Four Contemporary French Plays [The Modern Library, 90.3]

by Ruby Cohn (Introduction), Jean Anouilh, Jean-Paul Sartre

The tragedies of modern life are reflected in these French plays, each presented in Paris near the close of World War II

265 pages, Hardcover

First published September 12, 1967

Reviews

[Andrew Weitzel]

Bought this at a book sale since I'm a fan of Camus' novels. His play Caligula was excellent and reminded me a lot of something Henry De Montherlant would have written.

The other plays in this collection ranged from OK (Sartre's No exit), to awful (Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, which I almost didn't finish), to mildly annoying (Anoulih's Antigone blended modern-for-the-time dress and speech with an ancient Greek myth... not my thing).

If you pick this up somewhere, read Camus and Sartres' plays and skip the other two.

[Daniel]

Antigone is patronizing but the rest are genius

[Jewels]

Interesting, and yet, entirely irritating. I've had Sartre quoted in a TV show and a book lately, and his play was the basis for The Good Place, so I thought I'd try it. I have discovered that I'm not a fan of French playwrights.