The killer, and other plays

Auteurs:Eugène Ionesco (Auteur), Donald Watson (Traducteur)

Sommaire:"Widely regarded as Europe's most imaginative dramatist, Eugene Ionesco is one of the true innovators of the modern stage. In The Killer, a three-act drama staged with great success in Paris and London, He creates a study of pure evil. Berenger, a concientious citizen, finds himself in a radiantly beautiful city marred only by the presence of a mysterious, irrarional killer. Berenger's determination to find the murderer in the face of official indifference, and his final defeat at the hands of an imperonal, pitiless cruelty are the elements of a parable which speak with the universality found in Kafka's The Trial, The Killer, says Pierre Marcabru in Arts, is Ionesco's best play.....Never has despair had such a tone, at first ironic and ultimately lugubrious. Here good will an dhate clash in an implacable encounter where evil triumphs.....Ionesco has transcended his own earlier dramatic limits. Beginning with a verbal revolt, he has reached a point of logical revolt". In Improvisation, or The Shepherd's Chameleon, Ionesco plays the part of himself facing three learned scholars who claim to know better than he what he should write and how he should set about it. Inspired by one of Moliere farces, Improvisation is a wildly hilarious comedy that sets forth the playwright's own ideas of the theatre. The last play, Maid to Marry, creates a comic frenzy out of the phony verbiage in a conversation between a man and woman. Eugene Ionesco first attracted critical notice with The Chairs in 1952. His plays have since been performed in many European countries, and American audiences have seen productions of The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, The Chairs, and Jack or The submission, all published in an Evergreen Book entitled "Four Plays". Three of his other plays , Amedee, The New Tenant, and Victims of Duty, have also appeared in an Evergreen book edition."-Publisher