leaving any trace.]

Martha has finally become another Nadja, who shows her capacity to live
another life. But most of all, she has the power to redirect Yves and bring him
face to face with his desire. Their game has come full circle, as if this were its goal
from the very beginning; or it is like a hall of mirrors, another image from Nadja.
Treating each other like enemies for much of this labyrinth-like game, Martha
and Yves finally come to realize that they are destined to be “one into another.”
This explains why they both decide to continue their strange game, ignoring the
imminent demolition of the hotel where they are staying. This is what Valaoritis
intended to convey, by insisting on the recalcitrant young couple’s game. In the
program of the play’s première, Valaoritis wrote:

Un couple dans une chambre d’hôtel recrée le passé, vrai ou imaginaire, et tente de
vivre le présent, du paradis à l’enfer. … En dépit des fréquents avertissements, les jeunes
gens ignorent avec persistance que le monde autour d’eux est en train de s’écrouler, et
continuent leur jeu étrange” (quoted in Vallaire).

[A couple in a hotel room recreates the past, true or imaginary, and tries to live the present,
from paradise to hell. … Despite the frequent warnings, the young couple persistently
ignores that the world around them is in the process of crashing, and they continue their
strange game.]

Waiting for their tragic end while playing a game is the most audacious act of
faith in their mutual mad love. In this way, perhaps their approaching night,
captured in the title of the play, may become for them another “nuit des éclairs,”
such as the one at which Breton marveled: “C’est la plus belle des nuits, la nuit
des éclairs: le jour, auprès d’elle, est la nuit” (OC1 338) [It’s the most beautiful
84 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

night, a night full of lightning: the day, compared to it, is night]. Here, in the
night of lightning, Valaoritis discerns a similar game between life and death from
which “an enthusiastic experience of death” emerges, which writes itself (For
a Theory of Writing 314). Therefore, rather than a pessimistic tone that would
come closer to that of the Theatre of the Absurd or the Existential Theatre of
the time, one discerns in Valaoritis’s work a more optimistic surrealist tone and
aspiration conveyed through his emulation of Breton. Thus, he pays tribute to
the surrealist leader. As I have pointed before, this tribute at the same time
constitutes an act of rebellion: the Greek playwright chooses the theatrical form,
Breton’s least favorite artistic form, and succeeds with it. Our next chapter will
further clarify this issue.

Conclusion
“One into another” is the ludic principle that guides both The Mysteries of Love
and The Nightfall Hotel. In between them stands Nadja’s own “one into another”
game. All converge in a version of the game that can be called “mad love,” which
consists of “madness in love” and “love in madness.” All of them magically
encapsulate the lovers’ unified yet fictive selves: “Leah in Patrick” or “Patrick
in Leah”; “Martha in Yves” or “Yves in Martha”; “Nadja in André” or “André in
Nadja”—ludic avatars that are responsible for each character’s new state of
being. Likewise, this interlocking game may take another form, such as we first
encountered in Palau’s play Les Détraquées: “Solange in Blanche Derval in Nadja
in Leah in Martha,” a chain that embeds the highly valued surrealist image of
the “mad woman.” Each one of these female characters is at once unique and
multiple, exactly as Surrealism wished. “One into another” is the ludic process
that allows each player to acquire a sense of a unified self, through endless
identifications, similar to the ones that can be generated by a chain of mirrors in
a crystal palace—Breton’s obsessive image. In Nadja, for instance, Breton claims:

Pour moi, je continuerai à habiter ma maison de verre, où l’on peut voir à toute heure qui
vient me rendre visite, où tout ce qui est suspendu aux plafonds et aux murs tient comme
par enchantement, où je repose la nuit sur un lit de verre aux draps de verre, où qui je suis
m’apparaîtra tôt ou tard gravé au diamant (OC1 651).

[I myself shall continue living in my glass house where you can always see who comes to
call; where everything hanging from the ceiling and on the walls stays where it is as if by
magic, where I sleep nights in a glass bed, under glass sheets, where who I am will sooner
or later appear etched by a diamond (Howard 18).]

In Breton’s infamous “maison inhabitable de sel gemme” [residence made of a

gem of salt],22 one’s own identity will be crystal-clear, carved by a diamond, since
in such a place,

l’inanimé touche ici de si près l’animé que l’imagination est libre de se jouer à l’infini sur
ses formes d’apparence toute minérale, de reproduire à leur sujet la démarche qui consiste
à reconnaître un nid, une grappe retirés d’une fontaine pétrifiante (Breton, OC2 681; my
emphasis).
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 85

[the inanimate touches here so closely the animate to the point that the imagination is free
to play with itself endlessly on the level of its apparently totally mineral forms, to reproduce
on their account the process consisting of recognizing a nest, a vine withdrawn from a
petrifying fountain.]

Thanks to this infinite play of imagination that vividly transforms one image into
another, the player stands amazed by his/her newly revealed sense of identity.
Likewise, the spectator becomes aware of the transformational power of this
game of imagination to which he/she willingly succumbs, as Breton himself did
as Nadja’s “playmate.”
This is the kind of theatre that Artaud and Vitrac attempted to activate in
the playground of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry. Initially puzzled about the nature of
theatre, whether it is in fact a game or not, Vitrac and Artaud found the solution
they sought in the practice of the “one into another” surrealist formula, prior
to its official establishment. From that moment on, theatre for them ceased to
be a matter of a “game or not” and became rather a matter of “a game in life”
and of “life in game.” In other words, it became intertwined with their outside
experience. That way, they guaranteed at once the aleatory nature and the non-
mimetic character of their new, experimental theatre, in which referentiality
“loses its fixity to assume a mobility” (Antle, “Towards Re-Presentation” 19).
The Théâtre Alfred Jarry thus became a first-class avant-garde theatrical
endeavor of the inter-war period, particularly during the years 1927–30. It was
transformed into a realm of genuine collaboration between these two exiles of
Surrealism to the point that they have been considered the only figures who
are “associated with a serious effort at the creation of a surrealist theatre”
(Auslander 357). Vitrac and Artaud had no other choice, indeed, than to found
their own theatre, as theatre was an inseparable part of their lives. In doing
so, they did not lack in the revolutionary spirit, which Breton so much admired.
Naming their theatre after their fabulous precursor, the creator of the anarchic
and grotesque Ubu-roi and author of the text “L’Amour absolu” (“Absolute
Love”)—both of which texts were very influential on them—bears the best proof
of their revolutionary spirit.23 In their revolutionary statements of intention
concerning the Théâtre Alfred Jarry that “come close to being manifestoes for
a surrealist theatre” (Auslander 357), both Artaud and Vitrac show the same
zeal as Breton for changing the ossified theatre of their time that was bound to
the realist principle of the stage as a mirror of reality. Together they joined their
efforts to overturn realism in theatre by applying the surrealist principles they
had assimilated when they were active members of the surrealist movement,
particularly when they were practicing so-called surrealist games. What they
learned from their mingling with Breton and his circle was that “verisimilitude
and consistency in character, consideration of time and space relationships, and
a concern for logic” should play no role in the organization of their theatrical
works (Bennison 124). Instead, reliance on the mechanisms of games that had
the potential to unearth the mechanisms of dreams would be the surest road to
their new concept of theatre. And through these games, they ensured one more
thing: humor and laughter, to the point that laughter commingles violence and
offense. “Laughter in violence” and “violence in laughter” is itself a revolutionary
act that defies logic, or at least destroys clear-cut binaries, and constitutes the
86 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

best homage to their precursor, Alfred Jarry, and of course, to Breton himself,
who was deeply influenced by Freud in this regard. He quotes the following words
from Freud in “Le discours sur le peu de réalité”: “Humour is not resigned, it is
rebellious … The humorous attitude … refuses to undergo suffering, asseverates
the invincibility of one’s ego against the real world and victoriously upholds the
pleasure principle” (quoted in Suleiman 2). “One into another,” a free activity
par excellence, rises to the level of a magnificent ludic tool for surrealist theatre,
because it can take all possible directions and thus amplify language. Therefore, it
introduces new forms of life. This is what Vitrac and Artaud, as well as Valaoritis,
achieved when they staged “mad love.” They brought to life a new state of being,
which functioned as a springboard for the audience’s imagination, and, through
this new form of life, they challenged language itself.
Vitrac and Artaud continued to challenge language within the Théâtre Alfred
Jarry more explicitly still when, in 1928, they staged Victor ou les enfants au
pouvoir (Victor or Children in Power), in which other ludic experiments took
place, the most significant being children’s puns targeting the life of adults. This
play and its ludic techniques are the focus of the next chapter, where I compare
Vitrac’s Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir with Nanos Valaoritis’s The Round Tables
and Henriette où est-elle passée (Where Did Henriette Go?), a deliberately loose
adaptation of the former, which was also influenced by Palau’s Les Détraquées.
The Round Tables epitomizes his self-conscious experimentation with the
surrealist games. Through this play, I explore a new function of surrealist ludics,
namely its ironic, irresistible criticism of bourgeois values. Such criticism is most
effective when it is the product of children’s games. Children’s “childlike” use
of language is at the heart of the next chapter and it reveals without question
that surrealist theatre never committed the “sin” of conformism, that Breton
considered inevitable on the stage.

Notes
1 See note 3 in Chapter 1.
2 Henri Béhar informs us that Vitrac was excluded from Surrealism by Breton in September
1926, while Artaud’s exclusion took place a month later (Étude 227–8). As far as Robert
Aron is concerned, he had never officially adhered to Surrealism, but was surrounded
by surrealist friends. As to the reasons for which Breton dismissed them, the views vary.
Vitrac and Artaud “were on sufficiently friendly terms to spend the summer of 1925
together, returning from a holiday to discover that Vitrac had been excommunicated
from Surrealism by André Breton. Artaud was excluded later in the year” (Auslander
357). Artaud’s exclusion from the group was publicly announced in the pamphlet Au
grand jour (1927), signed by Aragon, Breton, Eluard, Péret, and Unik. Artaud “countered
with La Grande Nuit ou le Bluff Surréaliste, deriding this particular group as a ‘grotesque
sham,’ and a ‘masquerade.’ The final break came after he had contributed to the 1928
issue of La Révolution Surréaliste” (Knapp 88). The expulsion of Vitrac and Artaud
from the movement reached full-blown hostility where Breton’s Second Manifesto of
Surrealism (1930) is concerned. The arguments and counter-arguments in this debate
which culminated in the scandal following the representation of Strindberg’s Dream Play
by the Théâtre Alfred Jarry, and which signified the definitive break of Artaud and Vitrac
with the surrealist group, have been largely discussed. I align myself with Henri Béhar
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 87

who summarizes the three reasons for which Breton rejected Vitrac from the surrealist
movement (and, which equally apply to Artaud) (Théâtre ouvert 22). First, because he
pursued “literary” ends; secondly, because he refused to be politically engaged, that is,
to comply with the communist ideology; and finally, because he opted for the dramatic
genre. Among these reasons the last seems to be the strongest reason for Breton to
exclude them from the movement, as any involvement with the theatrical world
inevitably entails a degree of commercialization, something that was incompatible with
the spirit of absolute freedom and revolution that Surrealism advocated.
3 The same bill also included Artaud’s Le Jet de sang (The Spurt of Blood), published in
his collection L’Ombilic des limbes in 1925. This concise play, apart from its premiere,
remained practically unstaged until Peter Brook discovered it and included it in his 1964
London Theatre of Cruelty production with much success. Christopher Innes offers some
details about this production (128–9). The Spurt of Blood will be further discussed in the
next chapter in relation to its ludic techniques.
4 See Levi, “The Last Greek Surrealist.”
5 After Breton’s death on September 28, 1966 in Paris, according to Gérard Durozoi, “the
question of whether to pursue a collective surrealist activity would become more and
more crucial, until in October 1969, Jean Schuster [the appointed leader of Surrealism
after Breton’s death] publicly announced that it would be impossible” (635). See Durozoi,
History of the Surrealist Movement, trans. Alison Anderson.
6 See Béhar, Un réprouvé 137.
7 Benjamin Crémieux, for instance, dismissed the play, judging it from a realist perspective:
“Let’s stay in the domain of theatre. In the theatre there must be a continuous flow.
However, the fragmentation of visions that Mr. Vitrac suggests here lacks such a
continuity of flow, intrigue or ambiance” (quoted in Artaud, OC 54). There is no doubt
that this play is an “obscure” play, as Vitrac himself characterizes it in the preface of the
1948 Gallimard edition of his completed works, where he also explains that he hesitated
to publish it along with his other non-surrealist plays. Finally, he published it complying
with Apollinaire’s advice that “one must publish everything.”
8 Emmanuel Garrigues, for instance, mentions his name among the names of the
participants in the surrealist game “Quelques préférences de …” (Some preferences
of …) that was published in the second series of Littérature on April 1, 1922. For more
details, see Garrigues, Les Jeux surrealists 53–7. It is also interesting to note here the
close relationship that had developed between André Breton and Roger Vitrac. Vitrac
had been with the surrealist movement from its beginnings when it emerged from the
French Dada movement (1920), and he participated in the practice of surrealist games.
In 1923 he contributed to the journal Le Journal du peuple, in which he declared that “he
shared almost absolutely Breton’s ideas,” while in 1924 he was assigned to edit, along
with Paul Eluard and Jacques-André Boiffard, the first number of the monthly review
La Révolution surréaliste (Hubert 11). Breton himself acknowledges him in his first
manifesto among those who practice Absolute Surrealism. In fact, Vitrac almost deified
Breton at one point; meeting with Breton, he wrote in Le Journal du peuple on January
5, 1924, was for him “a grace that he wished for everyone” (ibid. 12). In 1924, he met
Artaud who also joined the Surrealists at the end of the same year. Soon Artaud “took
over the management of the bureau and planned the virulent third issue of La Révolution
surréaliste” (Durozoi 651).
9 Hereafter I will refer to this translation of The Mysteries of Love by Ralph J. Gladstone and
included in Benedikt and Wellwarth, The Avant-garde, Dada, and Surrealism 227–67.
10 Vitrac may have had as a model for this scene Melisande’s long black hair from Maurice
Maeterlink’s play Péleas and Melisande (1892).
88 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

11 Judging from an autobiographical perspective, such an interpretation complies with

Vitrac’s dedication of the play to his partner at the time, Suzanne, to whom he addresses
the following lines from Jarry’s work “L’Amour absolu”: “The women who love us / renew
the true Sabbath” (Benedikt 227). The word ‘Sabbath’ empowers the portrayed woman
with a religious aspect, who then becomes a redeemer for Patrick, who is perhaps Vitrac’s
alter ego. Vitrac indeed “believed in woman’s redeeming character and that man could
only attain an absolute knowledge through a total love” (Béhar, Théâtre ouvert 18).
12 These lines echo on the one hand, Calderòn’s La vida es sueño (1635) and on the other
hand, Hamlet’s relevant scene from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
13 For more details see Breton, OC1 338.
14 Henri Béhar devotes an entire chapter on Vitrac’s project to create his Théâtre de
l’incendie. For more details, see Un réprouvé 159–204.
15 Characteristic of Breton’s attitude towards the Greek legacy is the following anecdote
that Henri Béhar mentions: in the spring of 1957, when Elisa Breton was in Greece,
Breton was asked by Loleh Bellon, the companion of the critic Claude Roy, why he did not
join her on her trip. Breton replied: “My dear Loleh, would you go for tourism to Germany
during occupation?” Loleh did not understand this reply so Breton added: “Since for
more than 2,000 years we have been occupied by the Greco-Romans, therefore, I will
never put my feet either in Greece or in Italy!” (Béhar, Le Grand indésirable 425).
16 Interestingly, this episode anticipates the similar episode that will occur in Breton’s Nadja
(1928), as Béhar reminds us. See Un réprouvé 177.
17 Information released in a personal interview he gave me on May 21 in his home at
Oakland, California. Valaoritis, born in Lausanne, Switzer­land in 1921, represents a rare
case of a multi-lingual avant-garde writer who experiments with all genres in three
languages—namely, English and his two mother tongues, Greek and French. Author of
about 13 books of poetry and fiction and more than 50 mostly unpublished plays and
skits, Valaoritis received numerous awards in Greece, France and the United States. Part
of his work is now archived at Princeton University.
18 For more details about the close relationship between Valaoritis and Breton and the
unforgettable days he spent with him and his wife Eliza and their circle of friends in Saint-
Cirq la Popie, see Valaoritis, For a Theory of Writing B 45–7.
19 See Arthur Rimbaud’s “Delires II, Alchimie du verhe” from Une Saison en enfer and a
single letter of Rimbaud’s, dated May 15, 1871, to his friend Paul Demeny in which the
French poet develops his theories that he described later as the “alchimie du verbe.”
20 Marcelle Capron, for instance in Le Combat of April 29, 1959, names the two protagonists
of The Nightfall Hotel “nos Roméo et Juliette 1959” (our 1959 Romeo and Juliet), while
France-Soir in the column of spectacles printed the following title: “Marpessa Dawn
et Georges Vander dans le ‘Roméo et Juliette’ moderne, intitulé L’Hôtel de la Nuit qui
Tombe.”
21 For more information see Emmanuel Garrigues, Les Jeux surréalistes 58–63. Antonin
Artaud was one of the participants in this game.
22 This comes from Breton’s L’Amour fou (Mad Love, 1937).
23 Another important originator of Surrealism to whom the Théâtre Alfred Jarry renders
homage is Guillaume Apollinaire. He coined the term “Surrealism,” yet in another sense,
he opposed naturalism, in an attempt to stress the need for a new mode of dramatic
expression. In the preface he added in 1917 to his famous play Les Mamelles de Tirésias
(The Breasts of Tiresias, 1903), a play about the need for love and fertility, Apollinaire
inserted the adjective “surrealist” to express his ideas against the concept of the stage
 Staging “mad love” in the Théâtre Alfred Jarry 89

as mirror to reality. With Breton’s reemployment of the term, “Surrealism” acquired a

new meaning, while Vitrac and Artaud illustrated this new meaning on stage within the
Théâtre Alfred Jarry.
This page has been left blank intentionally
3
Staging child’s play in Roger
Vitrac’s Victor or Children in
Power: Between paidia and ludus1

The sight of the masked figure … carries us back to the world of the savage, the child and
the poet, which is the world of play (Huizinga 26).

And this child is the child not of Christ but of Heraclitus. It is the innocent power as eternity,
beginning its game of creation and destruction each time anew, without remorse, in blissful
self-forgetfulness (Nietzsche, quoted in Sutton Smith 113).

Rationalistic thought “seems to have dominated most of Western thinking about

play,” both in terms of play itself being seen as rationally guided, and in terms
of using a rationalist approach to interpreting play (Sutton Smith 81). However,
many great thinkers, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, saw children’s play “as a kind
of irrational power” (ibid. 112). Likewise, Huizinga, in this chapter’s opening
quotation, overtly equates the world of play in general with the world of the
primitive, the child, and the poet, hinting at their common lack of reason. André
Breton also aligned himself with this approach to play, seeing it as irrational and
ritualistic,2 heralding play’s basic indeterminism, chaos, irrationality or even
absurdity:

La complaisance envers l’absurde rouvre à l’homme le royaume mystérieux qu’habitent les

enfants. Le jeu de l’enfance, comme moyen perdu de conciliation entre l’action et la rêverie
en vue de la satisfaction organique, à commencer par le simple “jeu de mots,” se trouve de
la sorte rehabilité et dignifié (Breton, OC2 963).

[Favoring the absurd reopens the mysterious kingdom that children inhabit to mankind.
Children’s play, as the lost medium of reconciling action with reverie for the sake of organic
satisfaction, starting with simple “word games,” consequently becomes rehabilitated and
dignified.]

For the leader of Surrealism, children’s play constitutes a “magnificent field of

experience” (OC2 963), a road to the marvelous, which, in Anna Balakian’s words,
is “the sacred both sublime and terrifying” that opens the path to the supreme
92 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

category of “surreality” (quoted in Orenstein Feman xiv). In the realm of surreality,

the real is fused with the imaginary in exactly the same way they are fused in the
field of play. For the deliberately anti-literary Surrealists, playing a wide variety
of games—especially dialogue games—guaranteed the marvelous, as they
combined the most arbitrary images that might fascinate an audience. These
games “could serve to elicit le merveilleux and so fill bleak reality with suggestive
revelation” (Gershman 54.) They used language that evoked unexpected visual
images to describe a character or an event. Breton referred to the mysterious
effects and the particular pleasures derived from such images as the effects of
“the opium” that enraptured people (Manifestoes 36). Furthermore, for Breton,
surrealist games supported Johan Huizinga’s conclusion in Homo Ludens about
the “supra-logical (supralogique) character of our situation within the world”
(quoted in Garrigues 218). Starting from a simple pun, word games can become
a powerful means of revelation, and initiation to the marvelous. Indeed this was
the goal of the Surrealists when they started performing their ludic activities in
a systematic fashion. As Mel Gooding notes, “[m]ost specially and remarkably,
it was through games, play, techniques of surprise and methodologies of the
fantastic that they (Surrealists) subverted academic modes of enquiry, and
undermined the complacent certainties of the reasonable and respectable” (12).
In this chapter, I argue that surrealist theatre ingeniously places the inherent
logic of games in the service of the irrational, in order to become a tool for the
subversion of social order. This idea came to me when I interviewed Nanos
Valaoritis,3 and he commented that many surrealist dialogues were generated
by surrealist games. The games have rules, so the seeming “incoherence” of
surrealist texts was, in fact, a function of so-called rational standards. The idea
of a dialogue that advocates incoherence according to standards of rationality
fascinated Valaoritis, particularly when he contrasted surrealist dialogues with
Plato’s dialogues, which displayed a coherent logic. In surrealist dialogue he felt
a pleasure derived from the feeling of surprise and disorientation, rather than
from a successful communication as in the case of Platonic dialogues. Surrealist
dialogue satisfies the audience, not with the logical transferal of meaning, but
because it reveals the most audacious clusters of arbitrary images resulting from
free improvisation and the release of the subconscious.
In contrast to another giant of ancient Greek thought, Valaoritis argued that
dialogue, rather than plot—as Aristotle thought—is the essence of drama.
Indeed, he fully embraced the belief of the Surrealists that, to the extent that
plot would count at all in surrealist theatre, “it would tend to function mainly
as a support for dialogue—while the dialogue itself would be allowed to push
forward on a level of exchange where common sense and normal sequence
surrender their claim to attention” (Melzer Henkin, Latest Rage 166). Such a
belief called for a reversal of dramatic conventions. In other words, poetry was
liberated through this kind of dialogue, at the expense of drama. Intrigued by
the apparent incoherence of surrealist dialogues, the contemporary Greek
playwright admitted that he had used surrealist games to write plays. He added
that an audience might enjoy his plays more if it had a grasp of the game rules he
had used in this process. The same precondition, I believe, applies to all surrealist
texts, including the theatrical ones. Seemingly incoherent contradictions, both in
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 93

surrealist texts and, especially, in surrealist images, are in fact rule-generated,

and it is the understanding of these latent yet prescriptive rules that makes
surrealist texts truly interesting.
Knowing that rules underlie an apparently chaotic surface actually blurs the
boundaries between reason and non-reason. On the one hand, it becomes clear
that reason is fragile; on the other, what was considered nonsense is, in fact,
founded on reason. Furthermore, the latent structure of Surrealism created the
condition for looking at surrealist texts more seriously, while it made clear that
meaning is contingent upon context and circumstances. As Michael Riffaterre
notices, “in the reality of the text” surrealist images “are arbitrary only in relation
to our habitual logic and utilitarian attitude toward reality and language” (Text
Production 202). More specifically, Riffaterre argues, within the microcosm of a
text, “a logic of words comes to be, a logic that has nothing to do with normal
linguistic communication. This verbal logic creates a special code, a dialect within
language, causing the reader to undergo the disorientation of the senses that
the Surrealists saw as the essence of the poetic experience” (ibid.). Therefore,
it was evident that such surrealist texts were meaning-bearing and not simply
nonsense. Nonsense, Elizabeth Sewell claims,

is not merely the denial of sense, a random reversal of ordinary experience and an escape
from the limitations of everyday life into a haphazard infinity, but is on the contrary a
carefully limited world, controlled and directed by reason, a construction subject to its own
laws (5).4

Likewise, children’s games form their own carefully limited world, answering
and answerable to their own laws alone. By embracing this world of children’s
games, surrealist games have the potential to subvert the social order because
of their “inherent capacity to innovate and transform its rules” (Goldman 17).
This idea of the potential for subversion has been known, of course, since Plato:
“[c]hild play is the biggest menace that can ever afflict a state” (Laws 1.798). In
this chapter, I explore the ways in which both children’s games and surrealist
games are incorporated in surrealist theatrical output to become a tool of social
disruptiveness.
In the following discussion, I use the same classification of games that I used
for Nadja’s game in the opening chapter—that introduced by the mid-twentieth-
century French sociologist and one-time member of the surrealist circle,5 Roger
Caillois, in his seminal study Man, Play and Games (1958). According to Caillois,
games may be classified as agon (competitive games), alea (games of chance),
mimicry (simulacrum and mimesis devoted to make-believe games), and ilinx
(vertigo, such as carnival rides or roller coasters) (12). All of these types of games
could appear alone or in combination with one another. Moreover, Caillois argues
that games in any of these categories stretch along “a continuum between two
attitudinal poles: paidia or infancy, characterized by free improvisation and
fantasy, and ludus, characterized by constraint, arbitrary rules, and effort” (Motte
7). These two poles are evident in each of the surrealist plays that constitute
the focus of this chapter, although there is a common tendency to move from
ludus to paidia, that is, from logic towards improvisation and free association,
more than the reverse. By consciously experimenting with games, the surrealist
94 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

writers materialized the path from a rule-bound, and thus limited, reality to a
more free-spirited reality, where rules are looser and unrestricting. The works
that will be discussed in this chapter are Roger Vitrac’s Victor ou les enfants
au pouvoir (Victor or Children in Power) (1927) and two of Nanos Valaoritis’s
plays—Henriette où est-elle passée (Henriette Where Did She Go?) (1957)6 and
Les Tables rondes (The Round Tables) (1957)7—both modeled after Vitrac’s piece.
Valaoritis wrote these plays during the last phase of ludic activities by André
Breton’s surrealist group in Paris, from 1954 to 1960.8 In the following pages,
I examine closely how ludics is specifically employed in these three plays and
what its effect is in each play, starting with the model piece, Victor or Children in
Power. To clarify, the term ludics9 in this chapter is now expanded to include the
dialogue produced through children’s games, in addition to the surrealist games
of Motte’s original use of the term.

Victor or Children in Power: The triumph of children’s games

Written in 1927, this play premiered on December 24, 1928, in the Théâtre Alfred
Jarry under Antonin Artaud’s direction. Although it follows the conventions of a
bourgeois drama, this play in three acts is imbued with a spirit of anarchism and
represents the peak of Surrealism. As Marie-Claude Hubert states, “Victor ou
les enfants au pouvoir est considéré, à juste titre, comme le chef-d’œuvre du
théâtre surréaliste” (8) [Victor or Children in Power is considered, for legitimate
reasons, the masterpiece of surrealist theatre]. Also, in March 1973, the drama
critic Philippe Sénart declared that Victor should be recognized a masterpiece:
“Comment ne s’est-on-pas aperçu en 1928, lorsque le Théâtre Alfred Jarry
présenta Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir, que cette pièce était un chef-d’œuvre?”
(quoted in Beachler Severs 141) [How did we not realize in 1928, when the
Théâtre Alfred Jarry presented Victor or Children in Power, that this play was
a masterpiece?]. Victor’s success lies in the fact that children’s ludic activity
explicitly becomes the organizing principle of the play. If in The Mysteries of Love,
as we have seen in the previous chapter, ludic activity plays an important role
in terms of the underlying structure of the play, in Victor or Children in Power,
this activity is all-encompassing: everything starts as a child’s game that affects
everyone. In the end, the game itself emerges as the only master of the play.
Concerned with the revelatory power of words, these games anticipate Breton’s
statement from his Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1929), that Surrealism’s goal
was to deal with the more general problem of:

human expression in all its forms. Whoever speaks of expression speaks of language first
and foremost. It should therefore come as no surprise to anyone to see Surrealism almost
exclusively concerned with the question of language at first (Seaver and Lane 151).

In Victor or Children in Power, language indeed triumphs through the mouths of

two children at play, Victor and Esther, who reveal all the hypocrisy that governs
the lives of their otherwise respectable bourgeois families. Both children,
naturally endowed with poetic skills, mimic the language of adults in a context
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 95

of games, giving unprecedented power to their language. Their mimicry and

linguistic play outlines the fact that human expression is, in fact, the key for
understanding all the other problems that torment the family members in the
play.
Victor, a gigantic, nine-foot, nine-year-old boy, plays with language at every
possible level, only finally to be consumed by it and die on his birthday. Victor is
“l’enfant précoce, doté d’une cruelle lucidité, personnage qui va très vite incarner
un mythe” (Hubert 14) [the precocious child, endowed with an exceptional
lucidity, a character who very soon will incarnate a myth]. Indeed, Victor, with
his extraordinary size and precocious linguistic abilities and comprehension of
things adult, embodies a new myth and represents a unique case in the history
of theatre. Children’s roles were rare even after the eighteenth century, when,
thanks to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, more attention was paid to children.10 Gifted
with an exceptional lucidity, this “terribly intelligent” boy “mène rondement
le jeu, presse de faire jaillir l’amère vérité, tout au long du premier acte où il
n’épargne personne” (Hubert 20) [takes the lead and pushes in order to force
out the bitter truth, throughout the first act, sparing no-one]. The first victim
of Victor’s audacious use of language, loaded with profane allusions against
the pillar of Christianity, the Holy Mother, is the maid of the house, Lili, who
occasionally sleeps with Victor’s father. The play opens with the following word
play by Victor that makes Lili feel uneasy:

VICTOR. … et le fruit de votre entaille est béni.

LILI. D’abord, c’est le fruit de vos entrailles, qu’il faut dire.
VICTOR. Peut-être, mais c’est moins imagé (9; my emphasis).

[VICTOR. … And blessed is the fruit of your cut.

LILI. First, it is the fruit of your womb that you must say.
VICTOR. Maybe, but it’s less colorful.]

The playful substitution of the signifier entaille (=cut) for entrailles (=womb) in
French, sounds more colorful to Victor’s ears. Reversing the technique of his
predecessor Ubu Roi, who added the letter “r” in the infamous word “merde”
that opens the play Ubu-roi, Victor deletes here the letter “r” in the word
“entrailles” (the letter “s” is silent) in the opening of Vitrac’s play, to create the
same scandalous effect in both Lili’s and the audience’s ears.11 Indeed, “Victor
is the closest of Vitrac’s plays to the mode of Jarry, and it is its childishness of
tone, rather than more sophisticated devices, which creates both formal and
thematic disruption” (Levitt 517). Already from these opening lines, Victor shows
his determination to trick everyone through his language, a language that not
only proves his extreme intelligence, but also his loss of childlike innocence, and
which is placed in the service of a creative project-game. This kind of game turns
in an astonishing manner “from puerility to a form of perversity” (Piret 344),
endowed with the value of experience. Victor continues tricking Lili with his
skillful puns, daring even to accuse her of cracking an expensive piece of Sevres
china, worth 10,000 francs, an act that he himself committed on purpose. Lili
responds with the only defense at her disposal: she slaps him in the face. This
“small monster” decided “à être quelque chose” [to be something] this day of his
96 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

ninth birthday, September 12, 1909. As he completes his “neuf ans” [nine years],
he wants to be “neuf” [brand-new],12 that is, he wants to quit his old child-model
that he has been up to this moment, and the game-agon enables him to fulfill his
goal. When the servant Lili indignantly asks him “what he has,” he replies again in
a spirit of mockery, juxtaposing concrete objects with abstract ideas:

VICTOR. J’ai neuf ans. J’ai un père, une mère, une bonne. J’ai un navire à essence qui part et
revient à son point de départ, après avoir tiré deux coups de canon. J’ai une brosse à dents
individuelle … J’ai la vue bonne et le jugement sûr, et je dois à ces dispositions de t’avoir vu
commettre, sans motifs, un acte regrettable (12–13).

[VICTOR. I am nine years old. I have a father, a mother, a maid. I have a motor boat which
departs and returns to its point of departure, after having shot two canon shots. I have my
very own toothbrush … My vision is good and my judgment is sound, and thanks to these
attributes I saw you commit, without reason, a regrettable act.]

The allusion to this “regrettable act” of adultery becomes more obvious when
Victor starts a game of mimicry, imitating his father’s voice and the words his
father would use, as he addresses a crying Lili: “Ne pleurez pas, Lili, ne pleurez
pas, chère petite fille” (14) [Don’t cry. Lili, don’t cry, dear little girl]. Meanwhile,
still imitating his father’s voice, Victor embraces Lili and continues in these words:

VICTOR. … Je vous sauverai. Comptez sur moi, et au petit jour, je vous apporterai moi-même
la bonne nouvelle dans votre chambre. … (Il se lève d’un bond et se met à crier de toutes ses
forces, les bras levés.) Priez pour nous, priez pour nous, priez pour nous! (Puis il part d’un
grand éclat de rire) (14–15).

[VICTOR. … I will save you. Count on me, and tomorrow morning, I myself will bring you
good news to your room. … (He stands up and starts wailing, with arms raised.) Pray for us,
pray for us, pray for us! (Then he bursts into great laughter).]

Victor’s spontaneous pretend play ends with his laughter as he ridicules his
father and Lili, particularly in the act of praying.
A similar mimetic language in another child’s mouth reveals in the following
scene that Victor’s father, Mr. Charles Paumelle, has committed adultery again.
His mistress is Mrs. Thérèse Magneau, the mother of Esther, Victor’s best friend:

ESTER. Alors, voilà. Je reste, on me jette un livre: “Bonjour Charles, bonjour, Thérèse. Où est
le cher Antoine?” Papa dormait. Ils se sont assis sur le canapé, et voilà ce que j’ai entendu.
Mamam disait: “Friselis, friselis, friselis.” Ton papa: “Réso, réso, réso …” (19).

