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125-696: Since Peter Zadek directed the first English-language production at the Arts Theatre Club in London in 1957, the play has been revived frequently (in various versions) and has attracted many prominent directors, including Peter Brook , Erwin Piscator , Roger Blin , Giorgio Strehler , and JoAnne Akalaitis . It has been adapted as a film and given operatic treatment. The play's dramatic structure integrates Genet's concern with meta-theatricality and role-playing , and consists of two central strands:

250-407: A president-for-life and the power to name his successor. In 1828 his supporters called on him to assume dictatorial powers and "save the republic". However, the political turmoil continued and Bolívar stepped down in 1830, going into self-imposed exile and dying shortly thereafter. "He is revered as the one person who made the greatest contribution to Spanish American independence" and admired by both

375-421: A technocracy . Genet relates the experiences of his characters "to the great political and social upheavals of the twentieth century," Goldmann argues, particularly important among which is "the collapse of the tremendous hopes for revolution ." He discerns in the play's dramatic structure a balance of three equal movements—"established order, threat to order, and order again re-established." The first section of

500-714: A theatre in the round production at the Circle in the Square Downtown on 3 March 1960. This production was directed by José Quintero , who shortened the text considerably, and featured Nancy Marchand as Irma (who was replaced by Grayson Hall ), Roy Poole as the Chief of Police, Betty Miller as Carmen, Jock Livingston as the Envoy, Arthur Malet as the Judge, Sylvia Miles as Marlyse, and Salome Jens as Elyane. The production

625-532: A " Marcos "-figure (played by Tim McDonough) as the leader of the revolutionaries. Joan MacIntosh played Irma, Diane D'Aquila played Carmen, Harry S. Murphy played the Chief of Police, and Jeremy Geidt played the Envoy. Geoffrey Sherman directed a production at the Hudson Guild Theater in New York in 1990. Angela Sargeant played Irma, Freda Foh Shen played Carmen, Sharon Washington played

750-615: A brilliantly witty, ironic Peer Gynt : one that suggested Ibsen anticipated Strindbergian dream-drama, Brechtian expressionism, the madhouse world of the Marat/Sade and even modern physical theatre." Billington also wrote in the same article: "Although Zadek made his name in Germany, he never forgot his British roots. When I went to see his Berlin production of Pinter 's Moonlight , he told me that he loved Pinter's work because of its origins in weekly rep and because, as he said, "it

875-588: A century; and Porfirio Díaz of Mexico. Rosas and Díaz were military men, who continued to rely on armed forces to maintain themselves in power. This region was vulnerable to stronger powers, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom. Cuba remained in the hands of the Spanish crown until 1898. The United States seized a huge part of Mexico. Britain attempted to set up a protectorate on

1000-406: A comparison with Mother Courage and Her Children , and defamiliarised mode of acting would have foregrounded), while Brook's decision to transform the set only once (dividing the play into a period of order and one of disorder) distorted the play's tripartite structure (of order, disorder, and the re-establishment of order). The production prompted Genet to re-write the play. Leon Epp directed

1125-601: A constitution, as "constitutional dictators". There were a number of strongmen who went beyond raw struggles for power and its spoils and established "integrative dictatorships". These regimes attempted to curtail centrifugal forces, often termed "federalism", where regions or states of a nation-state had more autonomy and instead established the hegemony of the central government. According to political scientist Peter H. Smith , these include Juan Manuel de Rosas in Argentina; Diego Portales of Chile, whose system lasted nearly

1250-462: A counter-revolutionary effort to restore order and the status quo. The Balcony exists in three distinct versions, published in French in 1956, 1960, and 1962. The first version consists of two acts of fifteen scenes and includes a dream sequence in which Irma's dream of three wounded young men—who personify blood, tears, and sperm—is enacted immediately before Arthur returns to the brothel and

1375-644: A coup under the Plan of Tuxtepec and became president of Mexico 1876–1880, succeeded by his military and political compadre Manuel González (1880–1884) and returned to the presidency until he was overthrown in 1911 in the Mexican Revolution. During the decade-long civil war, a number of regional caudillos arose. Pascual Orozco helped oust Díaz at the early stage of the Revolution, but then turned against Francisco I. Madero , who had been elected to

