Theatre
The Bald Soprano
La Cantatrice chauve
Eugène Ionesco · 1950
Synopsis
In an English middle-class interior, Mr and Mrs Smith exchange banalities while the clock strikes seventeen; they talk about a Bobby Watson whose whole family bears the same name. The maid, Mary, announces the Martins, who seem not to know each other and discover by methodical reasoning that they live in the same town, the same street, the same flat, and that they are therefore husband and wife. A fire captain, Mary's lover, comes looking for a fire, tells endless anecdotes and speaks of a bald soprano, which casts a chill.
Context
Begun in Bucharest during the war, under a title that evoked English learned without a teacher, the play came about, from the dialogues of an Assimil method. Nicolas Bataille staged its premiere on 11 May 1950 at the Théâtre des Noctambules in Paris; it was at first a failure, according to the Romanian Cultural Institute. Revived in 1957 at the Théâtre de la Huchette, it has been performed there without interruption ever since, a world record for longevity in a single theatre. Gallimard published it in 1954 in the first volume of the author's plays, and Donald M. Allen translated it into English in 1958.
Who it is for
A short play written in French, a satire of conformism and automatic language; performed in English under the title The Bald Soprano.
Prizes and reception
It is seen as a modern classic and a founding play of the absurd; according to the Bucharest institute, it helped make its author the founder of that theatre.