[ESTHER. Well, here it goes. I stay, they throw me a book: “Good morning Charles, good morning,
Thérèse. Where is your dear Antoine?” Dad was asleep. They sat on the sofa, and here is what I
heard. Mom was saying: “Friselis, friselis, friselis.” Your dad: “Réso, réso, réso ….”]

Esther recounts the lovers’ scene for Victor in which the adults use children’s
language. The repeated, apparently meaningless words (“friselis” and “réso”)
are spoken by the children in a mocking fashion. This parody becomes a harsh
criticism of the adults’ hypocritical behavior, when Victor and Esther decide to
perform it for all the adult characters as entertainment. One of the characters,
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 97

General Etienne Lonsegur, had suggested that the two children are a perfect
match and should “jouer papa et maman” [play daddy and mommy], which is
when Victor and Esther decide to play the scene:

LE GENERAL. C’est cela, jouez-nous papa et maman. Ah, quelle bonne idée. Là, Victor, tu es
le papa. Esther, tu es la maman. Et c’est la femme qui commence, bien entendu.
Un longue silence, pendant lequel Victor parle bas à Esther. Esther et Victor vont jouer la
scène que la petite fille surprit entre Charles et Thérèse.
ESTER. Friselis, friselis, friselis.
VICTOR. Réso, réso, réso.
ESTER. Carlo, je m’idole en tout.
VICTOR. Treize, ô baigneur muet.
ESTER. Mais si Antoine, là d’un coup.
VICTOR. Ton cou me sauverait (34–5).

[THE GENERAL. It’s this, let’s play daddy and mommy. Ah, what a good idea. There, Victor,
you are the daddy. Esther, you are the mom. And of course it’s the mom who gets started.
A long silence during which Victor whispers into Esther’s ears. Esther and Victor will act out
the scene that Esther witnessed between Charles and Thérèse.
ESTHER. Friselis, friselis, friselis.
VICTOR. Réso, réso, réso.
ESTHER. Carlo, I am passionate about everything.
VICTOR. Thirteen, oh silent swimmer.
ESTHER. But if Antoine there suddenly …
VICTOR. Your neck would save me.]

The General has defined the rules of the game: he states which game the two
children should play in the first place, what role each should play, and who
should begin. In the meantime, the players, like monkeys, obey these rules
strictly while at the same time enjoying the freedom to act at will. Thus, they
imitate their parents’ words and assume their images. They do a successful job,
judging from the effect of this scene. In their pretend play, while Esther plays her
mother and Victor plays his father, they guide us toward a better understanding
of “how children come to construct, experience, and implement their models
of the world” (Goldman xvi). Despite the fact that everyone pretends to have
understood nothing from the childish dialogue, a dialogue that uses a lovers’
code, everyone is profoundly disturbed and they remain silent. The most
disturbed of all is Antoine Magneau, Esther’s father, who, in addition to being
the cuckold, is treated by all as a fool due to his recurrent, vivid, and disturbing
memories from the Franco-Prussian War of 1877. More precisely, Antoine is
considered crazy “because he constantly retells the story of Bazaine, the French
marshal known as a traitor for surrendering the town of Metz to the enemy
during the Franco-Prussian war” (Beachler Severs 124). Victor’s laughter alone
disturbs the silence and exacerbates the newly introduced crisis in this small
bourgeois friendly circle, which has gathered for a festive evening to celebrate
the boy’s ninth birthday. Interestingly, the two children, without yet knowing
they are half-sister-and-brother (both being Charles’ children), commit the
most intelligent act of disobedience in their obedience. Victor triumphs, as his
name suggests, thanks to his games. He began with his games of signifiers, and
proceeded to mimicry games that now culminate in a “dada” game (an allusion
98 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

to Dada), an alea type of game. Victor plays the latter with the General and here
are the rules of this game, in which imagination plays a seminal role:

VICTOR. Eh bien, je voudrais jouer à dada avec vous.

LE GENERAL. Quoi?
VICTOR. Oui, comme Henri IV. Vous vous mettez à quatre pattes, j’enfourche ma monture
et on fait le tour de la table. Et qu’importe qui frappe, les ambassadeurs du roi d’Espagne
peuvent attendre (37).

[VICTOR. Eh, well, I would like to play horse with you.

THE GENERAL. What?
VICTOR. Yes, like Henri IV. You crawl, I sit on your back on my horse and we go around the
table. And whoever knocks at the door, the ambassadors of Spain can wait.]

The General, having promised to play with Victor, takes the role of a child and
plays the horse, despite Victor’s father’s objections that the General should
not feel obliged to engage in this belittling behavior. The first act ends with the
triumph in which both Victor and Esther (who observes the scene) have a great
time. Equally, the General, who incarnates Duty, loses his inhibitions momentarily
and offers the most satisfying idea to the children: a reversal of roles. In this
reversal, Victor commands the General-horse, called “cocotte,” and the latter
obeys his orders:

Le général se prend au jeu, et imite le cheval. Il hennit, rue, se cabre, etc. On assiste à une
sorte de dressage.
VICTOR. Arrière, arrière, là, là.
Il lui donne un morceau de sucre dans les creux de la main. Le cheval se calme, Victor monte
en selle.
Hue! Hue!
Gêne pour tout le monde, sauf pour Esther qui se tord (38).

[The General gets wrapped up in the game and mimics the horse. He neighs, rears up and
charges, etc. We witness a form of horse breaking.
VICTOR. Back, back, there, there!
He gives him a piece of sugar in his hands. The horse is calm. Victor gets into the saddle.
Hue! Hue!
Everybody is annoyed, except for Esther, who bursts into laughter.]

Victor continues breaking in his horse by giving it sugar, and at times, the spur.
This game manifests Victor’s ultimate goal for his party: to free, for better or
worse, the adults from their hypocrisies and the constraints that their logic
imposes on them, as the General’s following words demonstrate: “Je dis
toujours le contraire de ce que je pense” (42) [I always say the opposite of what
I am thinking]. Through his mastery of games, Victor himself now becomes the
director of a theatrical scene, in which all adults are forced to act out their true
selves. At this point, he is the one who sets the rules of the game, as he proceeds
to distribute the adults’ roles in the third scene of the first act:

VICTOR (annonçant). Les voilà: L’Enfant Terrible, le Père Indigne, la Bonne Mère, la Femme
Adultère, le Cocu, le vieux Bazaine (20).
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 99

[VICTOR (announcing). Here they are: The Terrible Child, The Indignant Father, the Good
Mother, the Adulterous Woman, the Cuckold, the old Bazaine.]

In this mimetic game, Victor finds correspondences between the members of

his surroundings and these roles. Such correspondences constitute the logical
background of Victor’s new game that discloses the adults’ absurd behavior. In
the next scene of the second act, Victor spies on his father and his lover, Thérèse,
interrupting their romantic interlude. Interestingly, during this scene, Victor
learns that Esther is his half-sister. Victor uses his imaginative vocabulary to the
full and addresses Thérèse as his “maman” in a form of supplication. In Victor’s
speech, we discern his orgiastic imagination but also his mixed feelings toward
the new noun: a sense of betrayal and frustration, a desire to get revenge and
to ridicule Thérèse and his father, who, like Lili, responds by slapping him in the
face. When his father asks Victor to finish all his games and comedies and go to
bed, Victor expresses his wish to sleep with Lili, a most scandalous request to
everyone present. The adults’ reaction provokes Victor’s identity crisis:

VICTOR. … Ah, mais à la fin, qui suis-je? Suis-je transfiguré? Ne m’appelle-je plus Victor?
Suis-je condamné à mener l’existence honteuse du fils prodigue? Enfin, dites-le moi. Suis-je
l’incarnation du vice et du remords? Ah! S’il en est ainsi, plutôt la mort que le déshonneur!
Plutôt le sort tragique de l’enfant prodigue! (Il se prend la tête dans les mains) (44).

[VICTOR. Ah, but in the end, who am I? Am I transfigured? Am I no longer called Victor? Am
I condemned to live the shameful existence of the prodigal son? At last, tell me. Am I the
embodiment of vice and remorse? Ah! If this is the case, better death than dishonor! Better
the tragic fate of the prodigal child! (He takes his head in his hands).]

After a series of identifications through his games, these words come naturally
to Victor. For, in a pretend play, “we overlay one identity onto another such
that both are immediately and simultaneously recognizable” (Goldman 5). The
question “Who am I?”—reminiscent of Nadja’s opening lines and of the game
played between the couple, Martha and Yves, in The Nightfall Hotel—brings
the problem of human expression to the center of Victor’s concerns. His games
finally invest him with an illusory power. There is a sense of something lacking
in each one of the ludic avatars that Victor performs. The frantic game ends in a
revelation for him: that there is something missing in his identity. Was his game
playing a desperate attempt on his part to acquire a sense of wholeness? In other
words, was it an identity game? Yet Victor’s identity crisis is not the only one that
occurs in the play. Everyone seems confused and embarrassed to the point that
only a miracle could reverse the situation. According to Charles, “Il faudrait un
miracle” (46) [It would take a miracle].
The miracle does indeed happen shortly, when a woman of extraordinary
beauty, dressed in an evening gown, appears in the middle of this chaos. Her
name is Ida Mortemart and, despite her beauty, she has a defect; she is a
“pétomane” (a farter), something that makes everyone present laugh heartily:

IDA. Riez! Riez! Je sais bien, allez, on ne peut pas s’empêcher d’en rire. Je ne vous en veux
pas. Riez donc! Il n’y aura après ni gêne de votre côté, ni gêne du mien. Cela nous calmera
tous. J’ai l’habitude. Il n’y a qu’un remède, c’est le rire.
100 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Ils rient de toutes leurs forces pendant qu’elle pète toujours, la tête dans ses mains.
Graduellement les rires s’arrêtent. On attendra que ceux de la salle s’arrêtent aussi pour
continuer la scène (50).

[IDA. Laugh! Laugh! Laugh! I do know, come on, we cannot prevent anybody from laughing.
I don’t mind. So laugh then! Soon there will be no embarrassment on your behalf or on
mine. This will appease us all. I am used to it. There is but one remedy, and that is laughter.
They laugh with gusto while she keeps breaking wind, her head in her hands. Gradually
laughter stops. We will also wait for complete silence to continue the scene.]

Ida’s words sound much like those in the brochure “Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry and
Public hostility” (1930), where Vitrac and Artaud set absolute laughter as their
final goal: “we propose … as our goal: the absolute laughter, the laughter that
goes from the conspicuous immobility to bursting into tears” (Béhar, Théâtre
ouvert 191). This is exactly what Ida Mortemart brings about in this play with
her affliction. Through her unavoidable breaking of a social code of decorum,
she leads everyone to absolute laughter and thus creates the perfect situation
for the playing of “jeux d’esprit” in which Victor, the prodigy, excels. When Ida
suggests that she tell her own story from A to Z, she says they already know A
and Z. Victor, however, counter-argues that they only know her P (that is, her
being a “pétomane”) thus far:

VICTOR. Nous connaissons P. (Gêne.) Votre pâleur, votre peine, vos perles, vos paupières,
vos pleurs, votre privilège. Nous connaîtrons votre passage … (51).

[VICTOR. We know P. (Embarrassment.) Your pale color, your pain, your pearls, your cheeks,
your cries, your privilege. We will recognize your footsteps ….]

Here the limitations of translation do not convey the full range of word play; the
final element in Victor’s list of “p” words, “passage,” is loaded with the sense of
passing from one world to another, as well as with the play on Ida’s “passing,”
both in the sense of walking by, and passing wind. These words create another
wave of shame among the adults, who think Victor a bizarre child, a child whose
fervent imagination talks to “angels,” or a child who deserves punishment. This
conversation leads to Victor’s premonition that he is going to die. Addressing his
mother, Émilie Paumelle, he says: “Maman, tu es enceinte d’un enfant mort”
(52) [Mommy, you are pregnant with a dead child]. No one understands these
words, yet somehow they are related to Ida Mortemart’s coming, as her name
also suggests.13 This is why she also scares little Esther, who disappears in the
garden, leading everyone on an anguished search for her. This search reminds us
of the search for the little girl that disappeared in the play Les Détraquées. While
the adults are searching for Esther, Victor has a conversation with Ida, in which
he asks her to instruct him on how to fall in love. Ida whispers something in his
ear and then departs while addressing these words to him:

IDA. Monstre! Monstre! Tu te présenteras de ma part demain aux Magasins du Louvre,

rayon des jouets. Il y aura pour toi une petite carabine, une petite carabine à balles (55).

[IDA. Monster! Monster! You will go on my behalf to the toy section of the stores in the
Louvre. There is a small gun, a small loaded gun for you.]
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 101

Ida’s words—an invitation to Victor to commit suicide—are followed by a truly

incomprehensible scene. Antoine, Esther’s father, returns on stage and behaves
with unprecedented violence under the pretext of being insane:

ANTOINE. Oui, je suis fou, et après? (à Thérèse). Allez, toi et la gosse, en route, et adieu.
Adieu à tout le monde. Encore heureux que je ne vous massacre pas tous!
Il entraîne sa femme et sa fille vers la porte. Tout le monde est atterré; mais Antoine reparaît
tout à coup, suivi de Thérèse et d’Ester.
ANTOINE (à Charles). Espèce d’idiot. Il ne comprend rien à la plaisanterie. Hein? Était-ce
réussi? Était-ce bien joué? (58).

[ANTOINE. Yes, I am a fool, so what? (to Thérèse). Come on, you and the kid, go, and
goodbye. Goodbye to everyone. You should be happy that I do not massacre all of you!
He drags his wife and his daughter to the door. Everybody is caught by surprise; but Antoine
suddenly reappears, followed by Thérèse and Esther.
ANTOINE (to Charles). Idiot, he doesn’t understand the joke at all. Huh? Was it successful?
Was it played well?]

Victor’s role as leader of the game is now played by an adult, Antoine, who
plays the fool in order to get back at his rival, Charles. The game’s function has
accomplished its goal at this point. From now on, a bourgeois drama is really
enacted with Emilie and Charles torturing each other with words, while reading
excerpts from the newspaper Le Monde. They argue and they are ready to kill
each other, while Victor repeatedly enters their room to tell them, to no avail,
that his stomach aches. In the end, a doctor is called to verify Victor’s feverish
delirium that leads to the boy’s death:

LE DOCTEUR. Et voilà le sort des enfants obstinés.

Le docteur sort, tandis qu un rideau noir tombe. On entend deux coups de feu. Le rideau se
relève. Emilie et Charles sont étendus aux pieds du lit de l’enfant, séparés par un revolver
fumant. Une porte s’ouvre, et la bonne paraît.
LILI. Mais c’est un drame! (89–90).

[THE DOCTOR. And this is the destiny of recalcitrant children.

The doctor exits while a black curtain falls. We hear two gunshots. The curtain rises again.
Emilie and Charles are lying at the foot of the child’s bed, with a smoking revolver between
them. A door opens, and the maid enters.
LILI. How tragic!]

Lili’s closing words confirm that a drama has been enacted as part of Vitrac’s
play, “to create that self-conscious awareness of the mocking of a theatre, the
awareness of a game being played,” a very modernist attitude (Melzer Henkin,
Latest Rage 192). The multifarious game that Victor started, ended as a drama
and proved to be more than a serious act. It affected various functions in this play,
the most important of which is the emphasis on the revelatory/liberating power
of words and their subsequent capacity to generate laughter. As such, games are
a weapon that enables the children to come to power in Victor or Children in
Power. The game is ultimately an instrument of role reversal between children
and adults. Vitrac has taught his audience that, through play, it is possible for
automatism to be staged and effective; to borrow Beachler Sever’s words,
102 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

[t]he concept of automatic writing for the theater, however, as it is interpreted by Vitrac,
becomes a game in the belief that words, when dissociated from their literal meanings
and from rational thought, can renew contact with the unconscious and with the world
of dreams. Dialogues based upon these new and fresh verbal associations produce the
non-sequiturs and the unexpected verbal puns are typical of most of Vitrac’s plays (91; my
emphasis).

Such dissociation of words from rational thought obviously subverted normal

power relations. Since surrealist dialogue gave free rein to the players’
imagination, it enabled them to see something as something else (like the
“one into another”), and in this way, to change their view of seeing and thus
of perceiving. Victor, through the childish games of his dialogues, passed from
one ludic pole to the other, from paidia to ludus. In each case, this terrible child
mastered the rules of the games until the moment he gave in to them. In Victor,
“game” has been employed in the way surrealist games functioned, but also
as pure improvisational children’s games, in the form of pretend play in which
“we witness behavior that moves between mimesis and mythos” (Goldman
xvii). “Play as pretense emerges very much as an imaginatively constructed and
linguistically realized pathway between simulation and mythologization” (ibid.).
This combination functioned as a vortex that engulfed everyone involved in this
play. Like Hamlet, who states during the dumb show, “the play is the thing,”
Victor and Esther prove that “their play is the thing” when they play their lovers’
scene, a scene purely grounded in reality. Basically, Vitrac shows how complex
“game” is and how manipulative a tool it can be, even when it appears as pure
alea at the hands of children. “Game” has the potential to effect change and,
therefore, can prove to be the best means of carrying social change; Victor was,
in the end, one of the most subversive creations of the late 1920s.
The history of the reception of this play’s various productions is the best guide
to appreciate its final effect, from its first performance in 1928 to its latest one in
1998, which placed Victor next to Hamlet.14 The first performances of Victor or
Children in Power as part of the program of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry took place in
La Comédie des Champs-Elysées on December 24 and 29, 1928 and on January 5,
1929, under Artaud’s direction. Most of the spectators were scandalized by the
irreverent character of this first production—precisely Artaud’s goal (Hubert 182–
3). It was Artaud’s surrealist direction, in particular, that shocked the audience,
as Jarry’s Ubu-roi had in 1896. For instance, in the first act, an enormous birthday
cake covered almost the entire table, decorated with huge candles that created
a macabre rather than a festive ambiance, anticipating, of course, Victor’s
death. “Faithful to Dali, this surrealist image,” Hubert informs us, “announces
to the spectator that he/she is perhaps attending a funeral” [“elle annonce au
spectateur qu’il est peut-être convié à un enterrement” (182)]. However, a few
critics saw this production favorably for its sense of originality, an originality that
“is its surreality itself” (Metzidakis, André Breton Today 35).15 For instance, a
German journalist named Paul Block, wrote in the Berliner Tageblatt:

Roger Vitrac a écrit un drame incroyable, un drame incroyablement insolent, et dans les détails
incroyablement comique. … Ce fut la représentation théâtrale la plus curieuse qu’il m’ait été
donné de voir pendant mes huit années d’après-guerre à Paris (quoted in Hubert 182).
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 103

[Roger Vitrac wrote an unbelievable drama, an incredibly insolent drama with incredible
details. … It has been the most curious theatrical representation that I happened to see
during my eight post-war years in Paris.]

Through the surrealist symbols of the gigantic prodigy at play and the unforgettable
Ida Mortemart, Vitrac ridiculed all ill-founded ideals of a bourgeois society, such
as religion, family, and patriotism—the very ideals that Breton loathed. In Victor,
according to Artaud, “[l]e titre seul indique un irrespect de base pour toutes les
valeurs établies” (quoted in Hubert 183). This drama, Artaud continues, “tantôt
lyrique, tantôt ironique, tantôt direct, était dirigé contre la famille bourgeoise,
avec comme discriminants: l’adultère, l’inceste, la scatologie, la colère, la poésie
surréaliste, le patriotisme, la folie, la honte at la mort” (quoted in Hubert
182) [This drama, at times lyrical, at times ironic, at times direct, was directed
against the bourgeois family with these characteristic features: adultery, incest,
scatology, rage, surrealist poetry, patriotism, folly, shame, and death.]

Henriette after Victor

Valaoritis emulated the subversive effects of Victor or Children in Power in his
Henriette où est-elle passée? (Henriette Where Did She Go?), a loose adaptation
of the former, and a parody of gothic dramas in general. Valaoritis himself
calls it “a machinery of free associations.”16 Like Victor, Henriette is a drama in
three acts that also unfolds in a bourgeois environment and is equally full of
miraculous events. The main character is Mervyn Debout,17 who is not a child
but who behaves like Victor. Like him, he entraps everyone around him through
his mimicry games. Also, like Victor, Mervyn prefers to disappear rather than live
a miserable life. This is why he endlessly disguises himself. However, in the end,
it is not he but a little girl, his own daughter, Henriette, named after her mother,
who emerges as the victor of the play.
The problem starts when Mervyn’s wife, Henriette, abandons him. Various
people visit Mervyn’s apartment looking for her. The first person is a woman
called Zinaide Lisbonne, who is on a mission for the sake of Mervyn’s father,
who is looking for his son. The second person is Henriette’s ex-husband, Molitor
de Semblable, who at some point shocks Mervyn when he shows him a picture
of Henriette. Convinced that he cannot escape his destiny, Mervyn tries once
more to liberate himself but another man appears, Adrien Lecoureur, who is
also looking for Henriette, but for another reason. She was the bet he placed in
a game he played in a casino the previous night:

LE COUREUR. Je ne suis pas venu pour l’argent, mon cher comte. Je suis venu, comme vous
l’avez sûrement deviné, un homme du monde que vous êtes, pour la femme. C’est elle que
j’ai perdue. C’était elle l’enjeu de ma mise (11).

[LE COUREUR. I have not come for the money my dear Count. I came, as you might have
already guessed, since you are a man of the world, for the woman. It is she whom I have
lost. She was what was at stake in my bet.]
104 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

The next person to enter the stage is a young woman called Max, or Maximiliane,
a fashion designer. She brings a costume for Mervyn and while she is waiting to
be paid in the hall, Henriette’s father, Mr. Buisson, enters the scene, full of rage
and ready to punish his son-in-law:

BUISSON. Je viens voir ma fille que mon beau-fils—dit-on—a dissimulé depuis deux ans
dans la cave de cet immeuble. On dit que c’est un criminel, un vicieux, un sadique, un
anormal, un être lunaire épileptique et détraqué (15).

[BUISSON. I have come to see my daughter whom my son-in-law—they say—has been

hiding for two years now in the basement of this apartment building. They say that he is a
criminal, a vicious man, a sadist, an abnormal, epileptic, and deranged lunatic.]

Mervyn, disguised as a “suffragette,” escapes his father-in-law’s wrath. Moreover,

he presents himself as Henriette and tells her story, that she married Mervyn
only to be abandoned by him so that he could explore the world. At this moment,
Mervyn, disguised as his wife Henriette, goes to the other room with Max, while
Buisson reads a note that has dropped from Max’s bag. It reads:

Ma chère Maximiliane,
Je vous ai convoquée ici pour vous dire que je vous aime à la folie. Si vous ne vous
abandonnez pas à moi instantanément, je partirai pour les Indes avec le prochain vaisseau.
J’ai tué une femme pour vous. Henriette est morte ce matin à huit heures dans la cave.
Apportez la robe. Il faudra l’habiller pour l’enterrer. N’en parlez à personne. Car vous savez
il y a des curieux. Faites-moi confiance. A tout à l’heure mon amour, mon adorée.
Signé.
Romanoff (18–19).

[Dear Maximiliane,
I have summoned you to tell you that I am crazy for you. If you do not give yourself
immediately to me, I will take the next ship to India. I killed a woman for you. Henriette died
this morning at 8 o’clock in the basement. Bring the funeral dress. Don’t talk about this with
anyone. For you know there are nosy people. Trust me. See you soon, my love, my beloved.
Signed
Romanoff.]

This note leads one to believe that Mervyn could also be disguised as Romanoff.
The second act takes place in a Vatican cave (an allusion to André Gide’s Les
caves du Vatican),18 where all the men who are looking for Henriette are enacting
a scene of Sainte Henriette’s canonization and resurrection. Mervyn plays the
role of a cardinal while directing this scene for television:

MERVYN. Adrien, vous avez été admirable. Votre discours impromptu est un bijou. Et vous
Molitor, vous êtes un acteur superbe. Jamais on n’a vu une telle possession sur la scène.
Mes félicitations! (23).

[MERVYN. Adrien you have been admirable. Your improvisational discourse was a gem.
And you, Molitor, you are a fabulous actor. I have never seen such possession on stage.
Congratulations!]

However, while the scene continues, Mervyn, the cardinal, begins insulting
everyone. Instead of reacting, they accept Mervyn’s vicious behavior simply as a
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 105

well-acted role. At this point, Max appears to display her baby (that she will soon
deliver) as Henriette’s infant. In the end, she plays the macabre role of Henriette
in the coffin while everybody calls for Henriette. The scene ends with a Grand-
Guignol type of episode: Mervyn is beaten to death by Zinaide and Buisson.
The third act is the closest to Victor. Part of the décor is even similar to Victor’s.
An enormous birthday cake appears, with 20 gigantic candles, for Henriette’s
twentieth birthday. Her parents, Zinaide Lisbonne (step-mother) and Mr.
Buisson, are present while the incestuous relationship in the family is revealed.
Max, Henriette, and Mervyn are half-brothers and sisters. At this moment, the
lights change and show the house of a giant, while a pair of scissors hangs on the
wall, echoing the knife-like image in the painting of the opening scene of Vitrac’s
The Mysteries of Love. In this setting we hear Mervyn and Henriette’s voices
through a megaphone:

MERVYN (Avec une voix de géant). Hola, qui me chatouille le petit doigt du pied. Il y a des
puces par ici.
LA VOIX D’HENRIETTE (Une voix de petite fille). Anisette et coca cola. Je veux de l’anisette
et du coca cola.
MERVYN. Tu l’auras, mon chéri, quand ces imbéciles auront cessé de nous importuner. On
m’a volé ma montre. (On voit sur le coin de la scène une montre énorme).
LA VOIX D’HENRIETTE. Tue-les tous. On en a assez de cette racaille.
MERVYN. Pas encore. Le moment viendra de les punir. Pour l’instant, je les laisse bien
dormir. Hé hé hé (60).

[MERVYN (With a voice of a giant). Hola, who is tickling my toe? There are fleas here.
HENRIETTE’S VOICE (A voice of a little girl). Anis and coca-cola. I want anis and coca-cola.
MERVYN. You’ll have them, my dear, when all these stupid people stop bothering us. They
stole my watch. (We see on the corner of the stage an enormous watch).
HENRIETTE’S VOICE. Kill them all. We have had enough of this mess.
MERVYN. Not yet. The moment will come to punish them. For the moment, I let them sleep
well. Ha ha ha.]

Suddenly, a gigantic knife appears and Mervyn touches the cake, from which
emerges a fairy doll which says:

LA FEE. Je sais, moi, où se trouve Henriette. Sur le toit, transformée en chatte par le patron.
Le toit brûle: il neige. Dépêchez-vous (63).

[THE FAIRY. I know where Henriette is. On the roof, the boss changed her into a cat. The roof
is burning: it’s snowing. Hurry up!]

Then Mervyn takes a revolver out of his pocket and forces everyone to sign a
contract of collective suicide. Only at this point do we understand that we face
yet another scene, since Mervyn addresses all of them in these words: “Vous
m’entendez? Vous mourrez tous. Dans la scène précédente vous m’avez assassiné!
À présent c’est votre tour. Alignez-vous au mur, hauts les mains. Allez-y” (65).
[Do you hear me? You will all die. In the previous scene you assassinated me.
Now, it’s your turn. Backs to the wall! Hands up. Come-on!]. In fact, these words
confirm that Valaoritis modeled this play after another surrealist game called
“Murder” that Breton used to play during his exile in Marseilles, from June 1939
106 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

to July 1941. As Mary Jayne Gold states, this game “acted as a great catharsis to
our [their] troubled souls” (quoted in Polizzotti 489). In this game, with lights
out, a secretly designated assassin would “kill” a chosen victim; it was then up
to the other players to determine who did it (ibid). The play’s game within the
game continues until the revolver is out of order and Mervyn suggests that in the
meantime they play other games:

ADRIEN. Qu’est-ce qu’on peut faire pour passer le temps?

MERVYN. On joue aux billes.
ADRIEN. Ou aux quilles.
MERVYN. Alors jouons aux billes.
ADRIEN. On joue l’héritage?
MERVYN. Mais je suis déshérité.
ADRIEN. Aucune importance. Moi aussi.
MERVYN. Alors jouons à l’héritage.
Ils se mettent à genoux et commencent à jouer (70).

[ADRIEN. What can we do to pass our time?

MERVYN. Let’s play billiards.
ADRIEN. Or lawn bowling.
MERVYN. Well let’s play billiards.
ADRIEN. Shall we play the inheritance game?
MERVYN. But I am disinherited.
ADRIEN. It doesn’t matter. Me too.
MERVYN. Well, let’s play the inheritance game.
(They bend on their knees and they start playing).]

Soon a knock is heard on the door and the light fades. Henriette finally appears,
while all the others stop playing games. The surprising thing is that instead of
a woman, Henriette is a little girl of only five years. Addressing Mervyn as her
father, she kills him with the newly repaired revolver. If the surrealist element
reached its peak in Victor’s gigantic size at just nine years of age and in Ida’s
Sibylic appearance and disappearance, here it reaches its peak in the disclosure of
Henriette’s complicated identity. She is Henriette/Max’s and Mervyn’s baby, born
only the previous day. Henriette’s mysterious messianic appearance is symbolic.
Like Victor, Henriette attains a mythological quality. In fact, she may be another
incarnation of Mervyn himself. After all, as Valaoritis admits, he was intrigued by
“a theatrical alchemy,”19 mainly shown in the successive transformations of his
main characters. As Nicole Ollier claims,

the psychic metamorphosis is fundamental for the surrealist alchemist. Marked by

Rimbaud’s “Je est un autre” and Breton’s “existence est ailleurs,” the interlocutor [in
Valaoritis’s work] never ceases to change person, number, gender, substance and identity
… The self is multiplied ad infinitum, ‘I’ is the addition of its successive selves … The subject
lives numerous lives in just one life (“Métamorphose” 153–4).

This theatrical alchemy occurs too when Valaoritis reverses Greek myths by
making a young girl a patricide. This cruel child, like Victor, shows no mercy at all:

HENRIETTE. Finies les plaisanteries d’autrefois. Je suis ici moi et je représente l’Âge
Nouveau, l’âge impitoyable et cruel, l’âge du diamant où les actes et les paroles ne seront
plus interchangeables. Je suis Henriette. Je suis votre héritage (73).
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 107

[HENRIETTE. Gone are the jokes of the past. I am here in person and I represent the New
Age. The merciless and cruel age, the diamond era when all acts and words won’t be
interchangeable. I am Henriette. I am your legacy.]

This is indeed Henriette, the symbol of a new heritage. The mystery of her
absence has been solved. She, like Victor, embodies the myth of the precocious
child, and like him, she does not stand for hypocrisy and incestuous relationships
in her family. However, she is luckier than Victor as she remains in command of
the game, in contrast to Victor, who is eventually consumed by it.
In Henriette, indeed, it is the mimicry game form, in Caillois’ sense, that is
employed most of all, visualized in the endless play with Mervyn’s successive
transformations. The excessive use of mimicry deliberately creates confusion in
the play and aims at ridiculing long-established bourgeois values, such as religion
and family. Disguise, doubles, and innumerable “theatre within the theatre”
scenes constitute Valaoritis’s endless experimentation with the concept of play
itself. In the end, mimicry gives way to a traditional children’s game, the game of
heritage, that prepares for the arrival of the new Henriette.
Her miraculous appearance puts an end to the question of her disappearance,
yet introduces a new question about Mervyn’s identity: Who is he really?
Thanks to the use of ludic techniques, Mervyn’s identity has once again become
unraveled. Henriette’s character was but a pretext for the formation of a new
version of a surrealist game invented by Valaoritis. Named “Henriette où est-
elle passée?” it was based on the leitmotif formed by the same question, which
was spoken by each player throughout the play. This “searching” game appealed
to each player’s imagination, as Henriette “represents everyone’s ideal and
proves to be the master of the game” (Bosnakis 97). Henriette is invented by
each character, only to appear finally like another Victor—a mature and terribly
intelligent girl who kills the past to announce a pitiless new future.