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1500-500: A growing consumer market in the United States. In Guatemala Justo Rufino Barrios ruled as a Liberal autocrat and expanded coffee cultivation. Fictional Hispanic American caudillos , sometimes based on real historical figures, are important in literature. Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez published two works with strongmen as main characters: The Autumn of the Patriarch and The General in his Labyrinth ,

1625-415: A house of infinite mirrors and theaters." Genet uses this setting to explore roles of power in society; in the first few scenes patrons assume the roles of a bishop who forgives a penitent, a judge who punishes a thief, and a general who rides his horse. Meanwhile, a revolution is progressing outside in the city and the occupants of the brothel anxiously await the arrival of the Chief of Police. Chantal, one of

1750-845: A military hero of the French intervention, who challenged Juárez and Lerdo by attempting rebellions, the second of which, the Plan of Tuxtepec , was successful in 1876. Juárez and Lerdo removed some caudillos from office, but this prompted them to rebel. These included Trinidad García de la Cadena in Zacatecas , Luis Mier y Terán in Veracruz , Juan Haro in Tampico , Juan N. Méndez in Puebla, Vicente Jiménez in Guerrero, and Juan Cortina in Matamoros . "That they slowly gathered around Porfirio Díaz

1875-652: A number of examples of continuismo in Hispanic America whereby presidents continue in office beyond the legal term limits, with constitutional revision, plebiscites, and the creation of family dynasties, such as the Somoza family in Nicaragua. A major example of a modernizing caudillo of the late nineteenth century is Díaz (r. 1876–1911), whose period of control is known as the Porfiriato . His slogan

2000-472: A particular moment govern both the development of the whole of social relations and—through the latter—the development of individual destinies and the psychological life of individuals," Goldmann argues that The Balcony has a realist structure and characterises Genet as "a very great realist author": One may disagree with the lack of hope that prevails in Genet's play. But it would be difficult to deny that it

2125-441: A pierced 65' plastic and steel tunnel; the actors performed on platforms within the tunnel, or clinging to its sides, or on the metal ladders that led from one platform to another, creating the impression of animals driven insane within the cages of a zoo. The aim, Garcia explained, was to make the public feel as though it was suspended in a void, with "nothing in front of it nor behind it, only precipices." It won 13 critics' awards in

2250-512: A political conflict between revolution and counter-revolution and a philosophical one between reality and illusion. Genet suggested that the play should be performed as a "glorification of the Image and the Reflection." Genet's biographer Edmund White wrote that with The Balcony , along with The Blacks (1959), Genet re-invented modern theatre. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan described

2375-523: A priest and a general in a brothel it was more than the French could take. Brook eventually directed the play's French première two years later, which opened on 18 May 1960 at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris. The production featured Marie Bell as Irma, Loleh Bellon as Carmen, and Roger Blin as the Envoy. Brook designed the sets, which used a revolve for the first few scenes in the brothel. The scene in

2500-909: A production in 1961 at the Volkstheater in Vienna, which subsequently transferred to Paris. Erwin Piscator directed a production at the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt , which opened on 31 March 1962 with scenic design by Johannes Waltz and music by Aleida Montijn. A production opened in Boston in November 1966, while Roger Blin , who had played the Envoy in Brook's 1960 production, directed the play in Rotterdam in April 1967. In Britain,

2625-497: A royalist general-turned-insurgent Agustín de Iturbide . In Spanish America, new sovereign states grappled with the question of balancing a central authority, usually in the hands of the traditional elites, with some kind of representation of the new "citizenry" of the republics. Constitutions were written laying out the division of powers, but the rule of personalist strongmen, caudillos, dominated. Dictatorial powers were granted to some caudillos , nominally ruling as presidents under

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2750-583: A stir in London in the late 1950s with his productions of works by Jean Genet . Indeed, Genet was so outraged by Zadek's world première of The Balcony at the Arts in 1957 that he apparently bought a gun with the intention of shooting its director. He also worked as a director for the BBC in this period. Returning to Germany in 1958, Zadek worked in Theater Bremen from 1962 to 1968. In 1969, he directed

