"Madwoman of Chaillot' (2nd review)

The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium is known, as its title suggests, for its productions of absurdist theater, best exemplified by Ionesco and Beckett.

Jean Giraudoux is often tossed into that category, but his The Madwoman of Chaillot is a bit different. It's direct rather than cryptically obscure. It's not so much absurd as a whimsical fantasy about the plots of Big Business and the oil industry to dig for petroleum under the streets of Paris, regardless of the resulting disruption of life and property.

Nor is The Madwoman really absurd at all: Its subject matter is realistic today— even more relevant than it was when the play was written during World War II.

The protagonist is neither mad nor ditzy; on the contrary, she's the voice of reason. She chooses to live in an imaginary world of nostalgia and wishful thinking. In one beautiful passage, she regrets how people have changed: In former days, "Everybody you met was like yourself. You knew them. There's been an invasion. The world is not beautiful any more."

Greed of the privileged

The last part of that speech, written while France was under German occupation, could be taken as a subtle attack on the Nazis. But primarily this is a story about the greed of the privileged class and the eventual triumph of the common people. As such, it seems of a piece with other class-oriented Giraudoux dramas from the 1930s. Touches of Brecht and Odets animate the speeches of his "little people" of Paris. And the fact that most of the characters lack names but are simply labeled "the General," "the Chairman," "the Prospector," or "the Ragpicker" reinforces that feeling.

The play concerns a cast of colorful Parisians"“ street singers, jugglers, friendly gendarmes, and so on"“ led by the madwoman of the title, Countess Aurelia. She enlists the help of friends, who include the "madwomen" of the neighboring districts of Passy and St.-Sulpice. A trial takes place in the Countess's cellar and the villains are sent, in effect, to hell.

While it's true that The Madwoman of Chaillot celebrates the eventual triumph of common people, too much has been written about the play's supposedly anti-Hitler plot. If you attend a performance expecting jibes at Nazis, or even at non-specific totalitarian governments, you'll be disappointed. And contrary to what I've read on the Internet, there's no evidence that Giraudoux ever wrote roles for Nazis into this play.

The translator's role

Could Maurice Valency, the original translator, have changed a plot with Nazis into something that sounds more like Odets? One of my friends, a student of Valency, reports that Valency was a teacher and author who never showed any interest in social-action causes. So let's put that myth aside and enjoy the play's skewering of corporate greed, religious fundamentalism and middle-class conformity.

This production is notable for its large cast of 18 actors who, almost miraculously, navigate the tiny space of the Walnut Studio 5. Their entrances and exits from both sides and from behind the set are handled smoothly by director Tina Brock, the company's artistic head. She also plays the title role.

Brock brings out the Madwoman's eccentricity and renders her a memorable figure. She and the cast members are a bit more forthright, perhaps more manic, than their counterparts in the 1969 Katharine Hepburn film.

The company deserves admiration for stretching so far and succeeding.♦


To read anther review by Jim Rutter, click here.

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