Playing Ping-Pong with Language: Valaoritis’s Round Tables

Valaoritis undertakes a similar experiment with ludic strategies in another of his
surrealist plays; The Round Tables, a three-act play, has never been performed
and was written shortly before Henriette Where Did She Go? In fact, although
it draws on the absurdist Arthur Adamov’s play Le Ping-Pong (1955), which
fascinated Valaoritis, The Round Tables is presented by the Greek playwright
himself as a purely surrealist experiment with games. The two epigrams placed
at the beginning of the play serve to inscribe it in the surrealist context. The first
epigram concerns Breton’s definition of surrealist dialogue as two simultaneous
monologues that free the speakers from the obligations of politeness; and the
second is Breton’s phrase “these unprejudiced interlocutors,” which emphasizes
the interlocutors’ free imagination (Seaver and Lane 35). Both epigrams introduce
the reader to the ludics of the play and set the frame within which The Round
Tables will unfold. With the epigrams, the title of the play also offers advance
information to the audience. Les Tables rondes is an allusion to yet another
game cherished by the Surrealists, the so-called “Who is a medium?” borrowed
108 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

from the Romantic tradition. Victor Hugo’s account of spiritualism in “Les Tables
tournantes de Jersey (1853–55)” is an account of Hugo’s experiments with
medium sessions after the death of his daughter Léopoldine. It offers a detailed
description of the mission of these sessions, during which people sat around a
table and invoked spirits of the dead, in order to cross into another world and
achieve a sense of unification with the cosmos.20
A frantic game conceived by some child-like interlocutor-players serves as the
frame in The Round Tables. The game starts as an innocent joke (in response to
a chance happening) and ends as a tragic farce. This protean game that takes
and changes shape through dialogue as opposed to action, is the organizing
principal of the “tragic comedy” The Round Tables. The play is about three young
men, Anastase, André, and Pierre Ponce, who spend their time in a cafeteria.
There they play tricks on two strangers whom pure chance procures for their
entertainment. Their first victim is a country girl, Anabelle. Her name alludes to
“la Belle Helene” (Helen of Troy), and it immediately marks her as a target to be
conquered. Their second victim is a robust and strange man called Nero. He is
endowed with the prophetic power of a medium at best, but also with insanity
like his namesake, the Roman emperor, a connection that is strengthened by
the play’s Nero calling himself “august” (17). The young men weave a romance
between the two victims and entangle themselves in an antagonistic way in this
romance of their making. They initiate an endless game, the rules of which are
constantly shifting and, in the end, turn against those who started the game.
The Round Tables is essentially about trivial events. Action is simulated
because nothing really happens except for the constant talk about action. This
simulated action unfolds in a café, which is referred to as “Two Pearls,” or “Three
Peals,” or “Two Laurels,” or “Little Babylon.” The name constantly changes and
the incongruent time references confuse the reader and function as a reminder
of the surrealist setting where all contradictions are absorbed and where there
are no boundaries between reality and dream, or life and death.
The first surrealist game that Valaoritis explicitly employs in The Round Tables
is modeled after the now well-known metaphor game of “one into another.” It is
played according to the following rules, as Mel Gooding explains:

one player withdraws from the room and chooses an object (or a person, an idea, etc.) for
himself. While he is absent, the rest of the players also choose an object. When the first
player returns, he is told what object they have chosen. He must now describe his own
object in terms of the properties of the object chosen by the others, making the comparison
more and more obvious as he proceeds, until they are able to guess its identity. The first
player begins with a sentence, such as, “I am an (object)” … (31).

This game, that draws on the notion of the surrealist object, is at work when
Anabelle’s limbs erotically excite the imagination of Anastase and André as
follows:

ANASTASE. Elle a la jambe en éventail!

ANDRÉ. Et l’oreille trop courte!
ANASTASE. Des mains champignons!
ANDRÉ. Des cheveux en carrosse! (6)
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 109

[ANASTASE. Her leg looks like a fan!

ANDRÉ. And her ear is too tiny!
ANASTASE. Her hands look like mushrooms!21
ANDRÉ. Her hair is the hair of a coach!]

Anabelle is treated as a “being-object,” whose qualities of the marvelous

become obvious after their “baptism” by these young men. Anabelle becomes a
toy or, at best, a stimulus for men’s imaginations, reminiscent of Breton’s poem
“L’Union libre” (1931), as well as Valaoritis’s own later poem “Golem” (1987),
in which “a female doll is evoked through its components” (Ollier, “Cultural
Cross-Breeding” 45). Each part of Anabelle’s body, scrutinized by the male gaze,
activates these men’s creative potential. Their linguistic ability is so intensely
inspired by Anabelle’s physicality that it gives expression to the competitive
character of these men. We find here another surrealist game—introduced in
1922 and in which Vitrac himself also participated—where each participant
responds to the question: “Why do you prefer this?” The question is applied to
a list of 37 objects/subjects, including the categories of “woman,” “body part,”
and “love” (Garrigues 53). The compiled answers constituted an anti-poem,
similar to the anti-blazon form. The male friends sitting at the café’s round tables
undertake a similar contest, full of erotic allusions referring to Anabelle’s body
parts. These images surprise both the dramatis personae and the audience with
their extreme arbitrariness and their poetics of fragmentation. In this “masculine
discourse par excellence,” to use Jeffrey Charles Persels’ words, “[w]oman suffers
further displacement from fetishized body part to abstracted stimulus for self-
gratification and glorification. The blazon is not a poem about women at all, it
is about men” (133). On the level of player versus player (or character versus
character), this contest among males provokes an inflammatory discourse that
irritates Anabelle. Uneasy under their gaze, she engages in the game in order to
avenge herself.
Soon this surrealist game shifts to a childish mimicry that simulates sounds
from all kinds of vehicles, from boat sirens and train whistles to car horns.
Anastase and André imitate these sounds to irritate Anabelle. Jazz music plays on
a juke-box in the background, stressing the improvisational nature of their game.
Valaoritis alludes here to the raw material available for poetic composition in
terms of rhythm and sound patterns. At this point, the two young men regress
to puerility as though convinced that if one game does not work, another might.
They continue to talk over each other, as they try to guess who it is that Anabelle
is expecting:

ANASTASE. C’est l’Empereur de Chine, qu’elle attend!

ANDRÉ. Non, c’est le roi des Esquimaux!
ANASTASE. L’Aurora Borealis en personne!
ANDRÉ. Le Dalai lama en personne!
ANASTASE. Non, elle attend l’autobus!
ANDRÉ. Tu as tort! Le tramway!
ANASTASE. Il n’y a plus de tramways, Mademoiselle! Et les autocars sont parties!
ANDRÉ. Mais voyons, elle attend l’avion!
ANASTASE. Le train!
ANDRÉ. Le bateau! (9–10).
110 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

[ANASTASE. It’s the Emperor of China she is waiting for!

ANDRÉ. No. It’s the King of the Eskimos!
ANASTASE. The Aurora Borealis in person!
ANDRÉ. Dalai-Lama in person!
ANASTASE. No, she is waiting for the bus!
ANDRÉ. You’re mistaken! For the tramway!
ANASTASE. There are no tramways, Miss! No buses either!
ANDRÉ. Let’s see, she’s waiting for the plane!
ANASTASE. The train!
ANDRÉ. The boat!]

The ironic juxtaposition of well-known, real and fictionalized persons with

means of transportation suggests Valaoritis’s effort to apply another of Breton’s
premises, based on Pierre Reverdy’s statement that the more arbitrary the
juxtaposition of images, the more effective it is. In fact, the above dialogue is
barely a dialogue at all, in the sense that no communication is achieved between
the two interlocutors. Instead, each character’s words are repeated by the
other character, slightly modified, only to function as springboards to the most
audacious images of Anabelle. The appearance of Nero, who has a muscular
body and a suspect self-absorption, calls for a change of game plan. Despite his
overt strength, Nero will nevertheless become entrapped in their malicious plan,
which attempts a more sophisticated make-believe as they invent a story about
Anabelle. They pretend they are ready to save her from suicide. Here we have
a reference to the scene “Is Suicide a solution?” from “Dialogue in 1928.” Nero
falls into their trap when he makes the decision to save the girl.
Protracted convulsive laughter seals the triumph of the three young men who
end this part of their game by writing a love letter, supposedly from Anabelle
to Nero, delivered by a waiter. The message, a parody of romantic literature,
marks a turning point in that writing and reading have now become part of the
hitherto purely spoken game. The three young men momentarily feel guilty,
but their game has acquired a kind of autonomy that makes it impossible for
them to end it. They are all under Anabelle’s spell. When she “confesses” that
she desires them only as a composite of each of their traits that satisfy her
standard of masculinity, they suddenly feel their masculinity threatened and
want to withdraw from the game. Anabelle dismembers each young man in her
imagination and creates, from their limbs, a “perfect man” who is suitable to her
tastes. Whether Anabelle makes fun of the three young men or tells them the
truth is left vague. She may indeed be a liberated woman, like Breton’s Nadja,22
an “errant soul” (Breton, OC1 688). Anabelle later explains to one of them that
she is a creature of chance:

ANABELLE. J’ai toujours été la créature d’une seconde. Je suis semée aux quatre vents.
Je porte en moi des secousses auxquelles je n’ai aucune résistance. Je frappe à toutes les
portes. Finalement je me porte bien. Je suis à l’aise. N’importe quoi me convient pourvu
que ça ne dure pas. Je ne suis pas dure. Mais me durcis contre tout ce qui est permanent.
J’aime changer. Même de train. Ça m’est égal. Ça me convient (95).

[ANABELLE. I’ve always existed for only one second. I am scattered to the four winds … I
knock at all doors. I actually feel good. I am comfortable with everything provided it does
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 111

not last. I am not tough, but I am resilient against everything that tends to be permanent.
I like change. Even taking a different train. I don’t care. It suits me.]

Anabelle is no ordinary woman, but the personification of freedom itself. Her

freedom propels her desire to play with these men. Her involvement with their
game does not come merely from a desire to get revenge for having been the
target of their mockery, but also from a gratifying feeling of being the object
of a contest that justifies her existence. Her desire to be desired and, at the
same time, remain unattainable, appears in the wordplay that constitutes her
name: An/Ana/Belle/Elle. In Greek and French in succession, her name means
“If/Again/Beautiful/She,” calling to mind another surrealist game called “The
Game of Syllogisms,” in which actual syllogisms were used for all sorts of subject
matters, including the most trivial. In this game, sentences beginning with either
“If” or “When” were circulated among the surrealist players around a table.
After Anabelle’s self-description, a game of “Hide-and-Seek” follows which is
accompanied by a strange incident. A woman appears and disappears three times
on top of a music box when a waiter rings a bell. The waiter says: “C’est un jeu de
cache-cache! On se cache, on se retrouve. Nous nous cachons, on nous retrouve.
Vous vous cachez, on vous retrouve!” (39) [It’s a game of hide-and-seek! One
hides, the other finds them. We hide, they find us. You hide, we find you!].
This is perhaps the most surrealistic and important scene in the play. It evokes
the permanent concern of the Surrealists to bridge the gap between reality and
imagination by inventing a different reality. It applies the surrealist game “Ouvrez-
vous?” (Would you open the door?), which appeared in 1953 in the French review
Medium. In it, the participants recorded their reactions each time they imagined
a famous person suddenly appearing and asking them to open the door. The
originality of this game, in Garrigues’ view, lies in “the effect of surprise and the
free interplay between the real and the imaginary, as well as in the degree to which
each one of the participants is willing to reveal himself” (35).
The play ends with a switch to a vertiginous game (ilinx) planned by Nero in
order to entrap all the other characters. He pretends he knows where a secret
treasure is hidden, marks the whole parquet of the café with various signs, and
then gives a message to the waiter, who first reads it and then tears it into small
pieces. The five men all frantically pick up the pieces to try to reassemble the
note and find the hidden treasure, but to no avail. In this frantic activity, the
vertigo game reaches its peak, when the curtain falls leaving all of them out of
breath.
This last episode combines all of the four types of games classified by Roger
Caillois: agon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx. Throughout The Round Tables a number
of game combinations are used that stretch along a continuum between paidia
(the pole of spontaneity) and ludus (the pole of disciplined structure) (Cohn,
“Godot’s Games” 184). For Valaoritis, the power of game is a protean process
of transformation that stretches in a non-linear way from the pole of free
improvisation to the more sophisticated pole of games structured by rules that
generate new forms of dialogue, acquiring their meaning only in their use.
The ludic model examined in The Round Tables permeates Valaoritis’s entire
dramatic output, written mostly in Paris in the late 1950s. It represents an aspect
of the surrealist revolution, which was an expression of vital and spiritual needs.
112 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

In The Round Tables, Valaoritis creates a play that is not really a play, but a genre
located somewhere between the theatre and the novel, in the same way that
Breton’s Nadja is located among several genres. In the latter, Breton embraces
the concept of game as a dynamic interplay between novelistic norms and
conventions and the anti-novel. Likewise, Valaoritis consciously experiments with
anti-theatre, a form that despises action within the realist tradition, to replace it
with another kind of action—one of playing all types of games as an end in itself.
This way, he challenges the Aristotelian notion of drama, especially tragedy, as
an imitation of a complete and serious act. In its place, he favors a constant play
with the most trivial events, in which both actors and spectators participate.
Thus, play ceases to be an imitation and becomes instead an unlimited semiosis
in the here-and-now, exemplified in the coincidence of “play” as a theatrical
piece with “play” as an activity. In other words, Valaoritis pulls the play element
back to its origins as a theatrical performance-ritual. The Greek playwright
exploits the disruptive power of game by putting all the characters in The Round
Tables on trial with no apparent winners or losers.
Valaoritis attempted to write The Round Tables as a purposeful exercise
of style based on Breton’s definition of surrealist dialogue and its magic. This
magic forms a maze, in terms of both structure and theme, through which the
audience may experience the marvelous. By so doing, Valaoritis pays homage to
Breton, while at the same time challenging Breton’s idea that poetry and even
the novel were better adapted than drama to express “surreality” as generated
by juxtapositions. For Valaoritis, playing with language is solely what matters.
The creative process in both Henriette Where Did She Go? and The Round Tables
was governed by the rules that guided surrealist ludic activities, endowing it with
something that is not entirely nonsense, yet passionately seeks the irrational and
the revelation of the subconscious. These games, in short, confirmed Breton’s
idea that language may anticipate thought.
In the end, Valaoritis’s plays and ideas about playwriting show how well the
largely dialogic surrealist games can be rendered on the stage. For Breton, the
purpose of surrealist juxtapositions was to create a sense of the marvelous for
readers and audiences. Valaoritis, in contrast, wants his readers and audiences to
recognize that the seeming irrationality of his characters’ dialogues is generated
through rational means (rule-bound games), and that an awareness of the
combinatory and transformational nature of these behind-the-scenes rules
can only reinforce their experience of the marvelous. Valaoritis is convinced
that if audiences can understand the overlapping and criss-crossing rules of the
games, they will be able to grasp the inner logic of the texts by reassembling
them step by step, scene by scene, in the manner of the characters that try to
reassemble the pieces of Nero’s torn note in the last scene of The Round Tables.
By understanding how the plays Henriette Where Did She Go? and, particularly,
The Round Tables echo the rules that guided surrealist ludic activity, actors and
audiences may also find a key to approach any surrealist theatrical text. More
importantly, the members of the audience are invited to participate actively
in the rebus-game of discovering which rules of the surrealist games form the
underpinnings of his theatrical dialogues. In this way, Valaoritis transforms
trivialities into a sophisticated ludus, despite its appearance as paidia in the
sense of a frivolous activity.
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 113

In other words, Valaoritis takes the ludic strategies employed in his model—
Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power—a step further, especially in The Round
Tables. While Vitrac uses games as a means of revealing the problem of human
expression, Valaoritis uses them as an end in itself. While Vitrac uses language
to deconstruct language, in order to “undermine all rational presuppositions
of society and culture” (Beachler Severs 136), Valaoritis plays with its patent
nonsense and creates something new from it. While Vitrac’s Victor performs
a variety of mimicry and alea games to dismantle the ill-conceived bourgeois
values, Valaoritis’s characters focus on the performance of these games as
a language-game. We use the term here in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s sense, as
examined in his Philosophical Investigations (1954), in which he developed his
theory of “language-games.” For Wittgenstein, although he never fully gave a
precise definition of the term, a “language-game” is a real or imagined situation
in which words play a role, as they are integrated in a certain way, in a pattern of
activity, or in a context that comprises both linguistic and non-linguistic elements.
Or, to use Steven Winspur’s definition, “[l]anguage-games are the overlapping
codes that make up the semiosic field of a particular language and as such they
are the temporary limits imposed by social conventions on the indefinite play of
semiosis” (49). For Wittgenstein the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
To illustrate this seminal idea, Wittgenstein finds recourse in the game-concept.
Thus, in his seventh aphorism, he claims: “I shall call the whole, consisting of
language and the actions into which it is woven, the ‘language-game,’” while in
his twenty-third aphorism he adds: “Here the term ‘language-game’ is meant to
bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity,
or of a form of life.” Language, then, is conceived of in its specific uses and, like
game, is rule-governed. However, according to Winspur, who treats Wittgenstein
as a semiotician, what this philosopher brings to light is the fact that,

words in a language do not derive their meaning from a fixed logical structure … or from
an “essence” of language which would contain the semantic building-blocks for all possible
words in the lexicon of language. On the contrary, there can be no “stable structure
underlying the complex of links and branches of every semiosic process” … since each word
in a language forms part of a “complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-
crossing” … or a “maze-like network of intertwined sign-functions … (49).

Due to this lack of a fixed logical structure, Winspur continues, it is only social
convention that freezes the movement of unlimited semiosis and gives the
appearance of fixity to our semantic universe (48). Wittgenstein thoroughly
examines countless examples of language-games, all of which stress the inherent
performance of words, and the creative and combinatory aspect of language,
common in the play-concept. Wittgenstein then enlists the following “language-
games”: play-acting; riddles; making a joke and telling it; inventing a story and
telling it. All these language-games are present in the surrealist games and in
their avatars employed by Valaoritis. Like Wittgenstein, Valaoritis shows that
language is living, rule-governed, and full of “family resemblances,” and he
attempts to bring some of its underlying rules to the fore in their performative
and combinatory aspects. By doing so, he dares to make the trivial interesting
and endows it with an aura of the marvelous. Through these games, poetry, even
114 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

incantation, is emphasized, as the following piece, “Ode to Pythagoras”—written

by Valaoritis during the same period when he wrote both Henriette Where Did
She Go? and The Round Tables—shows:

BUDDHA GURE Buddha gura Buddha gurun budha gorra Bud agora Pytha guru Putha-
gura Buda Buda Buda Pest Buddha Abouda Ouda-Boura-Gora Pytha Pest Buddha-Guru
Boudagoras Buddhagora Puthabuddha Buddhapytha Buca Rest Bucu rest Beddha Grad
Belhi Grad Delhi Grad Stylo Grad Retrograde Perachora peragora Paragoura Guru Pest
Pestigrad Gradipest Gradiva Vadi Gra Mardi Gras Gramardi Gramerci Madrigrade Omnedi
Conpani Panico Oncle Niko On Cleni Cleniko Nikokles Konicles Le Lapin Lelape Ain Etc (1).23

In this text-incantation, reminiscent of Hugo Ball’s Dadaist “sound poem,” the

play with language reaches paroxysm to the point that it cannot be translated; it
is almost like an undecipherable code created out of the deconstruction (in three
languages; Greek, French, and English) of the name of Pythagoras, the famous
ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, and mystic, who seems to have taken
the form of Buddha. Out of this playful deconstruction of Pythagoras’ name,
a series of famous cities emerge. All these allude to a possible influence of this old
and new Guru, such as Buddhapest, Bucurest, Perachora (“A Place in the Other
Edge”), as well as other proper names, or meaningful terms such as Gradiva or
Mardi Gras. Basically, this Ode functions as a carnival dance in which the words
are its main players, as they endlessly mask and unmask themselves, obeying
the Rimbaldian rule of “the alchemy of the word.” Through such a process,
a musical harmony is created, suggesting that the concept of play unearths the
inner quality of language that is called primordial rhythm, whether it pushes the
words “to make love with each other,” or “to treat each other as an enemy,” as
Breton suggested in both cases. Valaoritis pushed the limits of language in this
“Ode to Pythagoras,” anticipating his American creative phase in the early 1970s,
when he was deeply influenced by Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation.
Later, during the 1980s and ’90s, he experimented with language-centered
poetry, always remaining faithful to his surrealist background, particularly
the surrealist concept of metamorphosis that allowed him to constantly mix
genres and writing styles: “The surrealist metamorphosis, like the postmodern
metamorphosis later on, grants him [Valaoritis] the freedom to do this kind of
mixing of genres; or language-centered poetry and lettrism, the freedom to pass
to an autoreferential poetry” (Ollier, “Métamorphose” 160).
Today, living in Greece, Valaoritis reshuffles his old French surrealist sketches,
and plays with them through their spatial and temporal distance: at times he is
himself caught by surprise, recognizing the deep impact the surrealist games
had on him in terms of creativity; at other times, he re-appropriates these old
ludic strategies to create new plays that test once again the concept of surrealist
dialogue. His most recent play Το Φιλί (The Kiss, 2005), is a rendition of the
surrealist dialogue-game in a new version of The Nightfall Hotel that this time
unfolds in the open-air and is more overtly playful. At other times still, he is
tempted to theorize his passionate engagement with the surrealist ludic activity
of his youth.
Ultimately, Valaoritis’s experiment with surrealist games had a two-fold
purpose: on the one hand, he set forth a poetics of surrealist theatre, based
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 115

on a game-theory that led to a reevaluation of surrealist theatre on the basis

of its poeticized language. On the other hand, he opened the path to the post-
surrealist on-stage games of transformation, which the following chapters
will further explore in the work of well-known American playwrights and
performance artists, Robert Wilson and Megan Terry. By making use of the most
characteristic features of the surrealist games, such as “their privileging of chance
over necessity”; “their commitment to the dynamic production of an extremely
contingent reality by the subject in errance”; and “the construction of a reality
formed by intertextual and intersubjective representation” (Laxton, Paris as a
Gameboard 528); Valaoritis opens the way to post-structuralist and language-
centered theatrical techniques. Ultimately, like Wittgenstein, Valaoritis had one
aim: to show his audience how “to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense
to something that is patent nonsense” (Wittgenstein’s aphorism #464). Yet,
paradoxically, such patent nonsense is, in fact, full of systematic rules and thus
of meaning.

Notes
1 Part of this chapter appeared in earlier versions in: Vassiliki Rapti, “Surrealist Ludics in
Nanos Valaoritis’ Play ‘Les Tables Rondes’,” The Charioteer: An Annual Review of Modern
Greek Culture 43 (2005): 99–113, published by PELLA Publishing Co., New York, NY; and
Text and Presentation (2004) © 2005 edited by Stratos E. Constantinidis by permission of
McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640. www.mcfarlandpub.com.
2 Susan Laxton, in her book Paris as a Gameboard, states that “the regulated action of
surrealist games reactivates the parameters of ritual” (534).
3 I refer to my first interview with Nanos Valaoritis in Oakland, California on May 22, 2001.
4 See Sewell, The Field of Nonsense.
5 Roger Caillois joined Breton’s group during the years 1932–34. For more details on his
relationship to the surrealist movement, see Caillois, The Edge of Surrealism, ed. Claudine
Frank.
6 Hereafter referred to as Henriette.
7 All quotes from this play have been translated by the author and have been approved
by the playwright to whom I address my warmest thanks for his advice and for kindly
offering me access to his archive.
8 Nanos Valaoritis stayed in Paris during the years 1954–60. In 1954 he joined André
Breton’s surrealist circle along with the surrealist painter Marie Wil­son, later his wife.
During these years he wrote more than 40 plays and skits in French and Greek, both of
them being his mother tongues, since he was born in Lausanne, Switzerland and both
languages were spoken in his home. Later, when the author moved to the United States,
he also wrote plays in English. In the archives of Surrealism his name appears in the
“Who is it about?” game that belongs to the series of the “cards of analogy” game, which
appeared in Le Surréalisme même (No. 5, Spring 1959). These cards were modeled after
identity cards in which the participants were asked to identify some celebrities, including
Freud, Chateaubriand, Huysmans, Watteau, Rousseau and Nietzsche, among others, with
the ultimate goal of showing the participants a “state of sensory and affective resource”
(Garrigues 38).
116 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

9 This term is borrowed from Warren F. Motte’s book Playtexts: Ludics in Contemporary
Literature. This book is a collection of essays that explore the concept of play as
“necessarily and fundamentally creative,” and therefore, as inseparable from writing
itself, a statement made since Plato’s time (Motte 15).
10 See “Le cas est unique dans l’histoire du théâtre où les rôles d’enfants sont rares, pour
des raisons techniques évidentes, même à partir du XVIII siècle où l’on commence à
s’intéresser à l’enfance, grâce à Rousseau” (Hubert 14) [The case is unique in the history
of theatre, where the roles of children are, for obvious technical reasons, rare, even in
the eighteenth century when, thanks to Rousseau, interest in childhood began.]
11 This blasphemous pun, invented by Victor, anticipates the tone of the text L’Immaculée
conception (The Immaculate Conception) that Breton would write with Louis Aragon two
years later, in 1930.
12 A new pun is suggested by the use of the word “neuf,” which in French has a double
meaning: a) nine and b) brand-new.
13 One wonders if Vitrac borrowed from the ancient Greek verb “οἶδα” (ida), which means
“to know,” to create the character of Ida Mortemart. In this light, Ida would be the one
who knows about love and death, a role which is relevant to the attitude in the play.
Vitrac’s following words support such a view: “ici le destin s’appelle Ida Mortemart. Un
sphinx … Ida Mortemart est le sphinx de la gloire et de la honte à l’échelle des petits
gens” (quoted in Beachler Severs 131). Of course, other interpretations could apply to
Ida’s name, such as perhaps one related to Montmartre, a place of rebels and revels,
cherished by the Surrealists, or even one that could be related to a combination of the
words “le marteau de la Mort,” in the sense of a vivified coup of Death.
14 Victor was staged again on November 10, 1946 in the Théâtre Agnes Capri by the
company Thyase under Michel de Ré’s direction. Interestingly, both Artaud and Breton
attended the performance but overall it did not receive a better reception than its
first performance in 1928. However, Jean Anouilh, who undertook the endeavor to
stage Victor again with Roland Piétri on October 3, 1962 in the Théâtre de l’Ambigu,
applauded the 1946 performance. Critics were almost unanimous in judging its success
which placed Vitrac next to Shakespeare by aligning Victor with a modern Hamlet, as
Bertrand Poirot-Delpech wrote in the Monde of October 5, 1962 (quoted in Hubert 184).
From this moment on, Victor became a classic of the French theatrical repertoire staged
again in 1982 in the Comédie Française under the direction of Jean Bouchaud and Marcel
Bozonnet, while in September 1998 it was staged in the Cartoucherie de Vincennes by
the Théâtre de la Tempête under Philippe Adrien’s direction. In this production Victor
was portrayed again like a modern Hamlet.
15 André Gide and Giorgio de Chirico also claimed that they found originality in this
production, which they attended during all three of its performances, only regretting
that there were no more performances of this unique spectacle (Hubert 182).
16 This information was given in a phone conversation on January 5, 2006. During the same
conversation, the playwright stated that all his characters, despite the fact that they were
based on real persons—mostly his friends—were always changing.
17 With regard to the choice of the name Mervyn or rather, the multi-faceted character of
Mervyn, Valaoritis stated that he was inspired by a poem from Lautréamont’s Chants de
Maldoror. Mervyn also suggests the marvelous.
18 The author confirmed this allusion to Les Caves du Vatican during a phone conversation
I had with him on January 5, 2006. He added that, like Vitrac, he himself at that time
was very interested in the late medieval mystères (mystery plays). Beachler Severs lists
a series of common features in the work of Vitrac and the mystery plays: “the grotesque
 Staging child’s play in Roger Vitrac’s Victor or Children in Power 117

humor and violence, the lack of concern for sequential time and action, the invitation to
audience participation, the stock characters from everyday life, and the farcical nature of
the action” (113).
19 Information given during a phone conversation on January 5, 2006.
20 For further details, see Francis Lacassin’s edition Les Fantômes de Jersey (1991). Another
inter-textual reference is the medieval fellowship of the Round Table in the King Arthur
legend, where all the knights have equal status around the egalitarian round table. See
Barber, King Arthur, 39–40. The well-educated Valaoritis (particularly in the field of
French literature) was familiar with both Victor Hugo’s work and the Arthurian tradition.
His overwhelming erudition is present in all of his works, including his plays and has
been considered a shortcoming for staging his plays. Marcelle Capron (Le Combat, April
29, 1959), for instance, as Valaoritis admits, saw his erudition as an obstacle in regard to
the staging of his play L’Hôtel de la nuit qui tombe (The Nightfall Hotel) in Paris in 1959
(Personal Interview).
21 Valaoritis borrows here Breton’s image of a woman’s hair-mushrooms from Poisson
soluble and applies it to Anabelle’s hands. The relevant passage from Breton’s work
reads: “Her hair was nothing but a patch of pink mushrooms, among pine needles and
very fine glassware of dry leaves” (Seaver and Lane 88).
22 The approximation of Anabelle and Nadja is also suggested by their association with
Helen (of Troy). Anabelle is etymologically speaking of “la belle Ana” (the beautiful Anna),
which alludes to the beautiful Helen of Troy. As for Nadja, there is stronger evidence of
her association with a certain Helen. In a note in Nadja Breton states that the medium
Mme Sacco told him that at some point his mind was preoccupied with a certain Helen.
Puzzled, Breton noted: “La conclusion à en tirer serait de l’ordre de celle que m’a imposée
précédemment la fusion dans un rêve de deux images très éloignées l’une de l’autre.
‘Hélène, c’est moi’, disait Nadja” (OC1 693).
23 This short text remains unpublished along with another similar short text entitled “Un
drame léttriste.” Both come from a unnumbered original.
This page has been left blank intentionally
4
Playing with language: Antonin
Artaud’s paidia and Robert
Wilson’s ludus

A Jarry Theatre production will be as thrilling as a game, like a card game with the whole
audience taking part (Artaud, quoted in Schumacher 35; my emphasis).

In the second chapter we explored the way the Théâtre Alfred Jarry implemented
André Breton’s tacit ludic dramatic theory. By relying on the mechanisms and the
effects of games, Roger Vitrac and Antonin Artaud paved the way for a different
concept of theatre, in search of a new language for the stage. This type of a
new theatre would ensure the thrill of a game. More precisely, like a card game,
it would embrace both the whims of chance and the card-players’ (actors’)
well-calculated moves, while at the same time being constantly fueled by the
audience’s active involvement. Moreover, Artaud’s theatre would abandon the
notion of dialogue with its reasoning value as the primary constitutive element
of a well-made play. In its lieu, Artaud would place the images issued forth by
the actor’s body language that functions as a multisensory stimulus bridging
the stage with the auditorium. In a lecture Artaud gave at the Sorbonne on
December 10, 1931,1 he explicitly scorned the dialogue-bound Western theatre
and advocated a new tangible stage language, independent of speech:

Dialogue—something written and spoken—does not specifically belong to the stage but to
books … I maintain the stage is a tangible, physical place that needs to be filled and it ought
to be allowed to speak its own concrete language. I maintain that this physical language,
aimed at the senses and independent of speech, must first satisfy the senses (quoted in
Schumacher 92–3).

Thus, dialogue would be replaced by the actors’ physical language which would
become a tool for exploration of the player’s inner mind, since, according to
Artaud, it always plays the most important role on stage. This new concept of
theatre, briefly, would have the qualities of “a thrilling game” that attempts to
extend life “to be a sort of magical operation, open to any development, and
in this it answers a mental need which audiences feel are hidden deep down
120 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

within themselves” (Artaud, quoted in Schumacher 35).2 Artaud attempted

to put this conceptualization of theatre into practice in his playlet Le Jet de
sang (The Jet of Blood or The Spurt of Blood), first published in his collection
L’Ombilic des limbes (Umbilical Limbo) in 1925 and included in the first bill of
the Théâtre Alfred Jarry in 1927, under his own direction. Despite the fact that
The Jet of Blood remained subsequently unstaged until Peter Brook rediscovered
and included it in his 1964 London Theatre of Cruelty production (to a much
debated reception),3 it is necessary to examine it here, since it “plants many
of the seeds” of Artaud’s seminal study The Theatre and its Double (Bermel
14). For both fundamental concepts of Artaud’s dramatic theory—the concept
of “the double” and that of “cruelty”—blend here with the surrealist principle
of the unification of contraries (ibid). The Artaudian principle of “the double”
represents the foundations of Artaud’s theory, and “refers to a specific aesthetic
principle—the relationship between art and the world of reality” (Benisson
128). The term “cruelty,” on the other hand, is defined by Artaud himself in a
letter to his friend Jean Paulhan on November 14, 1932: “I use the word cruelty
in the sense of hungering after life, cosmic strictness, relentless necessity,
in the Gnostic sense of a living vortex engulfing darkness, in the sense of the
inescapably necessary pain without which life could not continue” (quoted in
Schumacher 107). “Cruelty” thus “indicates danger, in the sense that the rational
processes are short-circuited, and the shock aimed directly at the spectator’s
viscera” (Bennison 128–9). Artaud’s supposedly “failed drama” The Jet of Blood
takes Artaud’s “call to revolution farther than he could have ever imagined,” “in
fact, past the realm of modernism and into the postmodern—into, as Jameson
would say, ‘some new, as yet unimaginable, perhaps ultimately impossible,
dimensions’” (Kornhaber 57). These “yet unimaginable dimensions” that Artaud
imparted in The Jet of Blood can be better understood through the lens of one of
its multiple contemporary stagings that remained faithful to Artaud’s surrealist
stage principles. I refer to the performance of February 14–17, 1996 at Wickham
Studio Theatre in Bristol, UK, under the direction of Günter Berghaus. After
examining Berghaus’s experiment with the Jet de sang in the next section of
this chapter, we can then better trace Artaud’s supposedly “unperformable”
conceptualization of the stage in the work of contemporary, American man of
the theatre, Robert Wilson.

Gunter Berghaus’s experiment with Le Jet de sang

Günter Berghaus’s stage experiment with Artaud’s five-page play Le Jet de sang
occupies a particular place here because it concerns the key theoretical issue
addressed in this study, namely, the presumed incompatibility of surrealist
theatre and the stage. Taking as a point of departure the conviction that Artaud’s
supposedly unperformable play Le Jet de sang can indeed be staged, Berghaus’s
experiment takes the form of a collaborative reflection upon Artaud’s theatrical
concepts during his surrealist phase, and tests their validity and the limitations
of their applicability. In his illuminating article “Artaud’s Jet de Sang: A Critical
Post-Production Analysis” (2001), Berghaus begins his critical analysis of his 1996
 Playing with language 121

student production of Artaud’s Jet de sang by distinguishing Artaud as the only

Surrealist with actual stage experience:

he had worked with Lugné-Poë, Dullin and Pitoëff; he was an experienced actor in a variety
of modern and classic rôles; he knew the conventions of contemporary theatre practice
and was familiar with the aims of the stage reformers of his time. He was therefore well-
qualified to map out an alternative theatre system and set signals for a different kind
of product to be presented in it. Even if in the end the existing conditions of theatrical
production did not allow him to realize his intentions, at least Artaud knew what he was
aiming for. Therefore he could act as stimulator and catalyst for following generations of
theatre artists, influencing their thinking in a number of ways:

• abolishing the rhetorical and ornamental style of acting

• discovering the prime importance of the actor’s physical means of expression
• translating raw emotional states into the symbolic language of the stage
• making the theatrical event real by centering it on the actors’ mental and physical
experiences and joining these with the spectators’ emotional world (5–6).