2875-643: A strong central state and defense of traditional institutional structures, particularly the Mexican Army and the Roman Catholic Church. Many regional strongmen were in the Federalist-Liberal camp, which supported local control and the continuation of their power. The quintessential Mexican caudillo , who gained national power for decades, was Santa Anna, who was initially a Liberal but became a Conservative and sought strengthening of

3000-732: A translator and a screenwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest directors in German-speaking theater. Peter Zadek was born on 19 May 1926 to a Jewish family in Berlin . In 1934, he emigrated with his family to London where he later studied at Old Vic theatre, after a year at Oxford University . He began in weekly rep in Swansea and Pontypridd. He studied at the Old Vic, and his first productions included Oscar Wilde ’s Salome and T. S. Eliot ’s Sweeney Agonistes . Zadek caused

3125-629: A war-torn Paraguay." In the late nineteenth century, regimes in Spanish America were more stable and often less dominated by military men. Foreign investors, particularly the British, began building infrastructure in countries of greatest interest to the UK's economic needs. Such projects included railways, telegraph lines, and port facilities, which cut transportation time and costs and sped up communications. Stable political regimes that could ensure

3250-450: Is abruptly shot. The second version is the longest and most political. The third version is shorter and reduces the political content of the scene with the café revolutionaries. Bernard Frechtman's first English translation (published in 1958) was based on Genet's second version, while Frechtman's second, revised English translation (published in 1966) was based on Genet's third version. A translation by Barbara Wright and Terry Hands , which

3375-483: Is common to their three dreams is that, contrary to what we will later see to be the social reality, they still confuse prestige with power and identify one with the other. Irma and the Chief of Police "possess the real power," Goldmann points out; they "represent the two essential aspects of technocracy: the organization of an enterprise and the power of the State ." Consequently, the Chief of Police's dilemma dramatises

3500-541: Is more than real; it expresses conflicting ideas with the erotic nuances of a dream." In line with Genet's interest in Nietzsche 's The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Rosen aligns the development of Irma's relationship to the audience with the mythic narrative of Dionysos toying with Pentheus in Euripides ' tragedy The Bacchae (405 BCE). In contrast to Goldmann's analysis of the play as an epic defamiliarisation of

3625-429: Is no precise English translation for the term, though it is often used interchangeably with " military dictator ," " warlord " and " strongman ". The term is historically associated with Spain and Hispanic America , after virtually all of the regions in the latter won independence in the early nineteenth century. The roots of caudillismo may be tied to the framework of rule in medieval and early modern Spain during

3750-665: Is often used pejoratively by critics of a regime. However, Spain's General Francisco Franco (1936–1975) proudly took the title as his own during and after his military overthrow of the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Spanish censors during his rule attacked publishers who applied the term to Hispanic American strongmen. Caudillos' exercise of power is a form considered authoritarian . Most societies have had personalist leaders at times, but Hispanic America has had many more,

3875-481: Is perfectly realistic insofar as it transposes onto the literary level the fundamental transformations that modern society has undergone over the past forty years, and also that it does this in a particularly clear and comprehensible manner. While Goldmann detects an "extremely strong" Brechtian influence in The Balcony , Carol Rosen characterises Genet's dramaturgy as " Artaudian ." "Just as Mme. Irma's brothel

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4000-481: Is related to The Balcony . Genet took his initial inspiration for The Balcony from Franco's Spain , explaining in a 1957 article that: My point of departure was situated in Spain, Franco's Spain, and the revolutionary who castrates himself was all those Republicans when they had admitted their defeat. And then my play continued to grow in its own direction and Spain in another. Genet was particularly interested at

4125-474: Is the intangible shadow of a real social phenomenon," she suggests, "her closet dramas are the Artaudian double of their impotent bases in truth." Rosen reads Irma's brothel as "a metaphysical construct in a discussion play about the value of mimetic ritual, the transcendence possible in play, and the |magical efficacy of the theater itself"; it is "more than a naturalistically ordered stage brothel; it

4250-471: Is the story of the rise of Porfirian Mexico." Simón Bolívar , the foremost leader of independence in Spanish America, attempted to recreate the Viceroyalty of New Granada in the nation of Gran Colombia . As with other areas of Spanish America, centrifugal forces caused the country to fragment into separate nation-states. Bolivar saw the need for political stability, which could be put into effect with

