100
PARTISAN
REVIEW
is dispelled, since the meaning of the whole show is somewhat taken for
granted, so that one can proceed with the plot, as it were.
Marivaux has been the fashion in Paris for some time, both at
Barrault's and at the Comedie Franl$aise. Now, I am afraid, the vulgar–
ization has come, with Anouilh's latest play
La R epetition ou L'Amour
Puni.
It is the music-box perfection of Marivaux's plays, in fact their
rigorous thinness, that attracts the contemporary spectator. There is more
substance than that, however, and more poetry, in Marivaux's eighteenth–
century chit-chat. In a review of
L es Secondes Surprises de
l'
Amour,
Thierry Maulnier attempted a parallel between Marivaux and Choderlos
de Laclos, and went so far as to mention Sade. Marivaux, it seems to me,
is neither cynical nor cruel. But he is pitiless in that he cares only for
the rules of the game and for grace. The game is life, and it cannot but
take the form of a play, since its rules concern polite society, and it states
that as soon as a sensitive person (one who is supposed to be motivated
by feeling, desire and love of life; notice, not of the social scene) begins
to express himself, he starts a plot of whose development he is not the
master, a game whose rules he must obey to the last, if he wants to win,
or rather: to be happy. The most charming show now on at the Comedie
Franl$aise is Marivaux's
La Double Inconstance.
It
is the quintessence
of Marivaux. The play is about Harlequin and Sylvia, who are young
and in love, a real, natural, absolute love. But do they know what they
have started by being in love? They don't. They think the plot of life
begins and ends with their mutual love. It is their only fault, and it is
sweetly punished in the end by Sylvia's falling in the arms of the Prince
and Harlequin's embracing Flaminia.
It
all began with love, and went
from love to love. The same tune, but, from variation to variation, an–
other melody was born.
I wonder whether, listening to Marivaux', Hamlet would mutter
"Words, words, words."
As
for Anouilh's play, it is modern
marivaudage
around Marivaux.
Some highly improbable, although entirely up to date, people in a
chateau
are staging
La Double Inconstance
for the entertainment of their
neighbors. While they are rehearsing, the same plot that develops musi–
cally and sweetly in Marivaux takes place harshly, and with all sorts of
jarring nastiness, among the "real" characters.
It
is a highly polished
piece of theatrical work, clever, shrewd, witty, and everything, but much
less spirited and inventive than Anouilh's previous plays, and finally
pointless because so much more pretentious.
Nicola Chiaromonte