All these principles of the Artaudian stage vision that Berghaus discerns here
can indeed already be traced in the Jet de sang and are explicitly explored by
Berghaus in his own version of the play. Another important point that Berghaus
makes about Artaud’s approach to theatre is his precision. He quotes a letter
that Artaud had sent to his friend Jean-Richard Bloch, in which he asks not to be
judged by the hurried and unpolished performances, due to financial and time
restrictions, of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry: “[t]hese performances did not indicate
exactly my true intentions, nor did they reveal my technical and professional
abilities as director” (quoted in Berghaus 9). For Artaud, Berghaus continues,
“[c]hance and improvisation have an important role to play in the rehearsal
phase, but not during the run” (9).
Berghaus set out to explore with his students all of the above issues raised
by Artaud’s surrealist play during an entire academic year, first in the format
of seminars and workshops and then during the rehearsal process. In all these
phases, the scenic design—an early designed miniature proscenium-arch
theatre erected in a studio—was a crucial component, meant “to offer the
audience a peep-show, a view into a weird and wonderful world, where all
perspectives were strangely distorted” (5) (see Figure 4.1). At the same time,
this monstrosity of the physical stage was meant to throw the actors “off their
centre of balance,” while at the same time producing the Artaudian “equivalent
of vertigo in the mind of the senses of the spectators” (ibid.). Their rehearsal
process started with numerous exercises involving the surrealist notions
of “automatism,” “chance,” and the “marvelous,” all of which led to dream
transcripts that, in turn, triggered the actors’ personal responses to Artaud’s
play, shaping their feelings and emotions. The latter, it must be emphasized,
were further affected by the technical aspects of the show, including the sound
that served as a rhythmic skeleton for the performance. Among the emotion-
inducing technical elements, the powerful olfactory dimension was used to great
effect; every scene was accompanied by a very specific smell, such as cheese or
perfume, generating “subliminal responses that create an intimate bond with
the spectators’ other emotional reactions to the events presented on stage” (8).
 122 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

4.1  Günter Also, lighting played a major role, in the sense that it functioned as a poetic
Berghaus’s lighting and physical core element of the production. To quote Berghaus, the lights
setting in his stage
“gave the physical space of the stage a strong emotional resonance and opened
experiment with
Artaud’s Le Jet de
up a mental space for the audience, into which they could project their own
sang (The Spurt of feelings and inner visions” (11). What mostly counted in that production was
Blood), performed not a unified interpretation of Artaud’s script, but a multi-layered approach to
February 14–17, it which encompassed each actor’s own personal response. These responses,
1996 at Wickham initially prompted by improvisation (paidia), took shape in the form of startling
Studio Theatre, images and mesmerizing stage actions, which “possessed a suggestive power
Bristol, director:
Günter Berghaus.
without being too fixed in their meaning” (ibid.), and were personal elaborations
Photographs of some rudimentary, psychoanalytical directorial guidelines. As Berghaus states,
copyright of
Günter Berghaus. I felt inclined towards psychoanalytical readings of Artaud’s state of mind, of the symbols
Berghaus Archive, and archetypal actions in the play. In my view, the development of the plot related to
Overath / Germany Artaud’s own rites of passage: his discovery of sexuality; his rebellion against his father and
mother; his attempts at assuaging his anxieties by romantically wooing a virginal girl; his
successive acceptance of his sexual urges in contact with a mature, erotic woman and the
subsequent conflict with the remnants of his own oedipal attachment to his mother (ibid.).

All these states of mind were presented to the audience in seven scenes, a prelude
and two interludes. Without a clearly discernible start, the performance would
get the starting cue from the audience: “when they had sufficiently settled and
immersed themselves into the atmosphere, we were ready to lead them into a
dream world that was real and surreal at the same time” (Berghaus 12). In this
real and surreal world, a vast gamut of emotions was triggered in the audience
in a polysensory event: confusion, irritation, frustration, bewilderment, all
 Playing with language 123

created by their encounter with a materialization of a dream. That stage dream

began with the first scene’s “hurricane of feelings and desires,” set free during
the encounter of the two protagonists, a Young Man and a Young Girl. Their
encounter was followed by an explosion of the whole stage that gave way to
the first interlude—a shadow play, in which the inner world of the young couple
was projected onto a screen (ibid.). It is interesting to notice here how Berghaus
managed to accommodate the “impossible” actions of Artaud’s script in this
disturbing scene that required pieces of human body to fall down, including
hands, feet, scalps, and masks, by using a wide array of puppets to represent
the body parts. Some of the puppets used were related to Oriental theatre
which also influenced Artaud in his later career. Equally disturbing was the
appearance of the Whore on stage in the fourth scene, which was the turning
point of the production. Accentuated by lighting effects and an entirely different
profusion of smells, it introduced the fifth scene that aimed at “showing how
the overwhelming force of sexuality leads society into disarray” (14). Berghaus
particularly stressed here each character’s different response to “the provocative
sensuality of the Whore, ranging from fear to fascination and enchantment”
(ibid.). Particularly telling was the following scene, in which sex and religion were
directly confronted:

Like Zeus firing his thunderbolt, “God” threw a red beam of light towards the Whore and
set her hair on fire. Other lighting effects from underneath the stage turned her clothes
transparent and revealed her naked body to the assembled society figures. They stumbled
back, blinded by the light and the demeanour of the Whore. She responded to the threat
of church and religion by biting God’s wrist. Immediately, the whole scene was bathed in
a dark-red light, brightened up by flashes of lightning occasionally zig-zagging across the
stage (14).

Figure 4.2 illustrates how Berghaus overcame the challenges of Artaud’s script.
Even more challenging was Artaud’s requirement in the subsequent scene: “An
army of scorpions comes out from under The Nurse’s dress and swarm over
her sex, which swells, cracks open, becomes glassy and shimmers like a sun”
(quoted at 15). To realize Artaud’s stage directions, Berghaus used an 8mm film,
projected onto a balloon, which was inflated between the woman’s legs. This
is only one example of the many innovative devices that Berghaus used in this
performance, a performance that attempted to implement Artaud’s physical
language of the stage. As Figures 4.2 and 4.3 show, language here is channeled
through the body and not through verbal communication. What is important
to notice here is that Berghaus made clear that what Artaud had in mind back
in his time was not, in fact, impossible or unperformable. On the contrary, he
showed that Artaud was well ahead of his time, envisioning a theatre of the
future, which unfortunately Breton—another player of the future—failed to
recognize. Playing with light, the five senses, the actors’ transcribed dreams and
visions, and the audience’s disorientation vis-à-vis a fixed meaning, Berghaus
translated Artaud’s surrealist conceptualization of the theatre into a concrete
language of the stage. Here, once again, the concept of play is an underlying
guiding principle in the sense of a constant interaction between life and dream,
between the actors and the spectators, and between the actors and themselves.
 124 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

4.2 The Whore Characteristic is the following testimony by one of the actors in that production,
and the Knight, who discovered an unknown freedom on stage that allowed for a transcendence
from Günter of his physical actions, which however were fully controlled, and far from
Berghaus’s stage
delirium or abandonment: “This transcendence of self during the moments of
experiment with
Artaud’s Le Jet de performance creates an emptiness. I am devoid of subject, I am object; I am not
sang (The Spurt of a character, I am a notion, an archetype. I approach hollowness like a marionette,
Blood), performed a pure symbol of abstraction” (10). Another actor, who also attempted never-
February 14–17, tried-before improvisations that gave free rein to the projection of intense
1996 at Wickham emotions, confirmed this experience—one during which the objective form
Studio Theatre, merged with subjective impulse. This new stage language is fully-fledged on the
Bristol, director: contemporary stage and finds a major ally in Robert Wilson, whose work bears
Günter Berghaus.
clear marks of the Artaudian surrealist theatrical poetics. The following section
Photographs
copyright of traces the game techniques that Wilson employs on stage in Artaud’s manner, as
Günter Berghaus. Berghaus has shown us in his self-aware experiment with Artaud’s Jet de sang.
Berghaus Archive, Berghaus’s experiment—well documented on film in its every permutation—
Overath / Germany took the form of a “true reality” (17) and “unrepeatable as any act of life” (ibid.);
it was “as thrilling as a game, like a card game with the whole audience taking
part,” to recall this chapter’s opening quotation from Artaud’s manifesto on the
Théâtre Alfred Jarry.
Although Robert Wilson claims various influences and not a specific one,4
the affinities between his work and Artaud’s concept of new theatre that draws
on Surrealism are salient and have already been noted by various scholars.
Louis Aragon, in a 1971 letter to his dead friend André Breton, heralded the
performance of Wilson’s theatrical work Le Regard du sourd (Deafman Glance),
 Playing with language 125

which he attended during its opening tour in France, as something that far 4.3 Mother
exceeded what they had hoped for thus far: and Knight, from
Günter Berghaus’s
The miracle we were waiting for has happened, long after I had stopped believing in it: stage experiment
Deafman Glance. I have never seen anything so beautiful. No other spectacle can hold a with Artaud’s
candle to it because it is, at the same time, waking life and life seen with the eyes closed, Le Jet de sang
the world of every day and the world of every night, reality mixed with dream. Bob Wilson (The Spurt of
is not a surrealist. He is what we, from whom Surrealism was born, dreamed would come Blood), performed
after us and go beyond us (quoted in Holmberg 154; my emphasis). February 14–17,
1996 at Wickham
Continuing to praise Deafman Glance, Aragon added: “This strange spectacle, Studio Theatre,
Bristol, director:
neither ballet, nor mime, nor opera (but perhaps a deaf opera) calls forth new
Günter Berghaus.
ways with light and shadow. It seems to criticize everything we do out of habit. It Photographs
is an extraordinary freedom machine” (quoted in Blank 2). In this work that runs copyright of
for seven hours on stage, Wilson collaborated with Raymond Andrews, a young Günter Berghaus.
deaf-mute boy with whom he explored a world of visual, rather than verbal logic. Berghaus Archive,
An architectural arrangement in pictures, with no reliance on any script, it is a Overath / Germany
play of images that evokes fluidity and freedom and aims at the disorientation
of the spectators’ senses, similar to the effect of the surrealist image. As Arthur
Holmberg states, “[w]atching Deafman Glance was like smoking a hookah: one
slipped easily, peacefully over the edge into the beatitude of dreams. In the blink,
the exterior world fades into mist. One floats on the dark sea of the mind among
shadows and reflections of reflections (156). Indeed, “both the surrealistic and
the oneiric make their presence felt in Wilson” (ibid.).
126 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Alain Jouffroi, an ex-member of Surrealism, seconded Aragon’s view with

regard to the proximity of Deafman Glance and Surrealism:

When I was very young I met Antonin Artaud and André Breton and I participated in the
surrealist movement until I was twenty. I found the memory of these things again in the
dream of this play. The spectacle of Bob Wilson was very new but with special roots in
French art. We find this connection. Maybe it’s not true but we find it. And we think, how is
this possible? Astonishment (Shyer 258).

This same connection was also detected by Michel Guy who saw in it the
ideal surrealist theatre: “I happen to know that Bob didn’t know anything
about European art or surrealism yet strangely Deafman Glance was like the
ideal surrealist theatre” (Shyer 258). Nor was the resemblance detected in
Wilson’s work to surrealist theatre limited to Deafman Glance; as theatre critic
Theodore Shank remarks, some of Wilson’s productions on a grand operatic
scale “resemble large surreal paintings with moving figures and objects” (125),
as, for example, Figures 4.4–4.8 from the Alcestis production at the American
Repertory Theatre show. Regardless of scale, Shank continues, Wilson’s “collage-
like works incorporate invented material as well as material from the real world”
(ibid.). Talking about the full retrospective of Wilson’s working vision mounted
by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1991 after several years of collaboration
between Wilson and curator Trevor Fairbrother, Johannes Birringer also notices
the dreamlike Surrealism of Wilson’s poetry: “In this exhibition the dreamlike
surrealism of Wilson’s poetry clearly suspends the linear ‘vision’ of conventional
museum displays of an artist’s collected works” (80).
This chapter seeks to identify better the affinity between Wilson’s work and
Surrealism, as illustrated in Artaud’s early experiment The Jet of Blood as regards
the similar process that both Artaud and Wilson adopt when dealing with the
language of the stage, that is, as an ongoing, thrilling game in which both actors
and audience are wholeheartedly engaged as players. Wilson, in particular,
“has been playing games with language, like a kid with a new bag of marbles,
but, as Wittgenstein assures us, meaning is use and the games we play with
language and language plays with us are infinite” (Holmberg 47). These games,
in his case, range from aphasia and experimentation with deaf-mute and brain-
damaged children, to an on-stage screen, infused by letters in all their physicality
to the point that language becomes an autonomous actor that interacts with the
audience in a new and infinite play. In this new play, language is transformed into
images, thus placing at the fore a visual rather than a verbal logic. This chapter will
show several characteristic examples of experiments/games with language that
the American director, dancer, performer, architect, and painter Robert Wilson
has introduced to the stage in order to interrogate language and in which he far
exceeded the Surrealists’ ludic expectations. Through a comparative approach,
these games will find a predecessor in Artaud’s own games with language and
images in The Jet of Blood.5
Like the Surrealists, Wilson constantly plays on stage with language, with
light and shadow and the images related to the states of dream and waking.
However, where the Surrealists favor the random juxtaposition of their images,
Wilson arranges his images on stage in a precise and calculated manner.
4.4 Scene from American Repertory Theatre’s 1986 production of Alcestis, directed
by Robert Wilson. Photographs by Richard Feldman, courtesy of A.R.T.

4.5 Scene from American Repertory Theatre’s 1986 production of Alcestis, directed

by Robert Wilson. Photographs by Richard Feldman, courtesy of A.R.T.
 128 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

4.6 Scene As František Deák claims, “instead of a dramatic concept, he uses a visual one:
from American the juxtaposition and assemblage of images. … The juxtaposition of images on
Repertory different horizontal planes, their focusing and defocusing, is the main principle
Theatre’s 1986
of Wilson’s theatrical assemblages” (67–8). So, if the main surrealist mode
production of
Alcestis, directed
of playing with images aspires to improvisational paidia, Wilson’s play with
by Robert Wilson. language resembles rule-bound ludus. The following description of Deafman
Photographs by Glance by Wilson himself, one year after its performance in France in 1972,
Richard Feldman, bears proof of his affinity with Surrealism, all the while stressing his sense of
courtesy of A.R.T. ludus, located in the chess-like preciseness of the well-defined zones of the
stage. Referring to his work “in somewhat surrealist terms” in the Cahiers
Renaud-Barrault (Romero 492), Wilson describes his work as “un collage visuel
d’images et d’activités [qui] se produisent par couches dans des zones scéniques
stratifiés et clairement définies qui sont, de temps à autre, juxtaposées par
rapport au centre et par là même, mises en relief” (ibid. 492) [A visual collage
of images and activities (which) are produced by layers in the stratified and
well-defined stage zones, which are, from time to time, juxtaposed in regard to
the center and from there even they are put into relief]. On another occasion,
he describes his work as the work of a painter and explains how pictures matter
more than any story in his work, just like in any surrealist work:

Go like you would go to a museum, like you would look at a painting. Appreciate the
color of the apple, the line of the dress, the glow of the light … My opera is easier than
Butterfly. You don’t have to think about the story, because there isn’t any. You don’t have
to listen to words, because the words don’t mean anything. You just enjoy the scenery, the
architectural arrangements in time and space, the music, the feelings they all evoke. Listen
to the pictures (Shyer xv).
4.7 Scene from American Repertory Theatre’s 1986 production of Alcestis, directed
by Robert Wilson. Photographs by Richard Feldman, courtesy of A.R.T.

4.8 Scene from American Repertory Theatre’s 1986 production of Alcestis, directed

by Robert Wilson. Photographs by Richard Feldman, courtesy of A.R.T.
130 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

In effect, Wilson, surpassing Surrealism and Artaud, achieved a transmutation

of Surrealism on stage. His stay in Paris during a crucial period for his formation6
played an important role in this transmutation and offered new perspectives on
the art of theatre in general, opening up to him the painter’s realm even on
the stage.7 It is in particular the first phase of Wilson’s work that bears closer
affinities with Surrealism. I refer to “the private fantasy performances of the
1970s, followed by a more varied combination of historical/literary stagings
beginning with CIVIL warS in 1981” (Romero 488). During this phase, Wilson
stressed the visual as a viable language, as he was convinced that “conventional
linear speech was a very limited conveyor of sense and meaning beyond everyday
exchanges” (490). Disregarding a theatre of words, Wilson was instead interested
in developing a visual theatre with its own language that renews itself as if in a
game: “I think what you do in theater is that you can invent a theatrical language,
a vocabulary. And once it becomes discernible, then you can destroy it and
with the deconstructed parts you can reconstruct another language” (Wilson,
quoted in Bell 23). From Deafman Glance to Edison, as Lawrence Romero states,
Wilson’s first phase remained consistent, that is, “an unorthodox, idiosyncratic,
self-referential work, essentially imagistic and surrealist” (490; my emphasis).
This “essentially imagistic and surrealist” work will become clearer in the next
section of this chapter, which highlights the common surrealist thought in both
Wilson and Artaud in their early work.

Antonin Artaud’s and Robert Wilson’s common ground:

In search of a new language for the stage
In any comparison of Artaud and Wilson one cannot neglect their common
adventure with language from their early stages. On the one hand, we have
Artaud’s suffering of meningitis at the age of five, and his subsequent life-long
struggle with nervous disorders significantly affecting his relationship with
language itself. On the other hand, as Lawrence Shyer informs us, at the age of
17, Wilson was cured of a stammer with the help of Miss Bird (“Baby”) Hoffman,
a local dance instructor (at Waco, Texas), who taught him to speak slowly and
free the tension from his body through dance (289).8 Language, then, arose
as a challenge for both Artaud and Wilson and, little by little, they realized the
need to experiment with it in an alternative manner in order to minimize the
precedence of reason-driven language and articulated speech, using the body’s
liberating energy. Searching for a new language for the stage, both Artaud and
Wilson, each one by different means, realized the necessity for placing at the
foreground two interrelated aspects of language, both of which were originally
pointed out by André Breton: first, the emancipation of traditional dialogue from
its communicative value together with its transformation into a highly esteemed
generator of audacious images, and second, the significance of dreams.
As early as 1925, when he was still an active member of Surrealism, in an
attack against “style” and all kinds of literature, Artaud writes: “Then you will
understand why my mind is not here, then you will see all language exhausted,
 Playing with language 131

all minds dry up, all tongues shrivel up, all human figures collapse, deflate, as
if drawn up by shriveling leeches” (quoted in Schumacher 23; my emphasis).9
According to Artaud, such a concrete language that appeals to the senses is
related to the actual space of the stage and the actors’ gestures rather than
to their speeches, and is capable of unleashing poetry: “There must be poetry
for the senses just as there is for speech, but this physical, tangible language I
am referring to is really only theatrical insofar as the thoughts it expresses are
beyond spoken language” (quoted in Schumacher 93). Such spatial poetry, as
opposed to language poetry, Artaud adds, assumes many guises: “first of all it
assumes those expressive means usable on stage such as music, dance, plastic
art, mimicry, mime, gesture, voice inflection, architecture, lighting and décor”
(ibid). It becomes evident, then, that the concrete language Artaud envisioned
for the stage would be conceived as an interplay among each one of the
aforementioned guises that would give place to a total theatre, in which words
give way to signs. This is what Artaud stresses again in a letter he wrote to the
theatre critic Benjamin Crémieux on September 15, 1931, a text that was later
included in The Theatre and Its Double:

word language must give way to sign language, whose objective aspect has the most
immediate impact on us. Viewed from this angle, the aim of stage reassumes a kind of
intellectual dignity, words effacing themselves behind gesture, and from the fact that the
aesthetic, plastic part of theatre abandons its role as a decorative interlude, to become a
language of direct communication in the proper sense of the word (ibid. 112).

These views of Artaud’s, elaborated in a span of several decades, come in

agreement with Wilson’s own view of stage language. An enemy of realistic
language, Wilson claims: “Realistic dialog doesn’t work for me. What time is it?
Five o’clock. How boring” (Holmberg 67). The following anecdote, provided by
Arthur Holmberg, is also telling in this regard: during the rehearsals of When We
Dead Awaken, Wilson told two actors running through an Ibsen conversation
not “to bounce dialog back and forth like a ping-pong ball. Let the words fly past
each other. Don’t pick up each other’s rhythms. Follow your own line. Each of
you is lost in a separate world” (67). These words, similar to Breton’s definition
of surrealist dialogue as two simultaneous monologues, decenter conventional
dialogue, often suspending “a sentence midair before it arrives at a conclusion”
(ibid. 67). Like Artaud, “[b]y disturbing the flow of ordinary conversation, Wilson
unravels the social fabric, disrupts interpersonal relations, and intensifies the
mood of alienation” (ibid. 67).
Moreover, Wilson experimented with language by collaborating with children
and in particular, with brain-damaged children who offered him a different
perception of language. Also, Daniel Stern, author of The Interpersonal World
of the Infant (New York, 1985) who showed Wilson approximately a hundred
films on the relationship between mothers and their babies, was a seminal
influence. Through this experience Wilson learned that infants (literally meaning
“unable to speak”) are an inexhaustible source of creativity. Within their toy
theatre, children discover their realm: “theatre and dreams” (Morey and Pardo
21). Equally revealing was Wilson’s collaboration with the deaf-mute Raymond
Andrews and the autistic actor Chris Knowles with both of whom Wilson was
132 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

amazed, because they spoke by way of visual form, always seeing images as they
spoke, as if they organized language through an inner screen. Thus, Wilson was
willing to accommodate Raymond Andrews’ view of the world, “the idea that,
to the extent that he thinks in images rather than in words, he can penetrate a
whole range of aspects that tend to go unnoticed by those of us who live in a
predominantly verbal world” (ibid. 24). Similarly, Wilson admits that from Chris
Knowles he learned to use language differently, from another point of view:
“I began to explore the sound and division of words themselves again” (ibid. 20).
For,

[h]is speech reflected a linguistic organization that was not ordered by syntax. His systematizing
was based, quite spontaneously, on categories that Wilson intuits as mathematical, numeric
and geometrical. … From the ephemeral geometries of the body, language becomes, with
Chris, formalization, spontaneous abstraction on his inner screen (ibid. 145).

Indeed, the way this 11-year-old boy organized language was remarkable and
helped Wilson, as he admits, to “rediscover the hidden. That for me (him) is
avant-garde” (ibid. 26). The desire for making the stage the realm of a revelation
of the hidden (as in the “one into another” game) was something that Artaud
had already expressed in 1928 in these psychological terms:

The Jarry Theatre will endeavour to express what life has forgotten, has hidden, or is
incapable of stating. Everything which stems from the mind’s fertile delusions, its sensory
illusions, encounters between things and sensations which strike us primarily by their
physical density, will be shown from an extraordinary angle, with the stench and the excreta
of unadulterated brutality, just as they appear to the mind, just as the mind remembered
them (quoted in Schumacher 35).

Uncovering the hidden goes hand in hand with brutality, a brutality that is typical
of dream, all the while these elements form the quintessence of the “thrilling
game” that is the stage, according to Artaud. In the above statement, Artaud
articulates for the first time his later notion of “the theatre of cruelty.” By this
term, it is by no means meant a theatre in which “blood and sadism predominate,
but one which draws upon the passionate in life, the violent rigor—this life
that exceeds all bounds and is exercised in the torture and trampling down
of everything, this pure implacable feeling is what cruelty is” (Zeps 130). This
notion of cruelty is inherent in the dreams, as Artaud states in his first manifesto
of the Theatre of Cruelty (1932):

If theatre is as bloody and as inhuman as dreams, the reason for this is that it perpetuates
the metaphysical notions in some fables in a present-day, tangible manner, whose atrocity
and energy are enough to prove their origins and intentions in fundamental first principles
rather than to reveal and unforgettably tie down the idea of continual conflict within us,
where life is continually lacerated, where everything in creation rises up and attacks our
condition as created beings (quoted in Schumacher 101; my emphasis).

In other words, Artaud wanted “to bring to light all that is obscure, buried deep
and baffling within man. The theatre must be a solid material projection of our
internal drama” (Knapp 93). The same kind of brutality or cruelty is typical of
Wilson’s work, as well. Exemplary is the murder scene in Deafman Glance, which
 Playing with language 133

has been performed many times, all over the world since its initial conception in
1967, not only as part of Deafman Glance but also as part of the various productions
of Medea that Wilson attempted.10 Wilson looks at this murder scene as one of
those fascinating moments “as germs or points of heightened attention around
which orbit—as their dynamic centers of attraction—the component parts of his
mises-en-scène” (Morey and Prado 25). Wilson is aware of his mises-en scènes
as his art, distinct from life, no matter how often he uses non-professionals for
his productions. For Artaud, however, the idea of separating life from art was
intolerable. Hence his seminal idea of “the double,” “defined as a shadow in the
sense of the famous Platonic analogy, indicated the absolute unity of art and life.
Expression of this unity was the aim of Artaud’s theatre” (Bennison 128). Yet there
is another similar notion that Wilson seems to share with Artaud: he believes
that there are two kinds of screens through which one perceives the world: an
“exterior,” through which we experience sensations of the world around us, and
an “interior” screen through which we become aware of dreams and daydreams
(Shank 126). In his long performances, Wilson argues, “the spectator’s interior
audial-visual screens become one. Interior and exterior images mingle so that
they are indistinguishable” (Shank 126). Reminiscent of the surrealist game “one
into another,” if there is “life into art” and “art into life,” equally there is “an
interior screen into the exterior screen” and an “exterior screen into the interior
screen.” In other words, as the Surrealists did not separate one’s life in a state of
wakefulness and another of dream, similarly Artaud and Wilson embraced one’s
whole existence on stage. Drawing on cinematic techniques they both were able
to present such wholeness in one’s life on stage. Interestingly, they were both
attracted to the seventh art as both actors and film directors.11
Embracing a new language for the stage “somewhere between gesture and
thought” (quoted in Schumacher 101) that has as common denominators the
collapse of dialogue and the preeminence of images and dreams, both Artaud
and Wilson materialized and extended some of the most crucial surrealist tenets.
They materialized them because they accepted the stage as the ideal playground
where all experiments were allowed and thus served as a constant source of thrill
for every player involved. Such experience became possible due to the fact that
both Artaud and Wilson accepted that both play and theatre have something in
common: the mise-en-scène, and that they also are both intimately related to
the metaphor. As Jacques Henriot states in his study Sous couleur de jouer: la
métaphore ludique (Under the Color of Playing: The Ludic Metaphor), “tou jeu
possède à des degrés divers ce caractère de mise en scène” (259) [every game
possesses at various degrees this character of representation]. Both play and
theatre have an intimate relation with metaphor in the sense of transposition or
transfer from one plane to another one. For, “la métaphore est un mouvement,
une démarche brève et presque soudaine par laquelle la pensée passe d’un
plan à l’autre” (268) [the metaphor is a movement, a brief and almost sudden
procedure through which the thought passes from one plane to another]. During
both theatre and play, Henriot adds, “la transposition affecte l’objet transposé,
le rend différent, tout en lui conservant mystérieusement son identité” (264)
[this transposition affects the transposed object, it renders it different, all the
while mysteriously keeping its identity]. At the same time, this transposition also
affects the subject, both player and actor: “c’est le joueur qui, par la pensée, se
134 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

déplace, change de position par rapport au monde qui l’entoure et à lui-même,

adopte un point de vue différent du point de vue habituel, met les choses et se
met lui aussi en perspective—se ‘métaphorise’ en quelque sorte” (ibid.) [it is
the player who, through his thought, is displaced, changes position in relation
to the surrounding world, adopts a different point of view from the usual
one, puts things in perspective and along with them himself/herself—he/she
is “metaphorizing” himself/herself somehow]. This process of “metaphorizing
themselves” during their games with language enabled both Artaud and Wilson
to constantly reinvent themselves, and thus, to reinvent the language of the
stage. In the next section of this chapter, I will explore characteristic examples of
such experiments with the language of the stage from both Artaud’s Jet of Blood
and Wilson’s various performances mainly from his “surrealist” period.

Robert Wilson’s play with language

According to Arthur Holmberg, Wilson uses the following 10 strategies to
interrogate language: “discarding it; disjunction; discontinuity; the play of
meaning; the collapse of dialogue; decontextualization; reductio ad absurdum;
jamming; dissolving into sound; ritualization” (48). Interestingly, traces of almost
all of these techniques can be found in Artaud’s The Jet of Blood. In the pages that
follow, I will illustrate each one of these techniques in Wilson’s work juxtaposing
them with similar examples from The Jet of Blood.

Discarding language
Wilson discards language by privileging silence. He called his early works
“structured silence” (Holmberg 48). The most characteristic of all is Deafman
Glance, a silent opera or a “deaf opera,” as Aragon named it, or to use Laurence
Shyer’s words, “a haunting construction of silence and time” (ibid. 6). The
following description of the silent murder scene from its prologue that Lawrence
Shyer offers, constitutes the signature piece of Wilson’s theatre:

A young black woman in a dark, high-collared Victorian dress stands motionless before a
cracked gray wall, her back to the assembling audience. On a white rectangular platform
beside her are two small children dressed in white night-clothes—a boy seated on a low
stool reading a comic book and a girl asleep on the floor under a white sheet. To her left is
a small table, also covered with a white sheet, on which are arranged a pitcher of milk, two
glasses, a napkin, a black glove and a large knife whose blade gleams in the light. She moves
silently to the table, puts on the black glove and pours milk into a glass. Every action is
measured and deliberate, at times unbearably slow. She takes the milk over to the little boy,
who drinks. When he has finished she moves back to the table, takes the knife and carefully
wipes it with the cloth, and then returns to the boy. With the same care and impassive
concern, she slowly pushes the blade into his chest. He falls from the stool without any
show of fear or pain and she gently cradles him to the floor, calmly sliding the knife into him
one more time. She now returns to the table, pours a second glass of milk and wakes the
girl. The sequence is repeated: the child drinks, the glass of milk is exchanged for the knife,
the knife pushed gently into the child’s side, each task performed with concentrated energy
but also a curious inattention (5).
 Playing with language 135

In the original version of the Deafman Glance prologue, an older boy named
Raymond appears at the edge of the stage during the first murder and begins to
scream repeatedly, “the high-pitched, impotent utterance of a deaf-mute. The
figure crosses to the boy, puts her black-gloved hand on his forehead and then
moves it down over his mouth, stifling his cries” (Shyer 6).
The exemplary in the movements of the female murderer slow-motion
technique is also used by Artaud in The Jet of Blood, a six-page script that was
intended to make a full staging. Also, the screams of the deaf-mute boy when
witnessing the ineffable could find a parallel in the words of the young boy
who also faces another kind of ineffable: “An army of scorpions comes out from
under The Nurse’s dress and swarms over his sex, which swells up and bursts,
becoming glassy and shining like the sun” (Benedikt and Wellwarth 226). As
“if suspended in mid-air and with the voice of a ventriloquist’s dummy,” he
cries out: “Don’t hurt Mummy” (ibid.). The screams of both young boys, as
expressions of speech impediments, interrupt silence when confronting
traumatic experiences, making it clear how both Artaud and Wilson discard
language. As Nina Sundell states, words are used mainly for their sonic and
associative content. Here is a telling description of Sundell’s account of Wilson’s
vision:

For Wilson, even dramatic structure is based on vision. Neither narrative nor episodic, it
consists rather, of the unfolding of a slow sequence of the stage effects: apparently un-
related images that seem almost hallucinatory in their vivid strangeness. These images
are endlessly astonishing. Rich, lucid, and sensual, they possess a dream-like density and
proceed with orderly elaboration. They are connected by a mysteriously convincing inner
logic: not the logic of causality, but that of aesthetic coherence. Action and speech or song
are subordinated to this visual scenario. Fragmented, dislocated, woven into a recurrent
pattern of sound, dialogue seldom conveys literal meaning. Drained of the power to describe,
analyze, or communicate directly, words are used mainly for their sonic and associative
content. In the absence of normal discourse, the action seems at once incomprehensible
and intensely, almost painfully significant. What is memorable is not what happens but
what is seen (7).