4375-609: The jefe máximo ( maximum chief ), the power behind the presidency in a period known as the Maximato (1928–1934); PNR's iteration as the Institutional Revolutionary Party dominated Mexican politics until 2000 and functioned as a brake on the personalist power of regional caudillos in Mexico. With the improvement of transportation, tropical products such as coffee and bananas could be transported to

4500-624: The Opera Company of Boston produced it in 1990. Having seen the New York production of the play in 1960, DiDomenica based his libretto on Bernard Frechtman's revised translation of 1966, though he did not acquire the rights to do so until shortly before Genet's death, in 1986. A reviewer for The New York Times found the production "a wonderfully intelligent construct, overlaid with a lyrical and dramatic sensibility that makes searing emotional contact at many crucial points." Mignon Dunn played Irma and Susan Larson played Carmen. In 2001/02,

4625-650: The Oxford Playhouse also produced the play in 1967, under the direction of Minos Volanakis , a friend of Genet's who, working under a pseudonym, also designed the sets. His scenic design utilised Melinex to create a "a revolving labyrinth of silver foil mirrors." Victor Garcia directed a production at the Ruth Escobar Theatre in São Paulo in 1969, which Genet saw in July 1970. The production

4750-514: The RSC used in its 1987 production, incorporates scenes and elements from all three versions. Genet wrote the first version of the play between January and September 1955, during which time he also wrote The Blacks and re-worked his screenplay The Penal Colony . Immediately afterwards, in October and November the same year, he wrote Her , a posthumously published one-act play about the pope, which

4875-582: The Reconquista from the Moors . Spanish conquistadors such as Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro exhibit characteristics of the caudillo , being successful military leaders, having mutual reliance on the leader and their supporters, and rewarding them for their loyalty. During the colonial era , the Spanish crown asserted its power and established a plethora of bureaucratic institutions that prevented personalist rule. Historian John Lynch argues that

5000-592: The Schauspiel Bochum , where he shaped the Zadek-Era . from 1972 to 1979. Here he paved the career of performers, Herbert Grönemeyer , today one of the most popular singer-songwriters who was then his musical director in 1976 and also an actor in roles, such as Melchior in Wedekind's Frühlings Erwachen , and secondly Natias Neutert , who performed his One-Mensch-Theater . In 1984, Zadek worked at

5125-504: The Senate of Berlin appointed a "collective" of five stage directors to serve as Intendanten (General Administrators): Peter Zadek, Peter Palitzsch (1918–2004), Heiner Müller , Fritz Marquardt and Matthias Langhoff. In this former East German theater Zadek was a director who represented the West. Indeed, he brought with him an international team that formed a "Western invasion" which revived

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5250-587: The Virgin , the Immaculate Conception and Saint Theresa be cut, along with the failed revolutionary Roger's castration near the end of the play). It featured Selma Vaz Dias as Irma and Hazel Penwarden as Chantal. Genet himself participated in the theatrics during the opening-night performance when he accused Zadek of the "attempted murder" of his play and attempted to obstruct the performance physically, but police officers prevented him from entering

5375-575: The majority of whom were not self-described caudillos . However, scholars have applied the term to a variety of Hispanic-American leaders. Since Spanish American independence in the early nineteenth century, the region has been noted for its number of caudillos and the duration of their rule. The early nineteenth century is sometimes called "The Age of Caudillos", with Juan Manuel de Rosas , dictator of Argentina, and his contemporary in Mexico, Antonio López de Santa Anna , dominating national politics. Weak nation-states in Spanish America fostered

5500-427: The themes of The Balcony may be divided between those that are essential and primary and those that are non-essential and secondary. Those that we may recognise from Genet's earlier work—the double, the mirror, sexuality, dream-death vs. reality-impure life—belong to the secondary level, he argues, while the play's essential theme is a clear and comprehensible analysis of the transformation of industrial society into

5625-533: The Berliner Ensemble. In addition to bringing great actors such as Gert Voss and Eva Mattes , Zadek brought in young protégé stage directors such as British director Rosee Riggs and also appointed renowned American Berlin-based conductor Alexander Frey as Music Director of the theater. Frey was the first American to hold any position at the Berliner Ensemble, as well as being the theatre's first non-German Music Director; his historic predecessors include

