-TH EA T E-R C H RON I C L E
663
playing a part in the comedy, and so the theater begins with the
comedy which the individual plays in relation to himself, with
the dialogue which ·the individual must necessarily and continu–
ously carry ' on with himself as to the
truth
of the role which he
finds that he must act in relation to the others. That is, the
theater begins in the intimate depths of self-awareness. Man is
an essentially theatrical being. Thus the theater must represent this
fact: the relationship between action and self-consciousness. The
illusion of reality, the versimilitude of the plot, have no importance
at all: what matters is the truth of the initial situation and the
logic with which it is pushed to its ultimate consequences. The
dramatic action is not a fiction which one pretends to be true, but
a truth which openly pretends to be a pretense. This, in sub–
stance, is .Pirandello's point of arrival. As a consequence, with him
the theater.
has
again become what it was at its inception:
a free space in which one plays at putting in question the meaning
of human actions. Provided that the play of forces is explicit,
freedom is complete. Thus the naturalistic and moralistic approach
is fatal to the theater; it prevents it from being a game, that is, of
free.1y telling the. truth. .
AS
Jean-Paul Sartre has
sho~,
Genet's existential situation
is that of the "play-actor" forced to act out the comedy of Evil.
Only by exposing himself to the condemnation of "normal"
people, that .is, of exacerbating in his imagination his role as a
criminal and invert, can he feel himself to be "real." But pre–
cisely because of this, he ends up by feeling himself to be the
victim of an unjust judgment, he pretends to
be
innocent and so
is ensnared
in
the very problem. of Good and Evil which he wanted
to escape. So he must go back to playing the role of the depraved
man in the impenetrable world of Evil, go back to wanting to
awaken in us the nausea and condemnation by which, since they
are false and unjust, he feels himself justified. In other words,
he goes back to feigning that innocence which he cannot accept.
This, according to Sartre, is the play-acting in which Genet
is condemned to remain imprisoned. But the play-acting is real.
Genet sacrifices
hi~self.
in it. He
IS
therefore not only a "play–
actor," but ,also ·a- "martyr"· and a "saint." For Sartre, ·Genet!s