Disjunction
Wilson’s second strategy to interrogate language is disjunction, that is, the
disassociation of theatrical codes. His theatrical codes—“lights, costumes, make-
up, movement, proxemics, set, sound, language, props—all speak different
languages. Each tells a different tale” (Holmberg 53). By deliberately juxtaposing
all of them on stage simultaneously according to Lautréamont’s example of
an “accidental meeting of an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissection
table,” he creates unexpected surrealist images (ibid. 175). These surrealist
images go beyond a shocking effect—they amplify the spectator’s perception.
In other words, “Wilson’s theatre dramatizes the ‘simultaneous perception of
multiplicity’—language as both sense and nonsense” (ibid. 57). Layering the
theatrical codes against each other, Wilson states: “Usually in theatre the visual
repeats the verbal. The visual takes second place to language. I don’t think that
way. For me the visual is not an afterthought, not an illustration of the text. It has
equal importance. If it tells the same story as the words, why look?” (ibid. 53).
136 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Or, on another occasion, Wilson states: “Theatre can be a gesture, it can be

a light, it can be a sound, can be a word, can be a color. It can be anything,
and there are all of these stratified zones that you are layering together and
structuring, in my case often through counterpoint” (Schechner, “A Dialogue”
125; my emphasis). A typical example of such disjunction comes from the very
successful Einstein on the Beach, first performed in 1976, in which the visual and
the verbal coexist in disjunction yet strangely interpenetrate and inform each
other. In act II, scene 1B, a trial scene is enacted. Lucinda Childs plays a witness
who walks to a huge white bed incongruously nestled in the middle of the
courtroom, while Einstein plays the violin. Then the witness starts a nonsense
monologue (repeated hypnotically 35 times), while “the jury sings a chorus of
numbers over Philip Glass’s obsessively repeated rhythms” (ibid. 54).
A similar disjunction of the verbal and the visual takes place in The Jet of Blood
when the young man claims: “Ah, how well ordered this world is!” (Benedikt and
Wellwarth 223). Yet, ironically, the facts contradict the young man’s statement as
the world immediately falls into pieces as the following stage directions illustrate.
Disjunction between the verbal and the visual makes its full appearance here,
giving room to a larger than life spectacle:

A pause. Something that sounds like an immense wheel turning and blowing out air is
heard. A hurricane separates the two. At this moment two stars crash into each other, and
we see a number of live pieces of human bodies falling down: hands, feet, scalps, masks,
colonnades, porches, temples, and alembics, which, however, fall more and more slowly, as
if they were falling in a vacuum. Three scorpions fall down, one after the other, and finally,
a frog, and a beetle, which sets itself down with a maddening, vomit-inducing slowness
(Benedikt and Wellwarth 223).

This overwhelming spectacle may have been unimaginable in terms of its

mise-en-scène in Artaud’s time, but not in our time, which boasts an incredibly
advanced stage technology.

Discontinuity and the collapse of dialogue

This term refers to the fragmentation on the level of words, sentences, and
narrative. Wilson “violates grammar, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, and the
rules of rhetoric that enable a coherent argument to unfold” (Holmberg 58).
A characteristic example of such discontinuity is A Letter for Queen Victoria
(1974), stimulated by Wilson’s work with Christopher Knowles. The opening lines
of this text have become something of a refrain, having been used by Wilson at
a number of his press conferences:

DIAN DIENA KAASOWRD

THE DINA DYE KNEE THE DINA
DYE EYE THE DINA DIE DIE
DIEING DINA SORE SORE SORE
THE DINA DYE KNEE THE DINA
DYE EYE THE DINA DIE THE
DIEING DINA SORE SORE SOWRDKS!
THE DINA DINA SORE SORE SOWRDS (Morey and Pardo 143).
 Playing with language 137

The words in this piece do not recount a story; they “do not construct the images
of a development that would spell out their meaning. The word is not split
between the saying and the said. Language is sound expression that follows the
graph of the inner screen” (ibid. 145). The words are like a mantra that hypnotize
the audience through both their visual display and their sound patterns.
The collapse of dialogue is the result of such discontinuity. Wilson frequently
uses on-stage word games to illustrate the collapse of dialogue, as in his musical
Alice (1992), in which the title character explores the shifting boundaries
between sense and non-sense by playing word games. In this play, Wilson also
uses word games to illustrate Alice’s traumatic experience as an abused child.
Likewise, in the CIVIL warS (1981), instead of continuous dialogue, there are
tatters of sentences. Here is an example, in which numbers refer to the actors
who speak the phrases and E is a recorded voice-over:

5E: don’t be nervous I’m just scared to death one two three four five six seven eight a
thousand dollars / 21: mama / 20: he looks pale / 19: yeah / 18: sister / 17: pages sewn in
signature / 19: signatures / 17: daddy / 19: a spot in known / 18: boys / 17: a stopping place /
E (sound of coyote in distance) / 16: nearest place / 17 please / 18: family makes two no /
19: many others / 10: still pictures are forever records results of family incredible ears in a
field of many shows signatures made others still (quoted in Holmberg 58).

This discontinuous dialogue among many voices may not be a coherent logical
dialogue but it best captures the tragic outcome of a civil war. The collapse
of dialogue that Breton fervently advocated as early as 1924, also makes its
appearance in The Jet of Blood, as the following example shows:

THE PRIEST (in a confessional tone). To what part of her body would you say you refer most
often?
YOUNG MAN. To God (Benedikt and Wellwarth 225).

This is by no means a coherent dialogue and it resembles two simultaneous

monologues that produce misunderstanding, humor, and even blasphemy; yet
such misunderstanding allows for a play of meaning, the next common strategy
in Wilson’s work of questioning language.

The play of meaning

Dramatizing the play of meaning is a key ludic strategy for Wilson through which
he shows that meaning is a process and that there might be plural readings
of the same words, phrases or sentences. Such is the case of I Was Sitting on
My Patio this Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating (1977), a play that
“dramatizes the way consciousness works, constantly slipping back and forth
between different levels of reality—perhaps one should say levels of unreality”
(Holmberg 61). According to Stefan Brecht, in this performance, Wilson “built up
a powerful image of a lone individual, of the autism in all of us, of someone beset
by encroaching shadows, or simply by too many concerns, harassed to the edge
of disintegration, or rather, not of any individual, but of that state” (380–81). In
the first act of this play, Wilson delivered the following discontinuous, stream-of-
consciousness monologue: “I was sitting on my patio this guy appeared I thought
138 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

I was hallucinating / I was walking in an alley / you are beginning to look a little
strange to me / I’m going to meet them outside / have you been living here
long …” (ibid). In the second act the same monologue was delivered by Lucinda
Childs, who directed it herself. The result was that she generated completely
different meanings and emotions to the point that the audience hardly believed
they heard the same monologue twice. “Movements, gestures, tone of voice,
music, lights, costumes—all these paralinguistic systems of communication
shifted the semantic weight and destabilized the texts’ meaning” (ibid. 61). The
same play of meaning also exists in the following scene from The Jet of Blood:

THE YOUNG MAN. I love you, and everything is beautiful.

THE YOUNG GIRL (with a strong tremolo in her voice). You love me, and everything is
beautiful.
THE YOUNG MAN (in a very deep voice). I love you, and everything is beautiful.
THE YOUNG GIRL (in an even deeper voice than his). You love me, and everything is beautiful
(Benedikt and Wellwarth 223).

This dialogue is by no means a progressive dialogue. Instead, the voices of the

two protagonists progressively shift from a lower tone to a higher one. From the
opening of the play, Artaud shows his concern with the physicality of the stage
and sets an early example of his attempt to rediscover a “unique language halfway
between gesture and thought” (quoted in Brandt 191). Such a concrete language
of the stage exists here in the specialized use of intonations applied to the same
set of words four times with a slight shift in the grammatical subject of the young
man’s utterance “I love you,” which becomes “You love me” in the young girl’s
mouth. Without the intonations, a purely theatrical device that stresses the
dissolving into sound, and in turn, the young couple’s strength and passion for
life, the audience would have probably burst into laughter, as the words seem
to parody the genre of romances on stage, especially Armand Salacrou’s play
La Boule de verre, as Eva Baranska has convincingly shown. Whether a parody
aiming to abolish the ornamental style of acting or not, the audience can detect
the play of meaning in this dramatization, residing primarily in the actor’s physical
means of expression. Such play of meaning is also extended through the other
two strategies that Wilson uses to interrogate language: decontextualization and
reductio ad absurdum.

Decontextualization and reductio ad absurdum

Decontextualization refers to the use of a preexistent text in a new context that
renders it strange. For instance, the use of an archaic language in A Letter for
Queen Victoria served to defamiliarize language. Or the use of a quasi-apocalyptic
scene, reminiscent of relevant Biblical passages in the following tableau from
The Jet of Blood, generates a strange effect on the audience:

A pause. Something that sounds like an immense wheel turning and blowing out air is
heard. A hurricane separates the two. At this moment two stars crash into each other, and
we see a number of live pieces of human bodies falling down: hands, feet, scalps, masks,
colonnades, porches, temples, and alembics, which, however, fall more and more slowly, as
if they were falling in a vacuum. Three scorpions fall down, one after the other, and finally,
 Playing with language 139

a frog, and a beetle, which sets itself down with a maddening, vomit-inducing slowness
(Benedikt and Wellwarth 223).

As far as the reductio ad absurdum is concerned, Holmberg refers to the

questioning of any original use of language by placing at the foreground the
cacophony and the banality of everyday conversation, as the famous scene
“Chitter, Chatter” from A Letter for Queen Victoria exemplifies, in which the
cocktail party syndrome is dramatized. More precisely, “[a]gainst a chorus who
repeats the words ‘chitter chatter,’ we pick up rags and patches of conversation:
‘it’s such a charming place; how very touching; it’s slipped my mind entirely; yes
isn’t it a shame; how dreadful’” (Holmberg 69). As these patches of conversation
are put together in the foreground they seem nonsensical but they alert the
viewer-auditor to the futility of such an emotionally charged assemblage of
words. Perhaps there is no better example of a parallel of reductio ad absurdum
than the image of the knight calling for his cheese in a threatening voice in
The Jet of Blood: “Where have you put it? Give me my Gruyère!” (Benedikt
and Wellwarth 226). The response of the young man to the priest’s cynicism is
another example of everyday banalities: “Ah, yes, there we are, that’s life! Oh,
well, it all goes down the drain sooner or later” (Benedikt and Wellwarth 225).
The next strategy of Wilson’s undermining of language is jamming.

Jamming
This term refers to triumph of the interference of many other disturbances
over language, thus rendering language unintelligible. Such was the case in
Alcestis (1999) for which Wilson collaborated with composer Hans-Peter Kuhn
who made a collage of voices for this production. Here is how he describes this
endeavor:

I used eighteen speakers. Everyone recorded one word, so every nineteenth word was said
by the same person. The sound structure was based, not on the text, but on an acoustic
curve: a symphony of vocal sounds. When the ritual started you could follow the words,
but it got more and more dense, and in the end it was pure noise (quoted in Holmberg 72).

Perhaps there is no better expression of the experience of death that Alcestis

represents than this jamming of vocal sounds that end up as pure noise. A similar
jamming of natural sounds dissolving any human voice is the following scene in
The Jet of Blood, described by the stage directions:

Night suddenly falls. Earthquake. Thunder shakes the air, and lightning zigzags in all
directions. In the intermittent flashes of lightning one sees people running around in panic,
embracing each other, falling down, getting up again, and running around like madmen
(Benedikt and Wellwarth 225).

While sound overwhelms the stage in both Artaud and Wilson, there is another
ludic technique that both of them favor: playing with the sounds of words.
Perhaps this is why Artaud directs the young boy and the young girl to repeat
in different voice inflections the words “I love you and the world is beautiful!”
140 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

However, Wilson goes far beyond Artaud in this regard. As Holmberg states,
“Wilson toys with words to pulverize meaning into sound” (72). For him “the
pleasure of language involves the sensuous experience of sound” (ibid. 73). The
words reverberate in the body and in themselves, as they do in this exercise in
reverberation, from a text written in 1971:

THE OVER REVERBERATIONS THE BODY

GESTICULATE A LAYERING A RING, A LING
A DING THE OVERREVERBATIONS
THE BODY OVERREVERBERATION A ZATION
REVERBALIZATION A NATION REVERBARAR
ING A RATIONING OF ALL NATIONS
THE BODEE REVERBATES
THE GESTICULATE A LAYERING VIBRATES
A RING A LAYER ANOTHER GESTICULATING
ANOTHER LAYER LAYERING I SING
THE BODY OVER OVER OVER
OVER REA REA REA VIB
THE BODEE GESTICULATE A
LAYERING ARING A LING
THE BODY GESTUKLE YOU LATES
A LAYER THEN RINGS THE
OVER RE BA RATION THE BODEE
REVERBATION A NATION RATIONING
CATIONING THE BODY GESTICULATE
A LAYERING RING SINGING

As Morey and Pardo state, “[i]n the reverberation of the sound through the body,
language transformed into waves, into sound strata that seem to weave lines,
sound lines” (143). And they add: “The body that vibrates with the sound does
not lend its ears to the meaning, it seeks the positions of the word as if speaking
in another tongue and listens, listens to its sound” (145). In the above examples,
the text, written to be heard, works the sound. The impossibility of picking out a
meaning becomes an invitation to linger over the sound:

a lingering that derives from a concentration on the positions of the body that will
make hearing possible, perhaps an also stupefied hearing of an unrecognized term. The
movement of the body that is made audible in the voice dislocates the meaning in order to
make the word physical, to feel it with the body (ibid.).

In all of these examples language is organized not only by sound but also by visual
patterns, functioning thus as “concrete poetry” (Holmberg 45). “By molding
language into a pictorial composition, Wilson emphasizes the visual beauty of
written script and fuses word into image. … The director focuses on language
in its brute physicality” (ibid. 45–6). Both visual and sound patterns lead to the
last strategy that Wilson uses to challenge language: the release of its magic.
This strategy bridges the gap between Artaud and Wilson. If Artaud expressed
the need for the magic of language on stage as early as in his manifesto for
the Théâtre Alfred Jarry, Wilson managed to restore “to language its primitive
power to make visible the invisible, to reach beyond ordinary experience into
extraordinary realms of consciousness where the spirit, instinct with godhead,
 Playing with language 141

establishes contact with the divine” (Holmberg 73). Ritual language, stylized
and formal, becomes ecstatic, incantatory, magic, for instance, in the use of
language in the CIVIL warS, in which Wilson incorporates fragments of well-
known canonical texts including the Bible, Shakespeare, and the Brothers Grimm
to stress one thing: the slaughter of the innocents. In The Jet of Blood, Artaud
aimed to restore language to its magical power by evoking the apocalyptic,
beyond the human scope of events.

Conclusion
All of the above examples of techniques with which Artaud and Wilson in
particular played with language, prove that the stage for both of them became a
toyland, open to experimentation. In this new realm serious and thrilling games
take place that render the experience of the stage for both actors and audience
a methectic experience, albeit, a living initiating experience. To use Wilson’s own
words,

I think there will always be a place for live theatre … It’s a forum where people can come
together and share something. … It’s a place where madness can happen, and where
political ideas can be viewed, or social ideas can be viewed. Aesthetics, Poetry, dance,
music, architecture, all the arts can be seen in the theatre, in this forum, in this palace of
exchange (quoted in Morey and Pardo 40–41).

In other words, both Artaud and Wilson dared literally to “metaphorize

themselves” as actors and directors and ultimately as players on stage. In so
doing, they transformed themselves into mediums that revealed to the audience
the hidden, encapsulated in a series of images or dream-like visions. Like Nadja
and Alice in Wonderland, they both dared to pass “through the looking glass”
by experiencing innumerable metamorphoses, having always as their point of
departure a game that targeted language. Each one of these games brought
them closer to a pre-linguistic stage out of which they felt a language more
suitable for the stage would emerge. To use Julia Kristeva’s words, it is in such
revolutionized theatre “that the mobile chora of language is most completely
liberated: the word becomes a drive which is thrown out in enunciation, and the
text has no other justification than to give rise to this music of pulsions” (quoted
in “Subject in Process” 122). By chora, a term borrowed from Plato’s Timaeus to
refer to the matrix that existed prior to the formation of cosmos, Kristeva means
the pre-linguistic mobile-receptacle of the process prior to the formation of the
subject, defined by the body’s pulsions and the mechanism of expulsion. Thus,
quoting Artaud, Kristeva continues:

[l]anguage, always and already a detour of expulsion, under the pressure of a renewed
expulsion, becomes divided, fragmented, discredited; it is no longer language as such,
and can only be understood by “aphasiacs, and in general all the rejects of words and
speech, the pariah of Thought.” But it is only in this way that it can take on the possibility
of presenting matter in discourse: “All matter begins with a spiritual disturbance” (“Subject
in Process” 124).
142 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Thus, both Artaud and Wilson redefined the language of the stage, linking it to
the actor’s body, dream, silence, and images. Therefore, both Wilson and Artaud,
like the Surrealists, challenged the dominant culture of the West, founded on
rational thought. As Arthur Holmberg claims, one cannot understand Wilson,
latter-day incarnation of this tradition (of the Romantics through the Symbolists
to the Surrealists), without understanding how he questions the dominant
culture of the West—the positivist, rational culture that expresses itself in
newspapers, locomotives, and realistic drama (120). In the final chapter, we will
examine a different type of stage games that take the actor’s physical language
to the extremes. I refer to Megan Terry’s so-called theatre games.

Notes
1 This lecture was entitled “La mise en scène et le théâtre” and was published in the Nouvelle
revue française 221, February 1, 1932. For more information, see Schumacher 97.
2 This excerpt is from the eight-page pamphlet published in 1928 under the title “The
Alfred Jarry Theatre (1928 Season),” included in Artaud, OC2 29. The translation here
is by Victor Corti from Artaud’s Collected Works, vol. 2, 26–9, reprinted in Artaud on
Theatre, ed. Claude Schumacher, 35–6.
3 Brook’s production of Le Jet de sang, as Günter Berghaus confirms, “has been judged
a total flop (Hunt & Reeve 77).” Christopher Innes also offers some details about this
production. See Avant-garde Theatre 128–9.
4 When John Bell asked Robert Wilson what effect his predecessors had on his work
including Louis Aragon who in his famous letter to André Breton talks about his work
as the fulfillment of the surrealist project, Wilson answered: “Well, I think the world’s a
library and that we draw from all sources” (21).
5 The struggle with language in the early stages in the lives of both Artaud and Wilson
makes their approximation more relevant.
6 Wilson studied painting under George McNeill at the American Center, Paris in 1964.
McNeil was an American abstract expressionist on faculty at Pratt (Fairbrother 110).
7 Gilles Anquetil, the literary editor of Nouvel observateur describes Wilson’s work as “a
meeting of the new world and the old world, of American culture and European art”
(Shyer 258). Pierre Gardin describes the first days of Wilson when a guest at his house
in Paris: “Bob came and lived in my house for three months and he was always looking
through my books on painting. He was very inspired by pictures. He would look at the
work of Paul Delvaux and make a scene with a Delvaux look. He discovered, he was
surprised. Bob was not really very cultivated but he was intelligent and sensitive. He
came to Europe and saw so many different things. And he would take from everywhere
and put into his shows” (Shyer 259).
8 Wilson talked about Miss Byrd in these words: “[She] talked to me about the energy in
my body, about relaxing, letting energy flow through … she would play piano and I would
move my body. She didn’t watch … she never taught a technique, she never gave me a
way to approach it, it was more that I discovered it on my own” (Fairbrother 109).
9 I refer to Artaud’s text “Toute l’écriture est de la cochonnerie” (All Writing is Filth),
published in Le Pèse-Nerfs (The Nervometer), Leibowitz, August 1, 1925 in the collection
Pour vos beaux yeux, edited by Louis Aragon. The relevant citation is in Schumacher 23.
 Playing with language 143

10 In 1984, Wilson first staged Medée (a baroque opera with music by Marc-Antoine
Charpentier and text by Thomas Corneille) and Medea (with a libretto by Robert
Wilson based on the Euripides play and music by Gavin Bryars, preceded by a prologue
constructed from the Heiner Muller texts Despoiled Shore, Medeamaterial and Landscape
with Argonauts). For more information, see Morey and Pardo 35.
11 In 1924 Artaud also began a career as a film actor. As Susan Sontag states, “Artaud was
never given the means to direct a film of his own, and he saw his intentions betrayed
in a film of 1928 that was made with another director from one of his screenplays, The
Seashell and the Clergyman. … He continued acting in films until 1935 …” (84). Wilson,
on the other hand, from the early steps in his career, experimented with cinema. His first
film, Slant, was an abstract film, produced in 1963, approximately 10 minutes long. Since
then he has made numerous filmic versions of his theatrical performances including
Deafman Glance and Einstein on the Beach, among others.
This page has been left blank intentionally
5
Ludics in Megan Terry’s
“theatre of transformations”

At the core of the constant search for new forms in postmodern drama is the notion of play.
Postmodern drama plays with forms and genres, and thus, brings about new constellations
and opens up new theatrical spaces (Schmidt 69; my emphasis).

I found it fun to play with audience expectations. Change one or two elements of what they
were expecting and they may find it fun to reorder their expectations and thus “get in” on
the game or they may walk out on what they see before them (Megan Terry).1

In the previous chapter, Robert Wilson’s “theatre of images” or “theatre of vision,”

which is informed by the surrealist ludic spirit, illustrated how postmodern
theatre plays with language, forms, and genres and opens up new theatrical
spaces, as Kerstin Schmidt states in the above quotation. Likewise, this chapter
will focus on another seminal American postmodern playwright—this time
female—in whose work not only affinities with Surrealism have been detected
but also in which play is a core element that allows “for playing with audience
expectations.” I refer to Megan Terry, playwright, director, and actress, whose
multifarious theatrical work, both in theme and style, is driven by the ludic
principle. In an e-mail communication dated February 17, 2011, Terry admits that
“playing games” either athletic or jokes is something that she has inherited from
her family2 and that she has tried to bring all that festive family tradition of fun
and laughter generated by playing games onto the stage, since she has “always
considered theatre a conservative act, in the best sense of ‘conserving’ what had
gone and what might be going on after the other arts have reached some sort of
zenith.” Terry’s deep involvement in team games has shaped her overall approach
to theatre as both a playwright and a director. She sees herself in both those
roles as a coach who regulates her actors’ energy and plays with the audience’s
expectations in order to engage it in the game that is the play each time she
directs. Indeed, the concept of play is inherent in each one of the three major
techniques that constantly reappear in her dramas, that is, transformational
characterizations, a montage-like structure, and politically surrealistic satire
(Larson 9). It is in the first of these—transformational characterizations—
in particular that both the concepts of play and game find all their amplitude
146 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

and this is why it will be the focus of our attention in this chapter. The choice to
include Terry in this chapter, from a pleiad of other American playwrights who
also experiment with the concept of play and who have, to a greater or lesser
extent, affinities with Surrealism (such as Edward Albee or Sam Sheppard), was
dictated mainly by the fact that, in the span of a long and successful career as a
playwright, stage director, and actress, Terry never stopped experimenting with
the concepts of play and games, on both the level of stage language and that of
the actors’ body movements, in an ultimate attempt to investigate the function
of the ever-elusive “self” in the frame of a feminist agenda. Her “theatre of
transformations” (or sometimes “theatre of metamorphoses”), which cannot be
imagined without the play concept, best expresses her ties to surrealist theatre.
“Transformations” is of course a term that has always existed in the world of
art, known since Ovid’s time when he completed his Metamorphoses (in 7 A.D.).
This work uses the term “metamorphoses” or “transformations” in the sense of
“a whole range of wonders” or “miraculous changes,” applied to all the stories
of classical mythology, and linked together in an artistically harmonious whole
(Miller x). This term, however, although it kept much of its Ovidian sense, was
enhanced with a new dimension in the Open Theatre of New York, co-founded by
Joseph Chaikin and Megan Terry. It refers to an improvisational acting technique
developed within the frame of this theatre that meant “the abrupt taking on
and dropping of different roles without any accompanying changes in setting,
costume, or lighting” (Schmidt 12). The technique itself is said, however, “to go
back to the famous Chicago workshop of Viola Spolin, renowned theatre teacher,
whose handbook of teaching and directing was soon to assume quasi-biblical
status for theatre groups of the time” (Schmidt 12), such as the well-known
Chicago-based Steppenwolf Theatre Group.3 For in her theatre game directing
techniques, the word “game” displaced “problem solving,” while “the logical,
rational brain seeking such information had been transcended by the theatre
game focus” (Spolin, Theater Games 2). Thus, playing freed both the director and
the actors-players “from the fear-producing trap of memorizing, characterizing,
and interpreting” (ibid.). Instead, improvisation, intuition, passion, and discovery
play major roles in this new directing technique, in which everyone in the same
playing space stands in waiting. “To stand in waiting is allowing the unknown,
the new, the unexpected, perhaps the art (life) moment to approach” (ibid. 4).
Such openness to the unexpected brings Spolin’s theatre games close to
Surrealism’s constant quest for the marvelous, prompted by the play element.
One among the great variety of theatre games used by Spolin is the so-called
“transformation of relation game.” The purpose of this game is “to allow players
the exciting experience of the new relationships they are capable of playing,”
while the focus of this game is “on movement, constant interaction, relation
between players within a series of changing relationships” (ibid. 93). In this
game, players are not to initiate change but are to let it happen, while dialogue
should be minimized since transformation of relation requires a great deal of
body movement for the transformation to emerge.4 Often in playing, sounds
such as grunts, shouts, etc. will emerge. Sound in this case is part of the play’s
rising energy and a continuation of body movement. “In the course of changing
relationships, players may become animals, plants, objects, machines and enter
any space and time” (ibid.).
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 147

Terry was greatly influenced by Spolin’s theatre games techniques and applied
them to her own theatre of transformations. Richard Schechner offers a telling
description of what exactly her theatre contains:

The basic construction block for both playwright and actor is the beat, those discrete
units of actions which make up a scene. In transformations each scene (sometimes beat)
is considered separately; there is no necessary attempt to relate one scene to the next
through organic development: one scene follows another but does not logically grow out of
it. The relationship between beats, or scenes, is para-logical or pre-logical—a relationship
of free association or arbitrary cue (“The Playwright” 14).

This para-logical or pre-logical relationship between the scenes of a play is,

I believe, one of the main elements that tie the “theatre of transformations” to
the surrealist theatre. In both cases, like dream work, the scenes succeed one
another without logical connection, yet they reveal another kind of logic, one
that is elicited by the unconscious. Also, like the surrealist theatre, the “theatre of
transformations” relies heavily on the visual—as does the “theatre of images”—
and, in particular, on games appealing to both the actors’ improvisation and the
audience’s imagination, whether this results from the interrogation of language or
from an emphasis on the actors’ bodies. In each case, the ludic transformational
principle is at stake, finding a precursor in Nadja’s transformational game that
she performed for Breton’s sake.
This chapter will focus on the specific games Terry implements on stage
in several of her transformational plays and, in particular, in one that has
been acknowledged at several reprises as bearing a surrealist mark due to its
fluid structure and its open form—one that “is no longer a consistent set of
interrelated units” (Schechner, “The Playwright” 14). I refer to her work Keep
Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place (1967), in which both character and situation
constantly change.5 “In Keep Tightly Closed the characters are continually being
transformed into other characters, all based on the play’s themes of entrapment,
escape, torture, and expiation. The play develops through a set of concrete free
associations” (Schechner, “The Playwright” 15). This technique I interpret to be
very close to the surrealist principle of the “one into another” game that we
have explored in earlier chapters. To borrow Schechner’s words, “[t]he form of a
play thus conceived and acted is one of contained and containing boxes in which
the ‘lives’ of the characters are axes” (ibid. 14). Also, like the surrealist pieces
we have examined in the previous chapters, the transformational principle in
Keep Tightly Closed, “besides questioning our notion of ‘reality’ in a very graphic
way, also raises certain questions about the nature of identity and the finitude
of character” (Feldman, quoted in Terry 201). Thus, this final chapter will offer
a demonstration of some ludic stage techniques that find their precursor in
Surrealism. Mainly operating on the level of the actors’ bodies, these techniques
challenge our notion of reality, the nature of identity of the character, and the
nature of the relationship between stage and auditorium.6
The technique of transformations was already introduced, although
moderately, in Terry’s most famous play, Viet-rock: (A Folk War Movie) (1965),
a political play overtly against the Vietnam War, conceived out of the rules
of the game basketball in terms of playing with the audience’s expectations.
148 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Developed in a playwright’s workshop at the Open Theatre and premiered at

Ellen Stewart’s Café La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, this play grew out of
improvisation in which stage games play a major role. Opening with a blissful
scene where childlike laughter is heard and sounds like when children play
vigorous games, and where the actors free their imaginations by immersing
themselves in free associations of playtime, this play gradually unravels to reveal
the unprecedented cruelty of war. For example, in the opening stage directions
one reads: “Playtime material, especially of war games, cowboys and Indians,
cops and robbers, should be allowed to come to the surface and explode into
sound, sounds of weapons, horses, tanks, planes, guns, troops, orders, marching,
bugles, songs, etc.” (29). These children’s mimicry games are employed in all
their amplitude, soon to be equated with the brutal reality of war, brought up on
stage in a variety of bitter tableaus. The latter, such as fighting on the battlefield,
the death of a young soldier, a mother’s mourning, a callous sergeant’s training
of novices, a massive massacre of youth, young students’ protests, among
others, resemble the cuts of daily newspapers and TV news. In the meantime,
still in this opening scene, the actors continue drawing on the repository of
children’s games. In an instant transformation they play “mamas” and “boys”
and experience a “feeling of play, discovery and contentment” (30).
Such theatre games were largely due to Terry’s experimentation with
children. As she herself confesses, “I ran a playschool in Canada for two years,
and I learned a lot about transformations from them” (Hardison Londré 141).
In another interview, led by Dinah L. Leavitt, Terry offers more details about the
way she incorporated children’s games in her theatre of transformations:

I worked with children for many years, three-and-a half to six-year-olds, and there’s no
mystery to it. It’s just the basic way children play. You just apply the principles of creative
dramatics to adult drama and you get a whole new technique, cuttings, a juxtaposition, and
it’s all jammed together with film techniques, cutting, jump cuts. I said, “What if you do
this on stage?” Well, in Comings and Goings and Keep Tightly Closed you get a new kind of
comedy just because of the jump cuts (292).

These theatre games rely on the constant slippage of meaning that is the outcome
of the interplay between the imagination of the playwright, the actors, their roles,
and the members of the audience. Such a technique “as opposed to a motivationally
connected narrative, allows for greater compression, rapid pacing, freedom to
digress and comment through counterpoint, and unlimited perspective on the
topic” (Hardison Londré 139). As Richard Schechner states, “Miss Terry’s plays are
made with her actors. They begin as ‘notions,’ move through a chrysalis stage of
improvisation, become ‘solidified’ in a text, and are produced. But this solidification
is not final; the plays themselves, like the performances, evolve” (“The Playwright”
9–10; my emphasis).7 I would add that Terry’s plays evolve in the same manner as
a basketball game evolves, which no matter how well the actors/team players are
prepared, they always embrace the moment and inevitably shift focus and thus the
audience’s horizon of expectations. Talking about the acting technique in Comings
and Goings, for which every actors needed to know the entire script, Terry explains
in her aforementioned e-mail communication: “Just as team players have to know
their game, the actors had to be ready to go into the play when the Coach or
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 149

Director sent them, picking up their dialogue perhaps in the middle of a sentence
that had been started by the actor they were replacing. This is not only fun for the
audience; it shows the power of the actors, the power of their belief to be there
in an instant, but also their mind power.” The essence of this fun creative process
that opens itself to the unexpected is reminiscent of the surrealist “small papers”
game, which we had encountered in the previous chapters. The final outcome is
the product of a gradual change achieved through endless replacements. Such
gradual change and development into different forms is well illustrated in one of
the most representative of Terry’s transformational theatrical works, the one-act
play Keep Tightly Closed. Like Viet-rock, this play was developed in collaboration
with the Open Theatre of New York, under the direction of Peter Feldman, and it
is devoted to Joseph Chaikin, the leader of the Open Theatre. It premiered at the
Sheridan Square Playhouse on March 29, 1965, on a double bill with Calm Down
Mother and was later produced by the Firehouse Theatre of Minneapolis. This play
is animated through the ludic transformational principle and is literally open to the
coach’s/director’s free choice. In its production notes, Terry claims that “[t]he play
should be directed literally or as a fantasy or dream” (5). The fluidity of the form
of the play therefore opens up many possibilities for the director to play with each
one of the aforementioned options and finally choose one of them. The director,
in essence, Terry continues, “should decide if a murder has been committed, or,
if it is the desire to commit the murder, or if it is a dramatization of relief” (ibid).
To understand better how each of these options could work a brief look at the plot
is needed.

Keep Tightly Closed: A chain of transformations

The play revolves around three inmates, linked by murder. “Jaspers hired Michaels
to hire Gregory to kill Jaspers’ wife. … Gregory botched the job and all three are
serving out life sentences. Jaspers wants to force Gregory into signing a confession
that would exonerate Michaels and Jaspers” (Schechner, “The Playwright” 12).
A series of tortures at the hands of the two other prisoners then begins for
Gregory, represented by a series of transformations. These transformations are
complemented by mechanical transformations. In the latter, “the actors become
part of a machine, interacting with each other and incorporating the dialogue into
the workings of the machine” (Walter, quoted in Terry, Viet-Rock and Other Plays
207). There are three mechanical transformations in total in Keep Tightly Closed as
if each one corresponded to each one of the three characters.8 The first mechanical
transformation is “characterized by extreme tenseness, by jabbing and slapping
motions. The second is patterned after the animated machines of TV. … In the
last mechanical transformation we tried to inform the machine with human joy”
(ibid.). Thus, “the play begins with an archetypal transformation in which the three
male actors combine to become a machine” (Keyssar, Feminist Theatre 61):

MICHAELS. Press here …

GREGORY. Tear back …
JASPERS. To replace …
150 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

TOGETHER (locking arms). Insert lip. But we may be opened. But we may be opened. But
we may be opened for …
JASPERS. For inspection (7–8).

The language used in this sequence, as Schmidt suggests, “imitates the sound
and working rhythm of a machine; it follows the short, cut-up sequences
that Cecelia Tichi has associated with the literature of the so-called machine
age,” while “the characters’ short utterances resemble torn-off parts from an
instruction manual” (141). This mechanical transformation that occurs three
times is ironically the only one that connects the three prisoners so tightly, to the
point that they can be seen as aspects of one personality, and prepares the three
initial characters for their final reconciliation scene. As Terry states, “[t]he actors
must come to understand that they are connected with one another by muscle,
blood vessels, and nervous structure—impulses felt by one member may be
enacted by another” (156). These mechanical transformations frame the other
“situationist”9 transformations in the sense of “created, organized moment(s)”
that include “perishable instants, ephemeral and unique” (Hammond 1).
Or, to borrow the definition of the Situationist Manifesto of the Situationist
International, these “situations are the realization of a better game, which more
exactly is provoked by the human presence” (Thompsett 1). In Terry’s case, the
situationist transformations are constructed indeed by the human presence
and seem to be avatars of the same theme, that is, of a torture scene, with the
exception of the last scene, which is an expiation scene that makes up for all
the previous scenes. In these situationist transformations the interesting thing is
that the three characters seem to play self-consciously at their various roles all
the while keeping their initial identities, as they continue calling each other by
their real names, although the tone of their voices or their body gestures change.
This theatrical device successfully displays the double plane on which play in
general operates. For what reason the three characters engage in such a self-
conscious ludic activity remains ambiguous. Do they enjoy playing the “other”
(as do Breton’s Nadja, or Martha and Yves in Valaoritis’s The Nightfall Hotel),
in order to escape the boredom of their prison cell by amplifying their space?
Or, on the contrary, do they find the perfect tool to achieve their goals by
exhausting the others’ ability to play? A closer look at the various transformations,
both mechanical and situationist, that Terry introduces in Keep Tightly Closed
will better illustrate their inherent ludic character, their role in the play, and their
impact on the audience; and ultimately, the way they call for a redefinition of
theatrical “praxis” on the basis of ludic strategies.

Mechanical transformations versus situationist

transformations
Keep Tightly Closed opens with the aforementioned first mechanical
transformation (7–8) and after this scene Jaspers tries to persuade Michaels to
torture Gregory into signing the paper exonerating them of their involvement
in the crime plot. It is like an interval with a realistic scene in the jail (8–12).
A situationist transformational scene (13–14) follows, in which Jaspers is
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 151

transformed into General Custer, renowned for his unorthodox methods on the
battlefield during the Civil War as well as for his wild fighting of Native Americans.
Also, Michaels is transformed into a bluecoat and Gregory into a Native American
chief, his hands and feet tied. With this first non-mechanical transformation the
essence of each one of the inmates does not really change, since Jaspers is the
initiator of the torture, Michaels is his medium of torture, and Gregory is the
receiver of the torture. His stubborn claim, “I will never sign the treaty” (13),
echoes his repeated claim, “I won’t sign” (35). By this association Terry offers a
harsh look at America’s history, while illustrating more vividly what each one of
the three characters represents in the play.
After a second realistic interval (14–18) during which Jaspers and Michael
discuss the way in which they will make Gregory sign the paper, Gregory is shaken
by Michaels and is asked to share his dream with them. The dream sequence that
follows in this realistic scene, like “one into another,” lies between reality and
dream. It suggests the way Gregory committed the murder of Jaspers’ wife—
a murder that appears more like a sexual crime/rape that still excites Gregory, as
in the end he climaxes and lies back moaning under his blanket.
The next scene (19–20) is not perceived immediately as a transformational
scene but as another interlocking scene in which Gregory narrates a story about
a girl (not necessarily the one he murdered in his dream) who accidentally
drank water containing a snake egg that led to her death. Although it is difficult
to decipher what lies beneath this story, the fact that the scene ends as a
transformational scene in which Gregory hisses and moves in a snakelike fashion
suggests that he is perhaps, metaphorically speaking, the snake that grows out
of the girl’s belly, forced, ready to “bite” those who force themselves upon him,
as Jaspers and Michaels do.
Next is the second mechanical transformation (20), which has the same
rhythm but, in addition, is composed of segments of commercials advertising
mechanical products. Fragments, such as “Versatility of operation,” “Easy to get
at mechanism,” “SAFE,” “Self-closing,” etc. are the commands of this mechanical
transformation, which ends with the words “Self-closing”—a sharp contrast
to the closing lines of the first mechanical transformation, which referred to
“an opening for inspection.” The next scene is a realistic one (20–23) in which,
once again, Jaspers in an authoritative voice tries to force Gregory to sign the
paper despite the latter’s refusal.
There follows another transformational scene (23–6). Here Jaspers becomes a
15-year old English lad, dying in the swamps of Jamestown, Virginia. Michaels is
one of Jaspers’ dying colleagues and Gregory is Captain John Smith. The latter is
seen bringing water to the two dying members of his expedition, while Jaspers has
hallucinations. He sees a ship carrying Queen Elizabeth come to save them. In the
end, all three are covered by the blanket. They become another semi-mechanical
transformation as their movements are mechanical and well coordinated but the
words they cry out are full of philosophical meaning, such as “Dust to dust, ashes
to ashes” (26). These words soon are parodied in the following reversal: “Asses to
asses, dust to dust” (27). Then they quickly lock arms under their blanket and sing.
This transformation ends with Gregory trying to swallow the (unsigned) paper,
thus preparing the audience for a new transformational scene.
152 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Next comes what I refer to as the drag queen scene (27–30), in which Gregory
tries to swallow the paper, which is now a love note addressed to him, written by
another inmate in a neighboring cell. Jaspers and Michaels again conspire against
Gregory and tease him to the point that he should feel “small.” The interesting
thing here is that the characters are aware of their true selves and they make
explicit references to their prison cell. Therefore, one gets the impression that
all three of them are playing at being drag queens as part of their torture game
against Gregory, as depicted in the next scene as well.
This next scene is another transformational scene, in which the drag queen
scene becomes one involving movie gangsters (30–36); Michaels talks as a movie
gangster but the topic is again the description of the murder of Jaspers’ wife.
Michaels exchanges insults with Gregory until he annoys Gregory by repeating
exactly the same words Gregory says, as in the following example that seems
another form of torture, reminiscent of Breton’s example of the Gang-syndrome
use of language. The only difference here is that such use of language is deliberate
and aims to exhaust the interlocutor’s patience:

GREGORY. My voice is not high.

MICHAELS. My voice is not high.
GREGORY. It’s not.
MICHAELS. It’s not (33).

This repetitive talk continues until Gregory breaks into sobs and Jaspers joins
their game as Bogart or Cagney playing the role of a referee between Michaels
and Gregory. He tries another game with Gregory: to ally with him against
Michaels in order to make him sign his confession. The scene ends with Jaspers
wondering what his wife would have felt at the moment of her murder. His
words lead logically to the next scene in which Jaspers is transformed into his
wife, working in the kitchen rolling out pie dough, and Michaels becomes his
eight-year-old son, Richard, and Gregory plays the criminal who holds the cord
used in the murder (36–9). The scene ends with an exhausting fight between
Jaspers and Gregory enacting the strangling of Jaspers’ wife.
The next scene is a realistic one again in which Jaspers feels guilty for having
hurt Gregory, while seeking Michaels’ company in his bed. Michaels surrenders
and Jaspers is sexually aroused under his blanket and at that moment he delivers
a delirious speech confessing that he felt suffocated by his wife’s presence:
“I could no longer be a whole man” (41).10 This talk ends with a verbal fight
between Jaspers and Michaels, who accuses the former of being a failed lawyer
who has lied to him. This makes Jaspers lean toward Gregory, whom he asks
not to sign the paper because he has changed his mind; it is now Michaels
who should be convicted alone and therefore he should be the one to sign the
confession to exonerate the two of them. When Gregory asks him how he will
change Michaels’ mind, he answers: “The same way I convinced you. Come I’ll
teach you” (44). It is the end of this scene that leads to a new transformational
scene in which Jaspers becomes a priest and the two others altar boys (44–8).
He delivers his sermon in a confessional manner that leads him to a physical
collapse that, in turn, leads to a new transformational scene.
In this new scene, Jaspers is the father while Michaels becomes his eight-year-
old son, Richard, and Gregory his 10-year-old son, Mark. The two sons support
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 153

their father by talking about their dead mother in terms of her finding peace in
heaven. This scene functions on at least three levels: first, it plays on a symbolic
level in which Jaspers is the Father/God; second, Jaspers is the father of the two
children; and finally, Jaspers is the imprisoned lawyer who plays with the two
other roles to find and console himself. This scene on the one hand ridicules
Christian sermons, but also shows the despair of these three men who are in
need of expiation and consolation. In such despair, the final scene comes as
the only consolation by the mechanical transformation in which all three men
roll like a machine wheel (48). The difference between this and the previous
mechanical transformations is that now it turns to an entropic situation, as the
following lines illustrate:

TOGETHER. AND roller and roller and roller

AND rocker and rocker and rocker
AND roller and roller and roller
AND feeder and feeder and feeder
AND roller and roller and rocker! (48)

Compared to the two previous mechanical transformations, in which the

machine opened for inspection and was then self-closed, this one focuses on
one part of the machine: a machine wheel that rolls over to stop at a position
directly facing the audience, with Jaspers impersonating this part of the machine
wheel and addressing these words to the audience: “This side should face you!”
As an attorney, Jaspers implicates the audience dynamically in their continuous
transformative stage game.
All these transformations are in fact mimicry games that operate on the level
of imagination, both the actors’ and the audience’s, since there are no props
available except for a blanket that functions as a symbolic stage curtain that
covers and uncovers the various transformations. Otherwise, the entire work
is the work of the imagination, supported by the appropriate language and
the actors’ suggestive body movements. What the three characters in essence
achieve is what Nadja does in her own game, except that her own transformations
are not visible to the audience, but are assumed from the moment she states
them. Instead, in the case of Terry’s characters, not only do their mimicry games
become vivid on stage with a minimal change of stage setting, but their games
are collective and not individual. They are coordinated.
What is it that really happens in all these mimicry games that constantly
transform characters into other characters? And why do they undertake such
games? First, these efforts show the self’s desire to escape from an unsatisfying
static self. At the same time, they jump from one state to another, and then again
to another, where reality shifts to another reality. Each self gains a new self and
although one would think this protean transformation is an indication of loss
of the self, it might actually be proof of the opposite: that the self finds its true
identity only through experiencing multiple selves, just like Nadja does when
acknowledging her endless successive “playing the other” through her game.
This fluidity of self is the ultimate gain of these ludic transformations and is
perhaps the main common element that both Terry’s theatre of transformations
and the “one into another” surrealist game embody. The concept of game not
154 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

only liberates the actors and the characters from their physical constraints, but
also allows them to explore new facets of their own selves, crossing borders
of gender, time, and space, and ultimately changing them. As Joseph Chaikin
explains, “[i]n former times acting simply meant putting on a disguise. When
you took off the disguise, there was the old face under it. Now it’s clear that the
wearing of the disguise changes the person. As he takes the disguise off, his face
is changed from having worn it” (quoted in Schlueter, 166).11
According to Schechner, Megan Terry in particular accomplishes three
functions by using the liberating path of transformational games: “They explode
a routine situation into a set of exciting theatrical images; they reinforce,
expand, and explore the varieties of relationships among the three men; they
make concrete the fantasies of the prisoners” (quoted in Schlueter, 164).
I would add that they explore, in a very innovative manner, feminist issues by
pinpointing key themes such as rape, crime, the relationship between men and
women, and sexuality, among others. By eliminating the female element from
the stage, Terry attempts an anatomy of male behavior in relation to the absent,
yet omnipresent, female presence. As Schlueter argues, “Terry’s understanding
of transformational drama as more than an acting exercise, as an opportunity
to explore with intelligence and with force the modes of self-definition in a
contemporary arena, helped move American theatre beyond the cliché” (169).
In Comings and Goings and Calm Down Mother, feminist issues are placed in
the foreground. Here, the transformational technique is explicitly placed in the
service of the feminist agenda, enhanced by the techniques used by a coach in a
basketball or baseball game.

Calm Down Mother: A Transformation for Three Women

This is the first of Terry’s transformational and dream dramas. It was produced
by the Open Theatre and premiered in March 1965 at the Sheridan Square
Playhouse in New York. The play consists of a series of seemingly non-linear,
random, abstract juxtapositions, not prompted by cause-and-effect, very similar
to the surrealist juxtapositions. It is organized in seven snapshots in which the
three characters (woman #1, woman #2, and woman #3) initially unite as an
organic whole in the form of a plant. They separate from one another, only to
end up as another unified whole, yet this time dehumanized and mechanical,
as that of a dishwasher. The latter is a mechanical transformation that appears
in sharp contrast to the initial organic transformation of the three anonymous
women/team-players, reinforcing the idea that that initial plant is “an emblem
that parodies the notion of organic form” (Larson 226). In fact, the play could be
interpreted as a parody of the entire issue of creation and procreation associated
with women’s bodies. For this reason, the seventh of the extant scenes is also
significant, referring as it does to the seven days of Creation. In short, nurture
versus nature debate, a hot topic of the 1960s, is represented here in an
experimental way. In the meantime, the three women are transformed into
numerous other characters in a variety of situations, in which each one of them
lays bare some aspects of the ever-pressing feminist issues that surpass the
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 155

obvious issue of maternity, and are at the heart of women’s concerns. Issues
such as their coping with sex, pain, aging, loss, or anger come to the forefront
in each one of the seven tableaus that Terry captures in this one-act play. I have
named the tableaus as follows, according to the main motif or subject matter
with which each one of them deals: a) the “plant” scene, b) the “hair” scene,
c) the “I want to hit” scene, d) the “cancer” scene, e) the “nursing home” scene,
f) the “call-girls” scene, and g) the “contraception” scene.
In the first scene, the three women are clustered together to suggest a plant
while a taped recording is heard covering the scientific topic of the genesis of
the world out of three one-celled creatures that float under the sea, fighting
ceaselessly with the waves, until the moment they take root on the shore.
With this minimal device the three-woman-plant is put into context while their
unison-separation, along with their fight against external forces, will remain basic
thematic axes around which all the following scenes will revolve. An interesting
movement happens in this first scene: as a tornado uproots and splits the plant,
two parts fall away and the third one stretches toward the sun in joyous wonder.
Woman #1 then emerges, introducing herself as Margaret Fuller:

MARGARET FULLER. I am Margaret Fuller. I know I am because … “From the time I could
speak and go alone, my father addressed me not as a plaything, but as a living mind.” I am
Margaret Fuller. I am Margaret Fuller and I accept the universe! (279).

This is indeed an unexpected turnout. Where one would expect a primitive creature
rising out of this primordial plant, one sees a fully self-aware female creature, the
nineteenth-century literary critic and author, Margaret Fuller. Her name forms
a pun on the full and intense personality of this historical feminist figure who
proudly claims that because her father addressed her as a fully emancipated mind
and not as a plaything, she is now able to accept the universe. To this boisterous
claim of hers the other two women respond in a ritualistic, chorus-like voice:
“… you had better. Better grab this universe, little daughter. Grab it while you can.
You had better, you had better. You had better grab it before you melt” (280).
These feminist lines obviously are addressed not only to Margaret Fuller but to
the audience as well, who, as Terry describes it, is “in play,” as it is seated in two
opposite sides, as in a basketball game: “As they watch the action, they are seeing
the reaction of the opposite audience” (e-mail communication).
After a brief freeze, the second tableau takes place in a delicatessen in
Brooklyn. There, the first woman becomes Sophie; the third woman becomes
her sister, Esther; and the second woman is transformed into a 19-year-old girl
with thick hair, ordering ale. Her hair leads Sophie into a deep reverie of her
mother’s hair and of her own hair, which is missing due to anesthesia from open-
heart surgery:

SOPHIE (smiling). It’s just like … you see, your hair … it’s just like Mother’s was. Just like it.
Same color even. …
(Reaching toward the GIRL’S hair) My hair was like yours … but now? (She shrugs). Surgery.
(She nods). Major operations (280).

In the girl’s hair Sophie finds the umbilical cord to her mother and a bond to
her own previous self. The hair, symbolic of feminine beauty, leads to “her,”
156 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

the archetypal feminine figure of affection; all three women strike and comb
each other’s hair in this scene. This is how the second scene ends, and the
third emerges out of it as an interlocking scene where the girl suffocates and
addresses her anger directly to the audience. This is the “I want to hit” scene in
which each one of the three women express her rage against anything that goes
wrong in her life, sometimes not clearly defined as the following speech of the
first woman illustrates:

WOMAN ONE (During this speech the other women run their hands together and hiss).
I want to hit. (She doubles her fist) I want to hit! (She brings her fist up and shows it to
audience) I want to hit. I WANT TO HIT! (She paces back and forth slamming her fist into the
other open palm) Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, hit! Bang, screw! Screw this hitting (282).

It becomes clear that the audience is no longer safe when witnessing such
aggressive confessions. This direct presentation of emotion is reminiscent of
the goals of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry; this desire for aggression from the first
woman is fulfilled when she beats down to the floor the third woman, who is
being assisted by the second woman. This ends the third scene and leads to the
following one, as Women #1 and #2 jump up and down, landing flat, making loud
thumping noises, suddenly changed into New Yorkers in a charming flat. This is
a rather realistic scene, like a soap-opera; Nancy from Oklahoma is visiting her
sister Sally in New York. The latter started drinking heavily after her last divorce,
following in her alcoholic father’s footsteps. Now Nancy informs her of another
disaster in their family: their mother has just been diagnosed with “terminal
bone cancer”—a fact against which Nancy rails, frustrated at its unfairness. It is
interesting to notice in the “cancer” scene how the value of woman in general is
praised in direct contrast to man’s value. For instance, Nancy speaks highly of her
mother as courageous and a fighter, while she disdains her alcoholic father who
gets all the attention because he feigns a heart attack:

NANCY. Mother … it’s “terminal bone cancer.” Sal, it’s not fair. It is not fair. She’s such a
fighter. My God, she began a whole new career when dad retired to his bottle of booze. No
training, only her guts … good taste (284).

Nancy cannot cope with the idea that her mother has only 180 days of life left:

NANCY. … Oh God, Sal, how am I going to stand it? I’ll be dying for her every day, every
goddamned day from now till … till … (285).

At this point, the two sisters embrace and freeze while a new snapshot appears
with the third woman speaking to the audience a kind of lament for lost youth,
a snapshot that naturally leads to the next scene, “the nursing home” scene.
Here, Woman #1 and Woman #2 become Mrs. Tweed and Mrs. Watermelon,
residents of the nursing home. Mrs. Tweed starts their conversation in this way:
“Ah, yes, Mrs. Watermelon, and the days go by and the days go by and the days
go by and the days go by, and by and by the days go by. My God, how the days
go by!” (285). These repetitive words convey a sense of boredom and frustration
for Mrs. Tweed who soon gets angry at Mrs. Watermelon and threatens to have
her relatives “commit” her to an institution, while she is already “committed.”
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 157

Their entire conversation, at times indirect—“often expressing meaning through

the sounds of their words rather than from any meaning intrinsic to the words
themselves” (Larson 230)—and at times showing the marks of senility, evoke the
audience’s pity for the old women. These feelings become accentuated when
their nurse, with her flat, mechanical voice and her cold, professional smile,
enters with a tray to feed them their regular cream of wheat. “The scene turns
surreal when the old women claim their food is worms. Also, they claim the nurse
is worms. It links directly to the ‘war is worms’ scene in Viet-rock” (ibid.). This
extended metaphor is a great application of the so-called surrealist metaphor, as
Michael Riffaterre has defined it, in the sense of a cluster of images that all stem
from an initial image. After this vivid metaphor it is not difficult for the audience
to accept the two women’s change to a mechanical transformation: a subway
door that opens and closes while the two women chant the following motto
11 times in a chorus-like voice: “Please keep your hands off the doors” (287).
These words become meaningful when read as a reaction against the previous
extended metaphor of “worms.” It is a protest claiming the old women’s need
for dignity and respect. The subway door alludes both to the underworld and
the underground, the natural environment of the worms. The two old women’s
chant becomes, then, a claim for life despite their old age. Also, their chant, seen
in light of the “war is worms” of Viet-rock, becomes another outcry of protest
similar to the protest of the young student in this anti-war play.
From old age there is a return to young age when in the next scene the three
women are transformed into three call-girls, Momo, Felicia, and Inez. They are
in a lush apartment, dressing and applying make-up. Momo and Felicia are
constantly bickering with each other, revealing the gloomy conditions of their
life, while Inez tries to calm them down. It is here that the phrase “Calm Down
Mother” occurs for the first time. It is spoken by Felicia to Inez when the latter
threatens to tell everything to their pimp, Ricky. Of course, Inez is not their
mother, but she is responsible for the other two call-girls assigned to work with
her by their pimp. As Larson states, here “Terry insinuates that mothers are often
responsible for training their daughters to be a ‘legitimate’ or socially sanctioned
call-girl” (231). Larson’s statement is strengthened by the following, sado-
masochistic scene in which Momo and Felicia, as daughters who have regretted
their behavior, ask Inez for a spanking:

INEZ. I should blister you till you couldn’t sit down.

FELICIA (Turns her bottom up for spanking). Do it. We’re bad. Bad, bad girls.
MOMO (Nearly on her knees, she does the same). Bad, bad, bad, we should have a spanking
(289).

In this controversial scene, two “surrogate daughters” behave in compliance

with an old code of decorum, consisting of self-discipline and acceptance of
punishment. Yet in their act of compliance a reaction on their behalf is natural.
Such controversial behavior is blatantly seen in the clash of the two girls’
locutionary and perlocutionary acts, reminiscent of Victor’s similar behavior
in Victor or Children in Power. For instance, there, Victor is aware that he is
acting as a bad boy; nevertheless he deliberately breaks the Sevres china. Here,
Terry poignantly criticizes the old-fashioned system of education passed on for
158 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

centuries from mothers to daughters, according to which a daughter must always

be attentive, disciplined, and obedient. Again, the substitution for a real mother
by a “surrogate” mother in the world of call-girls magnifies Terry’s intentions for
parody. This “call-girls” scene builds to a snapshot in which the three women
alternately repeat the words “You’ve been found” and “Have confidence:”

WOMAN ONE. Have confidence.

WOMAN TWO. Have confidence. You’ve been found.
WOMAN THREE. You’ve been found. Have confidence.
WOMAN ONE. Have confidence. You’ve been found.
WOMAN TWO. You’ve been found. Have confidence.
WOMAN THREE. Have confidence.
TOGETHER. You’ve been found! (289).

Notice in these words how each woman takes up where the other woman stops,
as if it were a team game. As these words echo again and again in the audience’s
ears, despite their truncated way of being uttered, they are linked with a cause-
and-effect conjunction in the following manner: “Because you have been found
have confidence.” Such advice implies a mistake or a false step in each woman’s
behavior that has been brought to light, but because of “a merciful system” they
should have confidence. It seems that such advice falls into the same pattern of
behavior that we detected in the spanking snapshot of Felicia and Momo. The
repetition of the same words reinforces the idea of these women being brain-
washed into believing in the system of behavior bequeathed to them, according
to which women should be quiet and disciplined and, if possible, confined in the
household. At any rate the culminating moment of this scene is suggested by
the snapshot during which the three women assume positions of cooperative
dishwashing at a tenement sink.
Out of the “call-girls” scene the last scene of the play—the “contraception”
scene—emerges. One of the three women puts the dishes away while trying to
read a magazine. Her name is Sue and she is 23 years old. In an angry tone, she
slaps down the magazine where perhaps she has read something about the use
of birth control being wrong. In fact, she is trying to convince her sister, Sak, and
their mother that there is nothing morally wrong with using birth control. To her
conservative mother’s words, “The Bible says you shouldn’t cast thy seed upon
the ground,” Sue replies:

SUE. See, I got enough eggs in me for thirty years, see. That’s one a month for thirty years.
Twelve times thirty is 360 eggs. Three hundred and sixty possibilities. Three hundred and
sixty babies could be born out of my womb. So, if I don’t produce each and every one of
them, which is a mathematical impossibility, should I go to hell for that? … And you two!
You sit there in the church every Sunday, kneeling and mumbling and believing all that crap
those men tell you, and they don’t even know what the hell they are talking about. And I’ll
bet you don’t know what I’m talking about. Because I’m the only one in this whole carton
of eggs what’s got any brains. And I’m taking my pills and I ain’t kneeling on any beans or
babies’ brains to make up for it (292–3).

Despite her angry rant regarding a woman’s right to use birth control, Sue is
nevertheless still on the receiving end of her mother’s disapproval. Her mother
angrily tells her “to pack her things” and “pack herself” (292). Here Terry overtly
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 159

places in Sue’s voice the prominent feminist ideology of the 1960s, while showing
at what cost each woman’s revolt came; she had to pay dearly for her radical
beliefs about her emancipation, including issues of sex and birth control. The
play ends with an overt embracing of the feminist ideology as all three women
resume their initial positions as Woman #1, Woman #2, and Woman #3; they
address the audience with an incantatory speech that celebrates their bodies:

WOMAN TWO (On sides). Our bodies

TOGETHER (Back on bellies). Our bellies
TOGETHER (On bellies). Our bellies
WOMAN THREE (On sides). Our bodies
TOGETHER (On bellies). Our bellies
WOMAN ONE (On breasts). Our funnies
TOGETHER (Bellies). Our bellies
WOMAN TWO (Sides). Bodies
WOMAN ONE (Bellies). Our eggies
WOMAN THREE (Bellies). Our eggies
WOMAN TWO (Bellies). The eggies in our beggies
WOMAN ONE (Sides). Are enough
WOMAN TWO (Sides). Are enough
WOMAN THREE (Sides). Are enough
TOGETHER (Turn their backs on audience). ARE THEY? (293).

In this final speech, the subject of creation and birth is treated by the three
women in a funny, yet decisive manner. Emphasizing those of their body parts
responsible for giving birth they conclude that their bodies and their eggs “are
enough.” As Larson states, “[t]he whole play comes together at that moment,
as if the word ‘enough’ contained a magic which could fuse all the elements,
both physical and verbal, both fictive and direct, both thematic and ideological,
into one experience of wholeness. It is a hollow wholeness, a parody of organic
form” (233). Indeed the word “enough” appears here in its double meaning,
both positive and negative. As a positive value, the word “enough” reassures the
audience of the three women’s sufficiency, in their bodies and their ovaries, for
guaranteeing the continuity of life, while giving them the breath of managing
their own lives according to their will. As a negative value, the word “enough”
implies the burden, which the women’s anatomy has created for them, imposing
on them ever-expanding duties of which they “have had enough” and which they
finally realize it is time for them to control. Both these meanings are passed
onto the audience in a very witty manner. I refer here to the concluding question
addressed to the audience (which is in upper case letters in the script): “ARE
THEY?” The significance of this question is best grasped if we think in terms
of Roman Jakobson’s six functions of language: emotive, referential, poetic,
phatic, conative, and metalingual. The question stresses both the emotive and
the conative functions of language, thus creating an open channel between
the addresser(s) and the addressee(s). In other words, this question—stated so
stubbornly by all three women—is not really seeking an answer, since they all
have shown themselves quite determined in their decision to self-manage their
bodies. Rather, it seeks the audience’s active affirmation and active involvement
in this major feminist concern. By addressing this open question to the members
of the audience, Terry stresses the conative function of language by redefining the
160 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

role of the audience, which, for her, should be politically engaged and responsible
for decision-making. For Terry, the audience is not a passive congregation that
seeks entertainment, but a body that must be brought to an inquisitive state
and political engagement. Therefore, Calm Down Mother is not at all a “pure,
de-politicized play,” as Larson states (226); it may be less overtly politicized than
Viet-rock, for instance, but it is indeed politicized. After all, the feminist issues
that were brought to light in this analysis were an integral part of the broader
political discourse that was at the heart of that very distinct decade, the 1960s.
The same feminist issues are also treated in Comings and Goings: A Theater
Game, but in a subtler and funnier way. It is “Terry’s transformational playwriting
at its purest” (Larson 247). I would also add that it is the most representative
of Terry’s experiments with the ludic principle, as its subtitle makes explicit—
a new theatrical genre which she calls “theatre games.” This new genre is
“a formalization of theatre games into viable play structures such as Comings
and Goings” (Terry, Viet-Rock and Other Plays, 1).

Comings and Goings: A Theater Game

“Terry has said she wrote Comings and Goings as a gift to the actors of the
Open Theatre because they had become such excellent virtuoso performers”
(Larson 246). To borrow her own words, “[t]his play is meant for both actors
and audience to be an enjoyment of technique—pure virtuosity on the part of
the actors. The fun of the play is in how much and how involved the audience
gets” (Viet-rock and Other Plays, 113). To ensure this effect, Terry equated the
performance of this play with an actual game that ingeniously combined all of
the four elements that we have encountered in Caillois’ categorization of games:
alea, agon, mimicry, and ilinx. The following rules, according to which Terry
directed this play at the Café La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in 1966, leave
no doubt about the unique way in which all the aforementioned elements of
play were embedded in her performed play:

We played it with a small card on which all the actors’ names were printed. A wheel was
spun by a disinterested party at intervals of thirty-five to ninety seconds. A name was called
out and one actor ran into the play and another actor ran out. … We staged the play in the
center of the café, with a small bench for the men on one side and another for the women
on the opposite side. The person who spun and called sat in full view of the audience and
behaved with the attitude of an official at a tennis match or basketball game. … I like to
think of the play as a trampoline for actors and director (ibid. 113–14; my emphasis).

All the emphasized words in the above quotation clearly illustrate how the
elements of chance, vertigo, mimicry, and contest are intertwined in this new
theatrical genre of Terry’s, surpassing Spolin’s theatre games. This new technique,
Terry admits, “[b]esides being great fun to watch and do,” “can train the actor
in concentration, focus, flexibility, and ensemble work” (ibid. 113). To better
appreciate the effectiveness of this new acting technique and see what a long
way it has come, one has to compare it to, and contrast it with, Denis Diderot’s
ideas about acting in his seminal work, Paradoxe sur le comédien (Paradox on the
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 161

Comedian), written between 1770 and 1778 and published much later in 1830.
Diderot encouraged a totally different perspective on the great actor’s task: he
should be guided by an absolute coldness of feeling on stage and should not
live on stage the various roles he has to perform; instead he should be a great
imitator of all possible natural states of being, after observing and reasoning
about each case: “Celui que la nature a signé comédien, n’excelle dans son art
que quand la longue expérience est acquise, lorsque la fougue des passions est
tombée, lorsque la tête est calme, et que l’âme se possède” (266) [He whom
nature has assigned as a comedian does not excel in his art but when he has
mastered a long experience, when the fugue of passions has fallen down, when
the head is calm and the soul is master of itself]. Unlike in Diderot’s theory, Terry
allows her actors not only to live out on stage each role they perform, but also to
take risks by getting involved in improvisational games. In essence, what Comings
and Goings sacrifices in setting and developing conflict, it gains in:

improvisation, pure spontaneity, and the honesty and intensity of its stage life. As in a game,
the actors face each other, not knowing what the other’s move will be. When they see the
move, they must react to it with a total allegiance to the present moment, for their goal is
to live on stage, to solve—without premeditation—the moment-to-moment problems that
occur (Larson 247).

The element of surprise for both the actors and the audience is constantly
at stake, much like in any surrealist work. Likewise, as in the surrealist plays,
there is “no link between the various settings that suddenly erupt and then
as quickly disappear” (ibid.). The following pages offer some details that will
better illustrate in which scenes actors were involved in their trampoline-like
theatrical game.
The first scene shows a man and a woman waking up—the man trying to
arouse the woman. To his insistent words, she repeatedly replies, “In a minute.”
The scene repeats three times and each one of them “are to be transformed one
into the other without pause” (Terry 115; my emphasis). As Larson states, “[a]
major impact of scenes like this is their ability to strip away practically everything
except the actor’s subtext, which grows and changes as the scene repeats” (248).
The second scene shows He and She in a kitchen.12 While She washes dishes,
He cleans his gun. A dispute starts between them:

SHE. You don’t give me a moment’s peace.

HE. But that’s all I want from you. (He pats her fanny.)
SHE (Slapping him with the dishcloth). Stop that, you dirty old man.
HE. I am your dirty old man. Your very own, very dirty old man. Come here. You want to
clean me? Come on and clean me good.
(He hugs her and she responds, laughing).

While this scene is realistic, focusing on a couple’s daily routine, it suddenly

breaks into one of the most unexpected of scenes—one that is “outside of
traditional notions of reality” (Larson 248). He and She change into a faulty plug
in a wall socket, yet they use realistic language, as in the following example:

SHE. I can be constant, that’s something. (118)

162 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

These words have a double reference “to behavior in a love relationship and to
a law of electricity” (Larson 249). After all, the power socket alludes to the fact
that it consists of a female and male pole.
The above scene transforms into another one in which a drunk female driver
runs over the mother of the man who is sitting next to her. The man is furious,
propelling the woman toward his car and forcing her head down, to look at the
mangled body of his mother:

HE. There! That’s what you’ve done, you-you-you miserable! (119).

The woman, in a state of shock, is able only to notice that the woman is still
holding on to her purse, while the man is about to take revenge on her by
jumping on her head.
The next transformational scene is another unconventional one; He becomes
a pencil, and She, the list He writes. She speaks it:

SHE. Take car to be greased.

Pick up shirts.
Check on George.
Go to Joe’s workshop.
Plan the next five years.
Get new underpants.
Mail letters on way home.
Stop at Roger’s to get the key.
Check on Mozart Masses.
Attend Mr. Jordan’s funeral.
Take car to be greased.
(He topples over to land beside her).

This scene, as Larson states, “indicates that housewives think of themselves as

the incarnation of errand lists, a record of petty deeds and not much more” (249).
The following scene is another morning during which She is trying to wake up
the He so He is not late for work. This is a realistic scene that depicts in a funny
way a couple’s daily routine. It is He’s use of language that fills the scene with
humor as, half-awake, he cannot even articulate a coherent sentence:

SHE. Honey?
HE. Arhgghhhh.
SHE. Alarm.
He. Grrrrrrr.
SHE. Get up.
HE. Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.
SHE. Get up.
HE. Ghhhhhhh (120).

This scene has a logical connection with the following one, in which He complains
to She that She has too many expectations of him. He cannot understand what
She wants from him, and She is crying:

HE. Where do you want me? What do you want of me? Backward and forward, you want!
(SHE cries.)
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 163

HE. That’s what you wanted? That’s what you wanted? That’s all you wanted. Cry? That’s
too easy. You can’t get out of it that way. It’s another trick to get me off the track. I’m going
to find out if it takes me the rest of my life. I’m going to find out what it is you want (121).

The misunderstanding between the couple is stunningly illustrated in these

words, as well as in the pain He inflicts upon She.
Another confrontation begins between He and She in which the couple acts
like kabuki performers. The first time, He asks She where she is going and She
replies, “to wee-wee.” Then He asks She to bring him a cigarette and She replies,
“In a minute.” In the second snapshot of this scene, She is asking He where he is
going and He replies, “Bowling with the boys.” Then She asks He to bring her a
cigarette and He replies, “In a minute.” These two snapshots should be repeated
three times according to the stage directions. Life’s ups and downs and the non-
communication between men and women is well depicted here.
The next scene is a warm one. He and She transform into American Indians in
a cave. She is named Morning Star. They speak in monosyllables. In this minimal
scene, Terry captures one of the most tender moments in a couple’s life, where
He caresses the face of Morning Star, then strokes her hair, and finally He asks
her if she prefers love instead of food. When She nods indicating the word love,
He puts his blanket around them, “which is their civilization’s dawning of erotic
love” (Larson 250). Then follows a breakfast scene, which repeats five times in
different tones, each time based on a different power relation. It starts casually
and realistically, with He naming items he would like to have for breakfast while
She, as the waitress, writes down his order and says “Yes” after each item that he
orders. Suddenly, at the same café, the waitress and He trade lines, repeating the
scene. The waitress, who is doing the ordering, has become the master, and He
is the slave. When this rendition is complete, they again repeat the scene. Now
the customer does the ordering. This time He is the master and the waitress is
the slave.
A fourth repetition of the breakfast scene soon begins, during which He and
She act like automata, to end up with a fifth repetition in which “customer and
waitress have a symbiotic ecstatic relationship. Played with quiet warmth and
secure joy” (Terry, Viet-Rock and Other Plays, 128). What can all these repetitive
breakfast scenes possibly reveal? To borrow Larson’s words, they “reveal
several numerous complexities about human relationships, about the constant
struggle in which people engage for the upper hand, and the transitoriness of
one’s personal power over others” (251). After the breakfast scene, He and She
become desert wanderers desperately looking for an oasis. When She asks He,
“How farther?” He responds, “Only a bit.” They soon fall asleep and awaken in
an amorous mood.
The next scene is a reprise of the earlier “Where are you going?” scene, in
which He and She assume Kabuki postures, only this time their postures are more
threatening toward each other. For instance, to each one’s anxious question,
“Where are you going? Where are you going?” the other replies, “Crazy, wanna
come along? Crazy, wanna come along?” (133).
A love scene follows in a kitchen, where He appears after a long time and
She welcomes him, during which they lie on the floor and embrace, showing
excitement. The next scene takes place in a Hell where He is tormented and
164 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

asks She—who is playing the God—to send Lazarus and give him some water.
When the God denies his request, He begs him (She) again to send him to his
home and let him persuade his siblings not to commit the same crimes as he did
when he was alive so that they can avoid torture in Hell. Again the God appears
merciless, since he (She) has already sent Moses and the prophets to preach
faith in Him. This is an unusual setting that ends with a very significant series of
hand movements between He and She that reveal all their anxiety about their
future after the scary scene in Hell that preceded. He and She read their hands,
interlock their palms and look deeply into each other’s eyes, as if to suggest their
desperate position in this uncertain world. The scene then breaks into a new
scene that takes place in a police station.
She is accused of an armed robbery, using her grandson’s fake gun. She has
committed the robbery at an insurance company for her husband’s sake—
a husband she has served during all 40 years of their marriage to the point that
she even cuts his meat into “small bites.” When He, as the policeman, asks her
to disclose where she has hidden the money, she refuses, and does so once
more when she is asked to identify the items she used during the robbery. This
comic scene becomes absurd when she claims that she gave away the money
she robbed “in the hand of every bum on Third Avenue” (138). The most absurd
part, however, is the scene’s ending when She asks the policeman to wear the
handcuffs so that she won’t have to hug her husband back when he meets
her; the scene finally reveals how complicated this woman’s marital life is. The
policeman now transforms into a comedian with a mike in a night-club talking
about an event which occurred in a police station, or in a court room.
During this scene He, the comedian, is attacked by She, who is a drunk
member of the audience who is bothered by the way the comedian speaks. Their
confrontation ends up with insults on both sides:

HE. Back to your table, cow pie.

SHE. Greaseball.
HE. You’re sloppy you have to home permanent your snatch.
SHE. Bastard, bastard.
HE. Beast, beast.
SHE. Bugger.
HE. Bug (140).

Exploding the conventional limitations of drama and pushing her experiment

to its farthest reaches, “the rhythm and sound of He’s and She’s jibes throws
them into an unearthly realm. They become galaxies sending radio signals to
each other, using a kind of Morse code language that consists of ‘bleeps’ and
‘blinks’” (Larson 254). This non-language, Larson adds, has the capability of
communicating intentions, which depend on how the actors use their voices and
bodies (ibid.). In the next scene, He and She become members of a cub-scout
troop and, after a song, they transform into a new scene. Here She recites to He,
who is now a small boy, a story like a lullaby about “the best clam we have ever
had” (142).
The next scene shows He and She as American Indians, again in an intimate
moment. He is called Red Feather and is about to leave and at this moment a
greater understanding between them occurs. In the next scene, She is arriving
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 165

home after a long time and He, as her father, gives her a tearful welcome. Their
very simple, yet suggestive dialogue reveals an intensity of emotions. The scene
ends with the daughter asking her father to take the boat out like old times
and he nods positively to her. After this tender moment another conflict arises
between He and She, as the latter packs her things to leave, while He is unpacking
them and repeating that he forbids her to leave him.
The following scene shows He and She near the ocean. There, He asks She
to comfort him that she will never abandon him, since they have been together
for such a long time. She does so and the next scene follows logically out of this
one. In a grassy field, they dance a polka in a joyous courtship. This is one of
the most playful moments in this chain of comings and goings, ups and downs
in a couple’s life, and culminates in a more graceful dance in which all actors
participate, singing these lines:

TOGETHER. Then we’ll dip,

We’ll slip
We’ll glide,
We’ll hide.
We’ll slide
Into love time,
Into love time,
Into love time.
Then we’ll dip,
We’ll slip,
We’ll glide,
We’ll hide.
We’ll slide
Into love time,
Into love time,
Into love time.
Love time,
Love time,
Love time,
Love time,
INTO LOVE TIME! (150–51).

The play ends with these very optimistic lines. It continues to be one of Terry’s
most produced plays regardless of time or place. As Helene Keyssar states,
“[t]he performance transcends the world portrayed and makes the mode
of playing appealing to the spectator” (Feminist Theatre 66). Its success lies
precisely in the fact that “its theme and its form are inseparable” (ibid. 65). Its
theme and its form are, in fact, that of a theatre game and all the qualities of
play are embedded in this new theatrical genre that Terry inaugurated with her
play. Comings and Goings is a play about “role definitions and role change which
relies on theatrical role transformations to move the play forward. Each of the
mini-scenes presents a moment of encounter between two people, in which the
tension of change, of coming and going, is central” (Keyssar, Feminist Theatre 65).
In 22 scenes of varied length, several of which are repeated up to five times,
Terry trained her actors to pay attention to minuscule details, and to convey
in a new light even the most banal feelings in a couple’s daily life, laying bare
166 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

the complexities of gender relationships and their relationship to social roles.

As Keyssar states, “actors stress the different meanings and infinite variety of
interactions possible by varying modes of deliverance” (Feminist Theatre, 64).
At the same time, she created some of the most original scenes that surpassed
the notion of conventional reality, particularly when He and She transformed
into objects located from the underground to the Milky Way, from power
sockets to galaxies, corresponding perfectly to the title of the play, Comings and
Goings—“a telling and very precise title for the transformational activities of the
play” (Schmidt 150). In essence, the motif of displacement structures this play,
as “stage directions urge repetition of some scenes, and require that the entire
company be prepared to play any role at any time” (Keyssar, Feminist Theatre 65).
The experimental and playful character of Comings and Goings is also stressed
in these words in which Terry herself reminds readers that the number of actors
may vary: “We played with three men and three women. But more or fewer
would work. It could even be done as a straight transformation play with one
man and one woman. The director should feel free to cut any scene he and the
actors can’t solve” (Viet-Rock and other Plays, 114).
In short, this play is the culmination of Terry’s experimentation with the
play concept. Here, form and content coincide and resume in the subtitle
of the play “A Theatre Game” in terms of both content and theatrical genre.
Terry realized the crucial role of the play concept in her theatrical work as a
resourceful repository of new perspectives and directions in the theatre. In each
one of the three plays that were analyzed and presented in this chapter, she
made exemplary use of the elements of play and games through the technique
of transformations, placing different concerns in the foreground each time. Thus,
in Keep Tightly Closed, Terry vividly illustrates what Johan Huizinga claims with
regard to the element of play: that “play” is not “ordinary” or “real” life, and that
it is rather a stepping out of “real life into a temporary sphere of activity with a
disposition all of its own,” that only children can fully achieve (8). In this way,
all three characters—Jaspers, Michaels, and Gregory—(and, through them, the
audience as well) are given the opportunity to experience different selves and
finally to cope with their true selves. By means of their self-conscious stepping
out of “real” life, that of their prison (whether actual or psychological), they are
enabled to shed new light on the conditions of their real life. In other words, their
constant play of impersonation provides a prism through which their miserable
real life is magnified, particularly their repressed sexuality under the weight of
consumerism. The surrealist device of “one into the other,” in the sense of a
double plane of reality, is perfectly fitting here, as it is also in the case of Calm
Down Mother.
In Calm Down Mother, moreover, Terry uses the device of multiple realities
and thus of multiple truths in a slightly different manner. She links the reality of
a scene with the new one that emerges out of it in a ritualistic manner, which
she puts in the service of an explicit feminist agenda. In this way, she confirms
Huizinga’s statement about play: that it belongs “to the sphere of festival and
ritual and lies outside the antithesis of wisdom and folly, and equally outside
those of truth and falsehood, good and evil” (9). Indeed, the ritualistic and mystic
aspects of play are present in this theatrical work and are stressed at several
intervals by the chorus-like chanting of the three women that alternates their
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 167

transformations. In its closing scene in particular, during which all three women
celebrate their body parts in a funny way, in a peculiar dialogic mode, one gets
the impression of a purely liberating, carnivalized scene in the Bakhtinian sense.
On the other hand, the ritualistic element of play is absent from Comings
and Goings, which stresses instead another of its general characteristics
as highlighted by Huizinga: its irrationality and its enchantment, with all its
paraphernalia of beauty such as tension, balance, contrast, variation, solution,
and reduction. All these features are put in the service of vividly illustrating the
male–female relationship, which also ranges from irrationality and absurdity to
enchantment. Terry, having thoroughly experimented with children’s games,
is convinced about the inexhaustible potential of the play element, and that is
why she offers a new perspective in each one of her plays driven by the ludic
element. She never ceased to believe in play and games, and always finds new
ways of treating this subject matter. For instance, the game itself becomes the
main subject matter in her play Pro Game (1974), in which a mother with her
three sons gather around the TV to wallow in football. “During the course of
the game the family eats, drinks, argues and overindulges while sexual politics
stands on its head and consumerism kicks field goals” (Schmidman et al. 77).
Pro Game was written “in reaction to the football fervor encountered when she
arrived in Omaha” (Rose 288). Another of her plays, Brazil Fado (1977), shows an
American couple on a high platform engaged in sexual sado-masochist games,
while on the floor “a team of newspeople, movie stars, Brazilian peasants, and
torture police enact recent violence in Brazil” (ibid. 289). Terry always finds
inspiration in the play element, even in her most recent theatrical work after
moving to Omaha in January 1974 to join artistic director Jo Anne Schmidman as
playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre. There she materialized what she
said in 1968 about the role of theatre artists: “to bring people together for an
entertainment, a celebration, a living theatre to put down the fear and anguish
that have got too many people in America by the throat” (ibid.). By mastering the
onstage games at the alternative Omaha Magic Theatre Terry was able to bring
back the fun and the laughter the audience needed, all the while bringing the
latter face to face with its inner fantasies, fears, hopes, and desires. In the 1980s
and the 90s, in particular, Terry kept playing with and to audiences’ expectations
through her actors’ transformations in particular and her setting of the theatrical
space, as she did for example in Objective Love (1980) and Body Leaks (1990)
(see Figures 5.1 and 5.2). The former reworks the old issue of love and the
relation between the two genders treated in Comings and Goings but this time in
a more elaborated manner. Such elaboration is due to the use of multiple actors
impersonating He and She and the use of two slide projectors that play with the
alternation of a variety of plants and flowers on the two opposite sides of the
stage, as well as due to the use of sound jam. Most of all, though, its ludic tone is
guaranteed thanks to the game/pun “I object/Eye object” that eventually every
actor plays on stage. The goal of the game is to move their favorite flowers-props
(made either of paper, wood, silk, wire, ceramic etc.) to a place on the stage that
satisfies their eyes and, in doing so, utter the phrase “Eye object,” referring to
the actual flower standing for an object for the actor’s eye/view. As they make
numerous attempts to make the perfect choice, the very phrase “Eye object”
implies the sentence “I object.” It is exactly on this theme/motif that the entire
168 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

play unfolds ultimately bringing He and She to face each other as one another’s
respective “eye object” and therefore as the recipients of each other’s objection,
suggesting their gender-related inherent tensions and oppositions. In the end,
He and She, along with all the actors who impersonate them, as if to show their
multiple dimensions, agree that “their love is a frisbee.” This metaphor, that
successfully captures both the frivolous and agon-like relationship between the
man and the woman who relate to each other, is prepared by another type of
frisbee that endlessly occurs on the level of signifiers and which is reminiscent of
the surrealist games encountered in the previous chapters. The entire scene prior
to the falling of the curtain of this play is cited below to show how successfully
Terry uses a combination of gaming strategies on stage, drawing on both the
sports realm and the realm of dialogue:

HE and SHE face each other. Each is the other’s love object. They relate. The following lines
are overlapped. But, time may be taken within some lines.
SHE (They tango). You’re as macho as split ends.
HE (Tango front. They turn to back wall). You’re as sweet as spiked heels.
SHE. You’re as strong as saliva.
HE (Tango front. They turn to back wall). You’re as weak as ocean waves.
ACTOR 5. You’re as attractive as Tequila.
ACTOR 2. You’re as handsome as gas and oil.
ACTOR 4. You’re as beautiful as soybeans.
ACTOR 1. I respect you as much as cancer.
ACTOR 3. I want you like water.
ACTOR 4. Your ears are telephones.
ACTOR 2. You look like withdrawal symptoms.
HE. You come like a fire engine.
SHE. You come like a marigold.
ACTOR 3. Your teeth are a can opener.
ACTOR 4. Your muscles are tire irons.
ACTOR 2. Your tongue is calves liver.
ACTOR 1. Your touch is a dirt bike.
ACTOR 4. Your nails are Coke bottle caps.
SHE. Your mind’s as fast as a T-V commercial.
HE. Your ass is Missouri marble.
ACTOR 3. You talk like a robot car painter.
ACTOR 4. You kiss like the Half-Price Store.
ACTOR 2. You smell like cement.
ACTOR 1. Your hair is astro turf after a mud slide.
ACTOR 2. Your presence is crazy glue.
ACTOR 5. Your eyes are methedrine.
ACTOR 3. You’re as smart as Mount Rushmore.
ACTOR 2. Your blood is full of sharks.
ACTOR 5. Your mind is the Yellow Pages.
SHE. Loving you is a hangover.
HE. Your will is cockroach eggs.
ACTOR 4. Your laugh is the grave.
ACTOR 2. Your nipples are vampire fangs.
ACTOR 5. You’re as funny as linoleum.
ACTOR 1. Your brain has lost weight.
ACTOR 3. Your skin is Hanscom Park.
ACTOR 5. Your hugs are hamburger.
ACTOR 4. You’re as faithful as inter-stellar space dust.
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 169

ACTOR 2. You’re as solid as moonlight.

ACTOR 1. You’re as fast as rush hour traffic.
SHE. Your love making is a nest of cobras.
ACTOR 4. Your hips are a hydraulic jack.
ACTOR 3. Your tongue is a snail darter.
ACTOR 2. Your belly feels like aluminum foil.
ACTOR 1. You’re as exciting as Sunday morning television.
HE. Your breath is air conditioning.
All actors suddenly sing.
“Occupied Territory”
(Song)
This is occupied territory
We live in occupied territory.
Are you ready to live
Beyond your fingernail?
There is a vast body to behold—
That body is you. I implore you to swim into the
Mainstream of your own conscious being,
And live in your whole body, too.
Aren’t you cramped there under that
Damp, dirty nail? Expand outward into your fist, and
Let your mind exist in
Your chest and rise upward to
The tip of your breast. Ahhhhhhhh yes she feels so good—
And you can feel you if you only would. This is a tiny game,
But it can extend when you are far from me.
Let me hold your hand
And you can live here safely in my land.
I won’t give anyone your
Phone number.
But you can call me any time—
Night or day—
And we will—Fling our arms around each other—And lay and lay and lay
And lay and lay
And lay. (Scene resumes as before).
ACTOR 2. Your fingers are potato peelers.
ACTOR 3. You sing like airplanes.
ACTOR 5. You’re armpits are the Henry Doorly Zoo.
ACTOR 1. Your hands are cowboy boots.
ACTOR 2. Your love making is butter and garlic spaghetti.
ACTOR 4. Your word is armed robbery.
ACTOR 2. Your eyes are grease pits.
ACTOR 3. Your face is a Norman Rockwell Christmas Plate.
ACTOR 5. You cook like Seventy-Second Street.
ACTOR 3. You taste like Comet cleanser.
ACTOR 2. Your mouth is a police car.
ACTOR 1. Your arms are roller coasters.
ACTOR 4. Your toes are whips.
ACTOR 3. Your legs are Carter Lake.
SHE. Your guts are the stock yards.
HE. You’re full of Falstaff
(a local beer).
ACTOR 3. You’re as reliable as the dollar.
ACTOR 2. Your cock is hair spray.
ACTOR 1. Your breasts are thumb tacks.
ACTOR 5. Your love is French fried.
170 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

ACTOR 2. Your love is Purina Cat Chow.

SHE & HE. Our love is a frisbee.
HE and SHE each throw a frisbee into the audience. Smiling, the entire company throw
frisbees to the audience.
Music up (33–7).

“This is a tiny game” the song claims, yet it has redemptive skills. No matter
how logical the images that come out of the spontaneous metaphors uttered in
the above excerpt, one thing remains sure. Their relationship, when conceived
as a frisbee game, gains in authenticity and freedom, as it welcomes both the
calculated preparation and the abandonment to chance, both objectivity and
subjectivity and it involves everyone in the surrounding environment. The closing
scene is characteristic: by throwing frisbees to the audience, an immediate
invitation to play the game is addressed, one that is accompanied by music,
dance, and ritual festivity.
Likewise, in Body Leaks, Terry explains, they “played the central action against
one wall of the theatre, but continued around the audience with other actions
and special sections. The audience sat in three rows facing the main wall, but we
also ran around behind them. Many audience members, besides remarking on
aspects of the production, said that they also had the feeling of being hugged.
It made me very happy to hear that” (Communication of 17 February, 2011). This
belief in the cathartic role of the theatre is similar to Robert Wilson’s claim about
live theatre as “a forum where people can come together and share something. …
a place of exchange” (quoted in Morey and Pardo 40–41). After all, both of them
belong to the same generation of avant-garde American theatre artists, always
looking for new directions in their endeavors, and both were deeply influenced
by Antonin Artaud’s ideas about the theatre, particularly his ideas about a “total
theatre” in the sense of an original unity of experience. A comparison of Wilson
and Terry reveals an amazing list of common goals and aspirations, while each
one retains his/her own distinct mark in his/her work.
Their main similarity is their common faith in the potential of the play
concept for the renewal of the stage experience, in particular as they have
explored it in children’s games. Both worked with children for many years and
confirmed their findings about the benefit of transferring their patterns on
the stage. By adopting the ease with which children play at the same time
on two different planes, both real and imaginary, actors are liberated from
the constraints of reason and stage inhibitions. Furthermore, both Wilson
and Terry have been interested in the multifarious games that can be played
with language on the stage, as well as in those that operate on the level of
the actors’ body movements. Wilson, a firm believer in language’s intriguing
meaning, even in its dysfunction, is more prone to unearth its inexhaustible
potential on stage by pushing his experiments in all directions, from privileging
the acting of autistic or deaf-mute actors to the utmost exploration of silence
and that of language’s materiality on stage. Terry, more interested in seeking
reason through an irrational and boisterous use of stage language, favors the
materiality of the body on stage for the sake of feminist issues. Both adopted
Surrealism’s favorite technique of seemingly random juxtapositions and its
montage-like technique. Both experimented with one-act plays, but also with
huge stage productions, thanks to their well-rounded training in the world
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 171

of theatre.13 They have also been critical toward American culture; Terry has 5.1 From Body
perhaps been more overtly political, putting her work in the service of feminist Leaks by Sora
Kimberlain, Jo
issues, for example. As a result, her works, although they are performed
Ann Schmidman,
worldwide, are more apt for an American audience compared to Wilson’s Megan Terry,
works, which have a wider application. Omaha Magic
One of the ways in which they are quite distinct from one another is in Theatre. Excerpted
their attitude toward logic and its use in stage language. It seems that Terry from Right Brain
never denies logic, even when her widely used technique of transformations Vacation Photos:
suggests so; she may challenge logic only to re-appropriate it. On the contrary, New Plays and
Production
Wilson is rather interested in an almost intuitive pre-logic, particularly as he Photographs,
investigates it through his experiments with deaf-mute or autistic children. In 1972–1992/Omaha
both cases, however, they strive to invent new games for dramatic writing, as Magic Theatre,
pure representatives of postmodern drama, one that “identifies transformation edited by Jo Ann
as the nucleus of postmodern games of change and as a principal postmodern Schmidman, Sora
strategy in order to subvert fixed concepts of meaning, content, and truth, as Kimberlain, Megan
Terry; photographs
well as rigorous orders of textual representations” (Schmidt 71). Whether given
by Megan Terry. 1st
the title “theatre of transformations” or “theatre of images,” their theatrical edition. Omaha,
work is nourished by the concept of change and playfulness, a concept that we NE: Omaha Magic
can trace back to the innocent game of Breton’s Nadja. In my conclusion, I will Theatre, 1992, 71
identify more closely the poetics of play and games that initially took shape in
the surrealist theatre and was inherited by the postmodern theatre.
 172 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

5.2 From Body
Leaks by Sora
Notes
Kimberlain, Jo
1 Information released in an e-mail communication to me on February 17, 2011.
Ann Schmidman,
Megan Terry, 2 In the same e-mail communication Terry adds that both her parents were athletes.
Omaha Magic Her father played in the Rose Bowl for the University of Washington, while her mother,
Theatre. Excerpted among many other games played golf, and was also a fabulous singer. She herself is still
from Right Brain an avid football and baseball fan and she loved playing those games when she could.
Vacation Photos:
3 Viola Spolin uses theatre games extensively and she describes them in detail in her
New Plays and
books, Improvisation for the Theater and Theater Games for Rehearsal. Spolin’s Theater
Production
Game File is a special selection of theatre games abstracted from Improvisation for
Photographs,
the Theater, a few traditional children’s games, and some of the author’s unpublished
1972–1992/Omaha
games/exercises presented on separate cards in a file box as self-contained classroom
Magic Theatre,
workshops.
edited by Jo Ann
Schmidman, Sora 4 Elia Kazan used a similar technique in his films through which he elicited remarkable
Kimberlain, Megan performances from his actors.
Terry; photographs
by Megan Terry. 1st 5 From now on I will refer to this play as Keep Tightly Closed.
edition. Omaha, 6 Such ludic techniques might be reminiscent of the relevant techniques that the
NE: Omaha Magic improvisational director John Cassavetes used, particularly in his film Faces (1968), in
Theatre, 1992, 94 which life and art overlap. More specifically, Faces corresponds to a variety of versions
of the director himself, as the following incident points out: “According to George
 Ludics in Megan Terry’s “theatre of transformations” 173

O’Halloran, there was, in fact, an enchanted evening during the making of the film when,
with the whole male cast and crew present in his living room eating and drinking late
at night, Cassavetes sat down at the piano and improvised a succession of serenades to
each of them one after another, telling each how he was a version of himself—someone
he had wanted to be or had been at some other point in his life; someone who had done
things he wanted to do; someone who figured a wish, a dream or a secret part of him that
no one else knew about” (Carney 134).
7 One might find Robert Altman’s film techniques relevant here. The first chapter of critic
Helene Keyssar’s book, Robert Altman’s America, is appropriately entitled “The Altman
Signature: A World in Motion” (3).
8 The fact that we have three versions of the same mechanical transformation corresponds
to each one of the three characters, representing thus each one’s point of view. It is like
a rotating game.
9 I think this term best illustrates what these transformational scenes convey in Terry’s
play. They convey different situations with the same underlying patterns.
10 These words uttered by Jaspers bring him closer to the existentialist philosopher Karl
Jaspers for whom the issue of freedom was of the highest concern.
11 Such realization is in agreement with Stamos Metzidakis’s conclusion about the similar,
modern use of the word “hypocrite,” attributed to the reader as “bearer of a mask” in
Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal: “L’acte de lire en soi constitue ainsi déjà pour Baudelaire un
acte hypocrite, un acte qui transforme inévitablement celui qui s’y livre, en comédien
ou “porteur de masque” (le sens étymologique du mot ‘hypocrite’)” (“Baudelaire” 227).
[The act of reading in itself constitutes thus already for Baudelaire a hypocritical act,
an act which inevitably transforms he who delivers himself to the act of reading into a
comedian or “bearer of a mask” (the etymological sense of the word “hypocrite”).]
12 The use of the pronouns HE/SHE instead of names has a long tradition that dates back to
Diderot’s Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau’s Nephew, 1762), in which the author uses the
personas of “moi”/“lui” (me/him) to convey the dialogue that takes place between the
two parts. This use of the personal pronoun has the advantage of gaining in verisimilitude
and at the same time conveying a sense of universality. In Terry’s case, moreover, the
use of he/she emphasizes gender differences as they are implicated in their different use
of language. It must also be noted that the use of numbers instead of names to portray
characters, as in woman#1, woman #2, and woman #3 in Comings and Goings, is a
common choice in Terry’s entire work and originates from the corresponding numbering
of players in a team game like basketball whose rules Terry brought onstage.
13 Megan Terry (with Jo Ann Schmidman) presented the musical Running Gag at the Omaha
Magic Theatre in 1979 and then they were invited to perform it during the 1980 Winter
Olympic Games in Lake Placid, NY. The play was published by Broadway Play Publishing
in 1983. Also, Robert Wilson’s monumental 12-hour pageant CIVILwarS: a tree is best
measured when it is down was commissioned to be performed at the Los Angeles
Olympics Arts Festival in 1984, but it was cancelled due to lack of financial backing.
This page has been left blank intentionally
Conclusion

This study of the poetics of play and games in surrealist and post-surrealist theatre
demonstrates the need to reconsider this much-misunderstood theatre. The
primary focus has been to show that ludic theory is a valid path for re-examining
and restoring surrealist theatre since the ludic principle corresponds perfectly to
the quintessence of Surrealism: the defiance of bipolarities and binary thinking.
Finding its best expression in the surrealist game “one into another,” surrealist
theatre emphasizes the possibility of the simultaneity of dream and reality on
stage, in the same way that play simultaneously works on two planes—that of
fantasy and reality. Another important reason for examining surrealist theatre
in light of ludic theory is surrealist theatre’s tendency to challenge the notion of
rational thinking. Allowing room for nonsense in surrealist theatre is equivalent
to acknowledging nonsense in children’s games or the surrealist games. Yet such
nonsense, in all cases, ultimately brings us to another kind of sense—one that is
tied to the irrational, the marvelous, and the subconscious. More precisely, this
new sense emerges from the new concept of dialogue that Surrealism invented,
one that eschews mere communication and showcases, instead, the most
audacious flights of the imagination in those involved, through the accumulation
of surrealist images which are uninhibited by reason. This new dialogue-game is,
in fact, one of the major contributions of Surrealism to the stage, as it re-orients
it toward a non-mimetic organizational principle.
For all the above reasons, it is time to cease thinking of surrealist theatre
in terms of Aristotle’s aesthetic theory (as developed in his Poetics), which
includes the six qualitative parts of plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and
spectacle. Although all these elements can occasionally be found in surrealist
plays, none of them are rigorously applied. Rather than a clear-cut plot that
creates unity in a play, one finds a fragmented, montage-like assemblage of
intense tableaus, irrationally juxtaposed in a manner very similar to cinematic
technique and far from a linear, cause-and-effect relationship. Rather than
well-rounded characters, we find caricatures: types or their transformations
that challenge the notion of an unshaken identity and a stable reality. Instead
of focusing on the characters’ thoughts and ideas, surrealist plays highlight the
intense, contradictory emotions displayed on stage. Instead of a coherent diction,
surrealist plays encourage the most arbitrary diction, dictated at best directly
176 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

by the subconscious. Rather than a traditional concept of melody, in surrealist

plays, melody primarily arises from the characters’ poeticized language. Rather
than the diminished importance Aristotle attributed to spectacle, surrealist
theatre elevates spectacle to become one of its most significant elements,
with an emphasis on the image and the visual. Instead of a well-built dramatic
action, one finds in surrealist theatre intense dramatic moments that engage the
audience, not as spectators, but as active players. Rather than the traditional
presence of a fourth wall, one sees constant interaction between the actors and
the spectators, as if all those present are engaged in a game. In such interaction,
what matters most is the element of desire that transforms everyone involved
into a desiring subject, wholly engaged in the vast play-ground that forms both
the stage and the auditorium, where the ambiance created is one of rite, ritual,
or ceremony.
In tracing the ludic strategies in the work of several representatives of
surrealist and post-surrealist theatre, it became clear that “play” in surrealist
theatre functions as a figure of syllepsis, that is, as “a construction in which one
word serves two others” (Preminger and Brogan 1250). Or, to borrow Riffaterre’s
definition, “[s]yllepsis is a word understood in two different ways at once, as
meaning and significance” (“Syllepsis” 638). Thus, in surrealist theatre, play in
the sense of a theatrical work should be considered identical with play in the
sense of “ludic activity”—the theatrical praxis in surrealist theatre is inextricable
from its playful activity. This conclusion obviously has many implications for
surrealist theatre.
First, as stated above, it fulfills Surrealism’s quintessential idea of the
unification of the opposites as best exemplified in the surrealist game “one
into another.” Thus, surrealist theatrical works unfold within the sphere of ludic
activity and, at the same time, one inevitably traces ludic activity within surrealist
theatre. Second, the tautology on the level of signifier “play=play” stretches the
limits of reason, as it makes full sense on the level of “signifiance.” Furthermore,
such tautology showcases in an exemplary way Breton’s idea that Surrealism
is mostly concerned with the problem of human expression. By amplifying the
notion of “play,” yet remaining in the sphere of the concrete, surrealist theatre
automatically amplifies the paucity of reality; in fact, it challenges the notion of
reality by revealing a new reality, able to lead to surreality, the meeting point of
reality, dream, and imagination.
Third, and most of all, the play=play equation bears proof that surrealist
theatre sought to return to the origins of theatrical creation, that is, to its
ritualistic roots. In this ritual, all participants come freely to liberate themselves.
They dare to confront their inner fears and experience multiple selves in order to
find themselves. Thus, surrealist theatre is redemptive, initiative, and methectic
rather than mimetic. The stage is redefined as an active play-ground and not as
a place of representation; it entails the direct communication of the proscenium
and the auditorium, while a transformation occurs in both the actors/players
and spectators/players.
All these elements were detected in an embryonic stage in Nadja’s game, which
Breton felt constituted the idea-limit or further determinant of Surrealism. It
was from this game that the reconstruction of Breton’s ludic dramatic theory—
 Conclusion 177

centering on a series of “one into another” games that corresponded to his

vision of the marvelous—could begin. Nadja’s game activated the mechanism of
metaphor and thus unearthed a poeticized language and a series of juxtaposed
images that puzzled Breton. Rendering himself a plaything of his memory,
Breton’s “wireless imagination” was triggered and he re-imagined a theatre where
reality, dream, and imagination, as well as fluidity of the self, freely converge to
materialize “surreality.” As his re-imagined theatre was constructed in reaction to
the entire Western realist and illusionistic theatrical tradition, he did not attempt
to implement it on stage himself. He feared that staging this new idea of theatre
would destroy its inherent liberating potential. In his hesitation, Breton became
“tomorrow’s player,” since his ideas about theatre would only be implemented on
stage by some of his successors, in some cases even unintentionally.
Thus, in this study, I have traced a variety of ways in which Breton’s ludic
dramatic theory was brought to the stage over a span of about 80 years. In some
cases, it was done as an experiment directly linked to Breton’s ideas, as in the case
of Antonin Artaud, Roger Vitrac, and Nanos Valaoritis. In others, the connection
with Breton and Surrealism was more indirect, as in the cases of postmodern
artists Robert Wilson and Megan Terry. All of these playwrights experimented,
to a greater or lesser degree, with the stage as a form of playground and thus
created an outcome strikingly similar to that which Breton had imagined for it,
that is, an activation of the “marvelous.” This supreme category of surreality
is manifested in each one of these playwrights’ works, in the form of the four
categories of games, i.e. agon, alea, mimesis, and ilinx—crazy love, objective
chance, the experience of multiple selves, and the vertiginous form of the “one
into another” game, respectively.
Artaud and Vitrac, in their joint endeavor the Théâtre Alfred Jarry, attempted
to prove to Breton that surrealist theatre could indeed exist on stage, and be
fruitful. Their project was based on the proviso that the stage be seen as a play-
ground where a thrilling game takes place in which both actors and spectators
play at their own lives. There is no separation between life and art for them;
instead, art is in life and life is in art. Personally, I believe they succeeded in their
goal, although Breton never endorsed their achievement.
A few decades later, Nanos Valaoritis, Breton’s disciple, intrigued by the
experiment of Vitrac and Artaud, undertook his own version of surrealist theatre.
He hoped that his concentration on surrealist dialogue, as opposed to spectacle,
would overcome his mentor’s skepticism about the possibility of implementing
surrealist theatre. Breton remained unmoved, declining an invitation to the
premiere of The Nightfall Hotel. In his version of surrealist theatre, Valaoritis
benefitted to the utmost from the creative potential of the repository of
surrealist games, which he himself had practiced as an active member of the
surrealist group. He proved that surrealist dialogue could also function as a new
type of dramatic dialogue if seen as an end in itself. This experimentation with
games fluctuates from the pole of improvisation (paidia) to that of the rule-
bound (ludus) and constitutes a revolutionary act against the traditional Western
conception of theatre.
Robert Wilson’s work joined this surrealist legacy unintentionally through
his experimentation with a broad gamut of ludic strategies; his work was even
qualified as the “fulfillment of Surrealism’s dream” by Louis Aragon. The ludic
178 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

strategies Wilson employs operate on the level of language and the actors’
bodies, and the play of light and shadow in the theatrical space. It is through
this ludic principle that Wilson is able to show the materiality of language, to the
point that it becomes an autonomous player/actor upon the stage.
Finally, Surrealism’s transformational ludic principle culminates in Megan
Terry’s theatre games. In her pieces, one scene emerges out of another as if
in a “one into another” game, yet achieved with a minimal change of setting.
These transformational scenes allow for a simultaneous experience of multiple
identities on the part of the actors, similar to Nadja’s experience of multiple
identities. The game of the “self” into the “other” and its reverse, is a clear
indication of the fluidity of the self and of the possibility of achieving surreality,
consisting in an actualized convergence of reality, dream, and imagination.
In conclusion, Surrealism’s major contribution to theatre is the preeminence of
the marvelous, evoked by dream and the employment of a non-communicative
dialogue. Such a dialogue was made possible thanks to the activation of the ludic
principle, where theme and form converge, constituting the originality of surrealist
theatre. In other words, the uniqueness of surrealist theatre resides in its ludic
and transformational, and thereby non-mimetic, character. Seen as play where
all kinds of games are not only permissible, but highly desirable, surrealist plays
sweep away the representational principle and all its paraphernalia, including its
didactic goals. This new concept of theatre, initially imagined by Breton himself,
was implemented on stage progressively thanks to the audacity of a few firm
believers in Surrealism’s ludic activity, and their fascination with the play concept
itself. Postmodern theatre, then, is directly affiliated with surrealist theatre
through the ludic principle. Seen as play, a free activity par excellence, surrealist
and postmodern theatre alike emancipate the stage from the confines of the
mimetic principle and embark on an endless experimentation governed by desire.
The influence, then, of surrealist theatre extends far beyond the theatre of the
absurd or the existentialist theatre with which it has been generally associated. An
expansion of this current project would confirm this thesis. There is much scope
for further exploration of the entire corpus of each playwright featured in this
study—all prolific writers. In every phase of their artistic creation they are guided
by ludics. Likewise, a further exploration of a similar theatrical output by other
important playwrights, who were not included in this project, would certainly
provide further evidence for my thesis about the direct, ludic link between
surrealist, post-surrealist, and postmodern theatre. The work of the ex-member
of Surrealism Jean-Yves Tardieu, for example, would be relevant to this further
project, particularly his Poèmes à jouer (Poems to Play or Poems to Perform) (1960),
which includes his play Les Amants du métro (The Lovers of the Metro). Also, a
comparison with the Theatre of the Absurd, including especially Artur Adamov’s
Ping-Pong (1955), would be a rich source of material. The work of Edward Albee,
such as The American Dream (1961) or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), and
the most recent productions of Megan Terry and Robert Wilson, would also be
relevant to this project. Most importantly, all the above would further support the
idea that André Breton indeed became “tomorrow’s player” when he re-imagined
theatre on the basis of Nadja’s game in 1928. His “wireless imagination” would
bring together surrealist and postmodern theatre as “one into another,” where
play and its players freely encounter the marvelous and the surreal.
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Index

References to illustrations are in bold La Grande Nuit ou le Bluff Surréaliste (The

Big Night or the Surrealist Bluff) 86 n 2
A Letter for Queen Victoria
(Wilson) 136–7, 138, 139 Le Jet de sang (The Spurt of Blood)
Absolute Love (Amour absolu) 11, 87 n 3, 120–24, 122, 124–5,
(Jarry) 58, 85, 88 n 11 126, 134–41, 142 n 3
Adamov, Arthur Les Mystères de l’amour: drame surréaliste
Le Ping-Pong 107, 178 (The Mysteries of Love: A Surrealist
agon 7, 28, 93, 96, 111, 160, 168, 177 Drama) 9–10, 47, 56, 57–65, 66–75,
Albee, Edward 146, 178 76, 81, 82, 84, 87 n 7, 94, 105
Alcestis (Wilson) 126, 127–9, 139 “Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry et l’hostilité
“The Alchemist” (Vitrac) 62 publique” (“The Alfred Jarry
alea 7, 22, 28, 55, 85, 93, 98, 102, Theatre and Public Hostility”)
111, 113, 160, 177 10, 57, 63, 100, 140
“The Alfred Jarry Theatre and Public Le Théâtre et son double (The Theatre
Hostility” (“Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry and its Double) 120, 131
et l’hostilité publique”) (Vitrac/ Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir
Artaud) 10, 57, 63, 100, 140 (Victor or Children in Power) 94
Alice (Wilson) 137 Athanasiou, Génica 57, 58
Altman, Robert 173 n 7 Auslander, Philip 1, 3, 56, 73
American Repertory Theatre 126, 127–9 automatic writing 17, 19, 46, 62, 68, 102
Amour absolu (Absolute Love) avant garde theatre 2, 11–12, 85, 170
(Jarry) 58, 85, 88 n 11
Amour fou (Mad Love) (Breton) 17, 57 Balakian, Anna 3, 10, 26, 91
analogies game 75 “Les Barrières” (“The Barriers”)
Andrews, Raymond 125, 131 (Breton) 46, 49 n 14, 76
Antle, Martine 2, 3–4, 60 “The Barriers” (“Les Barrières”)
Apollinaire, Guillaume 87 n 7 (Breton) 46, 49 n 14, 76
Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts Beat Generation 114
of Tiresias) 51 n 28, 88 n 23 Beaujour, Michel 22
Aragon, Louis 11, 41, 124–5, de Beauvoir, Simone 61
134, 142 n 4, 177 Béhar, Henri 2, 3, 18–19, 20, 41, 42,
Le Paysan de Paris (Paris Peasant)
43, 56, 58, 62, 86–7 n 2
27, 29, 39–40, 51 n 31, 51 n 33
Bennison, Mark 3, 5–6, 26, 59–60
Aristotle 6, 92, 175–6
Berghaus, Günter
Aron, Robert 56, 86 n 2
The Spurt of Blood (Le Jet de sang)
Artaud, Antonin 9–10, 17, 56, 57,
11, 120–24, 122, 124–5, 142 n 3
85–6, 86–7 n 2, 87 n 8, 119–20,
The Big Night or the Surrealist Bluff
130–42, 143 n 11, 170, 177
La Coquille et le clergyman (The Seashell (La Grande Nuit ou le Bluff
and the Clergyman) 143 n 11 Surréaliste) (Artaud) 86 n 2
188 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

Black Orfeus (Orfeu Negro) (Camus) 75 Calas, Nicolas 76

body 11, 146, 147, 170, 178 Calm Down Mother: A Transformation
Body Leaks (Terry) 167, 170, 171–2 for Three Women (Terry) 11,
Bonnet, Marguerite 21 149, 154–60, 166–7
La Boule de verre (The Glass Camus, Marcel
Bull) (Salacrou) 138 Orfeu Negro (Black Orfeus) 75
Brazil Fado (Terry) 167 Capron, Marcelle 76
The Breasts of Tiresias (Les Mamelles de “cards of analogy” 115 n 8
Tirésias) (Apollinaire) 51 n 28, 88 n 23 Cassavetes, John 172–3 n 6
Breton, André Chaikin, Joseph 146, 149, 154
Amour fou (Mad Love) 17, 57 Les Champs magnétiques (Magnetic
attitude towards theatre 1–2, 4, Fields) (Breton) 17
9, 16, 17–21, 47, 55, 75 chance 7, 28, 93, 115, 121, 177
“Les Barrières” (“The Barriers”) children 10–11, 12, 27–30, 45,
46, 49 n 14, 76 86, 91, 93, 94–103, 106–7,
Les Champs magnétiques 131–2, 148, 167, 170, 175
(Magnetic Fields) 17 Childs, Lucinda 136, 138
“Le Discours sur le peu de réalité” “Chinese whispers” 80
(“Discourse on the Paucity of Reality”) Choisy, Maxa Camille 35
9, 16, 18–20, 26, 28, 39, 42, 45, 86 CIVIL warS (Wilson) 130, 137, 141, 173 n 13
and games/play 5, 7, 8, 9, 12 n 10, Comings and Goings: A Theater Game (Terry)
13 n 11, 26–35, 42–7, 91, 92, 105, 112 11, 148–9, 154, 160–66, 167, 173 n 12
on language 24–7, 46, 94, 107, 130 La Coquille et le clergyman (The Seashell
ludic dramatic theory of 9–10, 12, and the Clergyman) (Artaud) 143 n 11
16, 17–21, 22–4, 39–47, 55, Crémieux, Benjamin 57, 87 n 7
56–7, 75, 119, 176–7, 178 cruelty 120, 132–3
Manifeste du Surréalisme (Manifesto
of Surrealism) 5, 9, 16, 17, 22, Dada 17, 55, 87 n 8, 97–8, 114
24, 26, 29, 32, 43, 46, 56, 57 Dalí, Salvador 1
Nadja 4, 9, 15–16, 18, 20–21, 22–4,
Dante
26–35, 37–8, 40–47, 49 n 10,
Inferno 69
49 n 11, 50 n 24, 51 n 25, 51 n 29,
Dawn, Marpessa 75, 76
51 n 33, 52 n 35, 52 n 37, 53 n 39,
De Chirico, Giorgio 51 n 29, 116 n 15
53 n 40, 53 n 44, 57, 61, 77, 80, 81,
Deafman Glance (Le Regard du
82, 83, 84–5, 99, 110, 112, 117 n 22,
sourd) (Wilson) 11, 124–30,
147, 150, 153, 171, 176–7, 178
132–3, 134–5, 143 n 11
Poisson soluble (Soluble Fish)
The Derouted (Les Détraquées) (Palau)
17, 43, 117 n 21
9, 18, 34–8, 40–44, 45, 46,
Second Manifeste du Surréalisme
51 n 26, 52 n 34, 53 n 39, 84, 86
(Second Manifesto of Surrealism)
Derval, Blanche 18, 21, 41,
20, 23, 61, 86 n 2, 94
42–3, 46, 53 n 39, 84
S’il vous plaît (If You Please)
Les Détraquées (The Derouted) (Palau)
17, 45–6, 71, 73
“L’Union libre” (“Free Union”) 109 9, 18, 34–8, 40–44, 45, 46,
Vous m’oublierez (You Will Forget Me) 17 51 n 26, 52 n 34, 53 n 39, 84, 86
Brook, Peter dialogue
Le Jet de sang (The Spurt of games 12–13 n 10, 23, 28–31, 56–7, 59,
Blood) 87 n 3, 120, 142 n 3 62–5, 74–5, 79, 81, 92–3, 107–12, 175
and Surrealism/Surrealists 24–7,
“cadaver exquis”/“exquisite corpse” 28–31, 45, 50 n 18, 56–7, 62,
7, 13 n 10, 24, 44, 46, 49 n 16 70, 74–5, 76, 79, 81, 92–3, 102,
Café La Mama Experimental 107, 110, 131, 175, 177, 178
Theatre Club 148, 160 and surrealist theatre 56–7, 59, 62–5,
Caillois, Roger 7, 8, 28, 93, 107, 70, 74–5, 92–3, 102, 107–12, 114,
111, 115 n 5, 160 119, 131, 136–7, 175, 177, 178
 Index 189

“Le Discours sur le peu de réalité” “liquidation” 12 n 10

(“Discourse on the Paucity of “Murder” 105–6
Reality”) (Breton) 9, 16, 18–20, “one into another”/“l’un dans l’autre”
26, 28, 39, 42, 45, 86 7–8, 9, 10, 13 n 11, 22, 24, 43, 44,
“Discourse on the Paucity of Reality” (“Le 46, 49–50 n 17, 60–62, 66–75, 77,
Discours sur le peu de réalité”) (Breton) 82–3, 84–6, 108, 132, 133, 147,
9, 16, 18–20, 26, 28, 39, 42, 45, 86 151, 153, 166, 175, 176, 177, 178
double 120, 133 “parallel stories” 80
dream 1, 5, 6, 16, 33–4, 36–7, 56, 154, 178 “small papers” 149
and reality 43–4, 60, 61, 65, “transformation of relation” 146
66–75, 122–3, 175 “Who am I” 79, 99
Dream Play (Strindberg) 17, 86 n 2 “Who is a medium?” 107–8
“Who is it about?” 115 n 8
Edison (Wilson) 130 “Why do you prefer this?” 109
Ehrmann, Jacques 8 “Would you open the
Einstein on the Beach (Wilson) 136, 143 n 11 door?”/“Ouvrez-vous?” 111
Eluard, Paul 5 see also ludic activity
Ernst, Max 1 Garrigues, Emmanuel 8, 12 n 10, 75, 111
experimental theatre 2, 3, 4, 11–12 Ginsberg, Allen 114
“exquisite corpse”/“cadaver exquis” Glass, Philip 136
7, 13 n 10, 24, 44, 46, 49 n 16 The Glass Bull (La Boule de
verre) (Salacrou) 138
Fairbrother, Trevor 126 “Golem” (Valaoritis) 109
Feldman, Peter 149 Gooding, Mel 92, 108
feminism 11 Grand-Guignol 35–6, 40, 44, 105
Firehouse Theatre of Minneapolis 149 La Grande Nuit ou le Bluff Surréaliste
For a Theory of Writing (Valaoritis) 10, 57 (The Big Night or the Surrealist
For a Theory of Writing B (Valaoritis) 10, 57 Bluff) (Artaud) 86 n 2
“Free Union” (“L’Union libre”) (Breton) 109
Freud, Sigmund 27, 37, 44, 86
Henkin Meltzer, Annabelle 1, 3
Henriette où est-elle passée? (Henriette,
“The Game of Syllogisms” 111
Where Did She Go?) (Valaoritis)
games/play 5, 7, 8, 28
10, 86, 94, 103–6, 112
children’s 10–11, 12, 27–8, 30, 45, 86, 91,
Henriette, Where Did She Go? (Henriette
93, 94–103, 106–7, 148, 167, 170, 175
où est-elle passée?) (Valaoritis)
“Chinese whispers” 80
10, 86, 94, 103–6, 112
“hide and seek” 82, 111
Henriot, Jacques 133–4
language 8, 11, 16, 21, 22–3, 26–7,
“hide and seek” 82, 111
28–31, 44, 46, 62–5, 74–5, 94–103,
Holmberg, Arthur 125, 131, 134, 139, 140, 142
107–14, 126–30, 137–8, 141–2, 170
L’Hôtel de la nuit qui tombe (The Nightfall
surrealist 4–5, 7, 9, 10–11, 12, 16, 21, 22–4,
Hotel) (Valaoritis) 10, 56, 74–84,
26–35, 42–7, 56–7, 59, 60–75, 76–86,
99, 114, 117 n 20, 150, 177
92–3, 94–103, 105–15, 137–8, 141–2,
145–9, 153–4, 160–68, 170, 175–8 Hubert, Marie-Claude 94–5, 102
analogies 75 Hugo, Victor 117 n 20
“cards of analogy” 115 n 8 “Les Tables tournantes de Jersey
dialogue 12–13 n 10, 23, 28–31, (1853–55)” (“The Turning Tables
56–7, 59, 62–5, 74–5, 79, of Jersey (1853–55)”) 108
81, 92–3, 107–12, 175 Huizinga, Johan 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 n 9,
“exquisite corpse”/“cadavre exquis” 28, 29–30, 91, 92, 166–7
7, 13 n 10, 24, 44, 46, 49 n 16
“The Game of Syllogisms” 111 “I object/Eye object” 167–8
“I object/Eye object” 167–8 I Was Sitting on My Patio this Guy
“If/When” 81, 111 Appeared I Thought I Was
“Is Suicide a solution?” 110 Hallucinating (Wilson) 137–8
190 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

“If/When” 81, 111 and surrealist theatre 4, 6, 9–12,

If You Please (S’il vous plaît) 20–21, 56–7, 59, 74, 75–86,
(Breton) 17, 45–6, 71, 73 112–13, 137–8, 139, 145, 147,
ilinx 7, 28, 93, 111, 160, 177 149, 150, 160, 167, 175–8
Inferno (Dante) 69 see also games/play
Ionesco, Eugene 4 ludic theory 6–9, 93
“Is Suicide a solution?” 110 ludus 12 n 9, 93, 102, 111, 112, 128, 177

Jarry, Alfred 17, 56, 86, 95 McNeill, George 142 n 6

Amour absolu (Absolute mad love 10, 32, 47, 56, 57–9, 84, 86
Love) 58, 85, 88 n 11 Mad Love (Amour fou) (Breton) 17, 57
Ubu-roi 56, 64–5, 85, 95, 102 Magnetic Fields (Les Champs
see also Théâtre Alfred Jarry magnétiques) (Breton) 17
Le Jet de sang (The Spurt of Blood) Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of
(Artaud) 11, 87 n 3, 120–24, 122, Tiresias) (Apollinaire) 51 n 28, 88 n 23
124–5, 126, 134–41, 142 n 3 Manifeste du Surréalisme (Manifesto of
Jouffroi, Alain 126 Surrealism) (Breton) 5, 9, 16, 17,
Jouvin, Jack 35 22, 24, 26, 29, 32, 43, 46, 56, 57
Manifesto of Surrealism (Manifeste du
Kazan, Elia 172 n 4 Surréalisme) (Breton) 5, 9, 16, 17,
Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place 22, 24, 26, 29, 32, 43, 46, 56, 57
(Terry) 11, 147, 148, 149–54, 166 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso 42
marvelous 1, 12, 16, 22, 27, 29, 31,
Keyssar, Helene 165–6
33–6, 40, 43, 44, 45, 61, 92, 112,
Kimberlain, Sora 171–2
113, 121, 146, 175, 177, 178
The Kiss (Valaoritis) 114
Matthews, J.H. 1, 3, 71–72
Knowles, Chris 131–2, 136
Maurey, Max 35
Kristeva, Julia 141
Maxa, Paula 35
Kuhn, Hans-Peter 139
Medea (Wilson) 133, 143 n 10
Medée (Wilson) 143 n 10
Lacan, Jacques 19, 27, 45, 50 n 21
Metenier, Oscar 35
language
Metzidakis, Stamos 4, 19, 20, 66, 173 n 11
games 8, 11, 16, 21, 22–3, 26–7, 28–31, mimesis 3, 4, 5–6, 19–20, 45, 93, 102, 176
44, 46, 62–5, 74–5, 94–103, 107–14, mimicry 7, 9, 16, 28, 93, 94–5, 96,
126–30, 137–8, 141–2, 170 97, 98, 103, 107, 109, 111,
and Surrealism/Surrealists 24–7, 28–31, 113, 131, 148, 153, 160
44, 46, 57, 74–5, 93, 126–30 mirror 19, 26–7, 36–7, 43, 45, 84
and surrealist theatre 57, 74–5, Morel, Jean Paul 13 n 11
78–9, 86, 94–103, 107–12, 119, Morey, Miguel 140
126–42, 159–60, 170–71, 178 Motte, Warren 8–9, 20–21, 40–41, 43, 94
see also dialogue “Murder” 105–6
Laxton, Susan 7 Les Mystères de l’amour: drame
Letter of the Seer (La lettre du surréaliste (The Mysteries of Love:
voyant) (Rimbaud) 60 A Surrealist Drama) (Vitrac/Artaud)
La lettre du voyant (Letter of the 9–10, 47, 56, 57–65, 66–75, 76,
Seer) (Rimbaud) 60 81, 82, 84, 87 n 7, 94, 105
Levitt, Annette S. 3, 57–8, 66 The Mysteries of Love: A Surrealist
“liquidation” 12 n 10 Drama (Les Mystères de l’amour:
literary ludics 8, 9 drame surréaliste) (Vitrac/Artaud)
London Theatre of Cruelty 87 n 3, 120 9–10, 47, 56, 57–65, 66–75, 76,
ludic activity 81, 82, 84, 87 n 7, 94, 105
and post-surrealism 11, 175–8
and Surrealism/Surrealists 4, 5, 8, Nadeau, Maurice 57
9–10, 11, 12, 16, 20–21, 22–4, Nadja (Breton) 4, 9, 15–16, 18, 20–21,
44–7, 74, 92, 94, 112–13, 175–8 22–4, 26–35, 37–8, 40–47, 49 n 10,
 Index 191

49 n 11, 50 n 24, 51 n 25, 51 n 29, Le Regard du sourd (Deafman

51 n 33, 52 n 35, 52 n 37, 53 n 39, Glance) (Wilson) 11, 124–30,
53 n 40, 53 n 44, 57, 61, 77, 80, 81, 132–3, 134–5, 143 n 11
82, 83, 84–5, 99, 110, 112, 117 n 22, Reverdy, Pierre 26, 110
147, 150, 153, 171, 176–7, 178 Riffaterre, Michael 93, 157, 176
Nietzsche, Friedrich 91 Rimbaud, Arthur 75, 114
The Nightfall Hotel (L’Hôtel de la nuit qui La lettre du voyant (Letter of the Seer) 60
tombe) (Valaoritis) 10, 56, 74–84, The Round Tables (Les Tables rondes)
99, 114, 117 n 20, 150, 177 (Valaoritis) 10, 11, 86, 94, 107–13
Nin, Anaïs 35–6 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 95

Objective Love (Terry) 11, 167–70 Salacrou, Armand

“Ode to Pythagoras” (Valaoritis) 114 La Boule de verre (The Glass Bull) 138
Ollier, Nicole 106 Schechner, Richard 147, 148, 154
Omaha Magic Theatre 167, 171–2 Schlueter, June 154
“one into another”/“l’un dans l’autre” Schmidman, Jo Anne 167, 171–2
7–8, 9, 10, 13 n 11, 22, 24, 43, 44, Schmidt, Kerstin 145, 150
46, 49–50 n 17, 60–62, 66–75, 77, Schuster, Jean 87 n 5
82–3, 84–6, 108, 132, 133, 147, The Seashell and the Clergyman
151, 153, 166, 175, 176, 177, 178 (La Coquille et le clergyman)
Open Theatre of New York 146, (Artaud) 143 n 11
148, 149, 154, 160 Second Manifeste du Surréalisme
Orenstein Feman, Gloria 3, 9, 17, 18 (Second Manifesto of Surrealism)
Orfeu Negro (Black Orfeus) (Camus) 75 (Breton) 20, 23, 61, 86 n 2, 94
“Ouvrez-vous?”/“Would you Second Manifesto of Surrealism
open the door?” 111 (Second Manifeste du Surréalisme)
Ovid (Breton) 20, 23, 61, 86 n 2, 94
Metamorphoses 146 semiotics 6, 38, 113
Sever, Beachler 101
paidia 93, 102, 111, 112, 122, 128, 177 Sewell, Elizabeth 93
Palau, Jean Pierre Sheppard, Sam 146
Les Détraquées (The Derouted) 9, 18, Shyer, Laurence 130, 134
34–8, 40–44, 45, 46, 51 n 26, S’il vous plaît (If You Please)
52 n 34, 53 n 39, 84, 86 (Breton) 17, 45–6, 71, 73
“parallel stories” 80 Slant (Wilson) 143 n 11
Pardo, Carmen 140 “small papers” 149
Paris Peasant (Le Paysan de Paris) (Aragon) Soluble Fish (Poisson soluble)
27, 29, 39–40, 51 n 31, 51 n 33 (Breton) 17, 43, 117 n 21
Pavis, Patrice 38 Soupault, Philippe 4, 17, 46, 55, 73, 76
Le Paysan de Paris (Paris Peasant) Spariosu, Mihai I. 7
(Aragon) 27, 29, 39–40, 51 n 31, Spolin, Viola 146–7, 160, 172 n 3
51 n 33 The Spurt of Blood (Le Jet de sang)
Péret, Benjamin 4, 8 (Artaud) 11, 87 n 3, 120–24, 122,
performance analysis 6, 9, 37–8, 43, 46 124–5, 126, 134–41, 142 n 3
Philosophical Investigations Steppenwolf Theatre Group 146
(Wittgenstein) 113 Stern, Daniel 131
philosophy of language 6 Stewart, Ellen 148
Le Ping-Pong (Adamov) 107, 178 Strindberg, August
play, see games/play Dream Play 17, 86 n 2
Poisson soluble (Soluble Fish) Strowski, Fortunat 66
(Breton) 17, 43, 117 n 21 Sundell, Nina 135
post-surrealism 11, 47, 115, 175–8 Surrealism/Surrealists
Pro Game (Terry) 167 and dialogue 24–7, 45, 50 n 18, 56, 62–5,
psychoanalysis 6, 19, 27, 37, 53 n 44, 122 70, 74–5, 92–3, 102, 131, 175, 177, 178
192 Ludics in Surrealist Theatre and Beyond

and games/play 4–5, 7, 9, 16, 21, 22–4, and mimesis 3, 4, 5–6, 19–20, 44
26–35, 42–7, 80, 84–6, 87 n 8, 102, and semiotics 6
175–8; see also surrealist games as a separate genre 1–3, 11–12
and language 24–7, 28–31, 44, and transformation 59–60,
46, 57, 74–5, 93, 126–30 145–67, 171, 176, 178
and ludic activity 4, 5, 8, 9–10, Švankmejer, Jan 59
11, 12, 16, 20–21, 22–4, 44–7,
74, 92, 94, 112–13, 175–8 Les Tables rondes (The Round Tables)
and painting 1, 7 (Valaoritis) 10, 11, 86, 94, 107–13
and poetry 1, 32, 50 n 19, 114 “Les Tables tournantes de Jersey
and theatre 1–2, 4, 9–10, 11, (1853–55)” (“The Turning Tables of
12, 17–21, 39–47, 57 Jersey (1853–55)”) (Hugo) 108
and transformation 59–60 Tardieu, Jean-Yves 178
surrealist games Terry, Megan 11, 115, 145–9, 170–71,
analogies 75 172 n 2, 173 n 13, 177, 178
“cards of analogy” 115 n 8 Body Leaks 167, 170, 171–2
dialogues 12–13 n 10, 23, 28–31, 56–7, Brazil Fado 167
62–5, 74–5, 79, 81, 92–3, 110, 175 Calm Down Mother: A Transformation for
“exquisite corpse”/“cadavre exquis” Three Women 11, 149, 154–60, 166–7
7, 13 n 10, 24, 44, 46, 49 n 16 Comings and Goings: A Theater Game 11,
“The Game of Syllogisms” 111 148–9, 154, 160–66, 167, 173 n 12
“I object/Eye object” 167–8 Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry
“If/When” 81, 111 Place 11, 147, 148, 149–54, 166
“Is suicide a solution?” 110 Objective Love 11, 167–70
“liquidation” 12 n 10 Pro Game 167
“Murder” 105–6 Viet-rock: (A Folk War Movie)
“one into another”/“l’un dans l’autre” 147–8, 149, 157, 160
7–8, 9, 10, 13 n 11, 22, 24, 43, 44, Théâtre Alfred Jarry 9, 17, 47, 56, 57, 58,
46, 49–50 n 17, 60–62, 66–75, 77, 64, 66, 71, 85, 86 n 2, 94, 102, 119,
82–3, 84–6, 108, 132, 133, 147, 120, 121, 124, 132, 140, 156, 177
151, 153, 166, 175, 176, 177, 178 “Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry et l’hostilité
“parallel stories” 80 publique” (“The Alfred Jarry Theatre
“small papers” 149 and Public Hostility”) (Vitrac/
“transformation of relation” 146 Artaud) 10, 57, 63, 100, 140
“Who am I” 79, 99 The Theatre and its Double (Le Théâtre
“Who is a medium?” 107–8 et son Double) (Artaud) 120, 131
“Who is it about?” 115 n 8 Théâtre de Grenelle 57
“Why do you prefer this?” 109 Théâtre de l’Oeuvre 17
“Would you open the Théâtre des Arts 21
door?”/“Ouvrez-vous?” 111 Théâtre des Deux Masques 18,
surrealist theatre 57–60 35, 40, 41–2, 53 n 39
defined 2–3 Théâtre du Grand-Guignol 35–6
and dialogue 56–7, 59, 62–5, 70, Le Théâtre et son Double (The Theatre
74–5, 76, 92–3, 102, 107–12, 114, and its Double) (Artaud) 120, 131
119, 131, 136–7, 175, 177, 178 Théâtre Moderne 28–41, 51 n 31
and games/play 4, 9, 10–11, 12, 21, 56–7, Theatre of Cruelty 132
60–75, 76–86, 92–3, 94–103, 105–15, Theatre of the Absurd 2, 4, 178
137–8, 141–2, 145–9, 153–4, 160–68, transformation
170, 175–8; see also surrealist games and Surrealism/Surrealists 59–60
and language 57, 74–5, 78–9, 86, 94–103, and surrealist theatre 59–60,
126–42, 159–60, 170–71, 178 145–67, 171, 176, 178
and ludic activity 4, 6, 9–12, 20–21, “transformation of relation” 146
56–7, 59, 60–62, 74, 75–86, “The Turning Tables of Jersey (1853–55)”
112–13, 137–8, 139, 145, 147, (“Les Tables tournantes de Jersey
149, 150, 160, 167, 175–8 (1853–55)”) (Hugo) 108
 Index 193

Ubu-roi (Jarry) 56, 64–5, 85, 95, 102 Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir (Victor
“l’un dans l’autre”/“one into another” or Children in Power) 10, 11, 86,
7–8, 9, 10, 13 n 11, 22, 24, 43, 44, 94–103, 105, 107, 113, 116 n 14, 157
46, 49–50 n 17, 60–62, 66–75, 77, Vous m’oublierez (You Will Forget
82–3, 84–6, 108, 132, 133, 147, Me) (Breton) 17
151, 153, 166, 175, 176, 177, 178
“L’Union libre” (“Free Union”) (Breton) 109 Wellwarth, George E. 3
When We Dead Awaken (Wilson) 131
Valaoritis, Nanos 10, 47, 56, 57, 86, 88 n 17, “Who am I” 79, 99
92, 113–15, 115 n 5, 117 n 20, 177 “Who is a medium?” 107–8
For a Theory of Writing 10, 57 “Who is it about?” 115 n 8
For a Theory of Writing B 10, 57 “Why do you prefer this?” 109
“Golem” 109 Wickham Studio Theatre 120, 122, 124–5
Henriette où est-elle passée? Wilson, Robert 11, 115, 124–42, 142 n 4,
(Henriette, Where Did She Go?) 142 n 6, 142 n 7, 143 n 11, 145,
10, 86, 94, 103–6, 112 170–71, 173 n 13, 177–8
L’Hôtel de la nuit qui tombe (The A Letter for Queen Victoria
Nightfall Hotel) 10, 56, 74–84, 136–7, 138, 139
99, 114, 117 n 20, 150, 177 Alcestis 126, 127–9, 139
The Kiss 114 Alice 137
“Ode to Pythagoras” 114 CIVIL warS 130, 137, 141
Les Tables rondes (The Round Deafman Glance (Le Regard du sourd)
Tables) 10, 11, 86, 94, 107–13 11, 124–30, 132–3, 134–5, 143 n 11
Vallaire, Stéphane 76 Edison 130
Vander, Georges 75, 76 Einstein on the Beach 136, 143 n 11
Victor or Children in Power (Victor ou I Was Sitting on My Patio this
les enfants au pouvoir) (Vitrac/ Guy Appeared I Thought I
Artaud) 10, 11, 86, 94–103, 105, Was Hallucinating 137–8
107, 113, 116 n 14, 157 Medea 133, 143 n 10
Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir (Victor Medée 143 n 10
or Children in Power) (Vitrac/ Slant 143 n 11
Artaud) 10, 11, 86, 94–103, 105, When We Dead Awaken 131
107, 113, 116 n 14, 157 Winspur, Steve 113
Viet-rock: (A Folk War Movie) (Terry) Wittgenstein, Ludwig 8, 113, 115, 126
147–8, 149, 157, 160 Philosophical Investigations 113
Vitrac, Roger 9–10, 17, 56, 57, 76, 85–6, “Would you open the door?”/“Ouvrez-
86–7 n 2, 87 n 8, 88 n 11, 119, 177 vous?” 111
“The Alchemist” 62
Les Mystères de l’amour: drame surréaliste You Will Forget Me (Vous
(The Mysteries of Love: A Surrealist m’oublierez) (Breton) 17
Drama) 9–10, 47, 56, 57–65, 66–75,
76, 81, 82, 84, 87 n 7, 94, 105 Zinder, David G. 3
“Le Théâtre Alfred Jarry et l’hostilité
publique” (“The Alfred Jarry
Theatre and Public Hostility”)
(Vitrac/Artaud) 10, 57, 63, 100