5750-549: The Chief of Police in this production. On both occasions the RSC performed a version of the play that incorporated scenes and elements from Genet's texts of 1956 and 1960 that do not appear in the French edition of 1962. This version was also used in a production at the Abbey Theatre in New York, which opened on 4 December 1976 and featured Karen Sunde as Irma, Ara Watson as Carmen (later replaced by Carol Fleming), Tom Donaldson as

5875-619: The Chief of Police, and Christopher Martin as the Envoy. Giorgio Strehler directed a production at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan in 1976. Richard Schechner directed an "updated" version with The Performance Group in New York in 1979. He transformed the revolution into another fantasy staged in the brothel (as Bourseiller had done ten years earlier in Marseilles) and made Roger shoot Chantel when he realises that she still belongs to

6000-501: The Envoy, and Will Rhys played the Chief of Police, while Paul Wonsek designed the sets and lighting. The Jean Cocteau Repertory company produced the play at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre in New York in 1999. Eve Adamson directed and designed the lighting, while Robert Klingelhoffer designed the sets. Elise Stone played Irma, Craig Smith played the Chief of Police, and Jason Crowl played the Envoy. Sébastien Rajon directed

6125-576: The Freie Volksbühne Berlin and got a great success with Josua Sobol ’s playwright Ghetto with his discovery of the actor Ulrich Tukur (who later became staff actor within the ensemble of Deutsches Schauspielhaus ) 1985–1989 at Deutsches Schauspielhaus , Hamburg. From 1992 to 1996 Zadek was appointed as one head among others at the Berliner Ensemble , the theater founded by Bertolt Brecht . After German reunification

6250-588: The General and Angelique Rockas as Carmen . The Finnish Broadcasting Company's (YLE) television theatre produced a television adaptation of the Balcony in 1982, directed by Arto af Hällström and Janne Kuusi. The Balcony was the first play by Genet that the Comédie-Française staged, although he neither attended rehearsals nor saw it performed there; the production opened on 14 December 1985, under

6375-528: The German critic and connoisseur of theater history, after his arrival in Germany was Zadek in to the German scene. 14 stagings in three years and four in the following six months: „Zadek was in a rush of making“ (im Rausch des Machens), and his „Theatermut“ (theater-courage) rejected the literary Shakespeare and took his absurdly grotesque side out. So Zadek's acclaimed staging of Der Kaufmann von Venedig (The Merchant of Venice) at Burgtheater in 1988 f. e. moved

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6500-547: The Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös created an opera based on the French version of the play. It was staged for the first time at the Festival d'Aix en Provence on 5 July 2002. It was produced again in 2014 at the Théâtre de l'Athénée , in Paris by the orchestra le balcon . Peter Zadek Peter Zadek ( German: [ˈtsaːdɛk] ; 19 May 1926 – 30 July 2009) was a German director of theatre, opera and film,

6625-418: The Mexican Constitution of 1917 , leading to the Cristero War , a failed major uprising under the leadership of some regional caudillos, including Saturnino Cedillo of San Luis Potosí . Obregón was elected again in 1928, but was assassinated before he could again resume the presidency. In 1929, Plutarco Elías Calles founded a political party, then known as the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR), and became

6750-418: The Mosquito Coast of Central America. The two strongmen of this early century were Antonio López de Santa Anna in Mexico and Rafael Carrera in Guatemala. Mexico began its revolt against Spain in 1810, gaining independence in 1821. Political divisions in the post-independence period were labeled federalist, seeking a weak central government and often associated with liberalism , and centralist, who sought

6875-402: The North in 1915 after Villa had broken with Carranza. Obregón and fellow Sonoran generals Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta overthrew Carranza in 1920 under the Plan of Agua Prieta , with the presidency in the 1920s going in turn from de la Huerta, to Obregón, to Calles, and back to Obregón. During Calles's presidency (1924–1928), he stringently enforced the anticlerical laws of

7000-408: The Republic". If the constitution put formal limits on presidential power and term limits, caudillos could bend or break the rules to maintain power, a practice dubbed continuismo . Ideologically, caudillos could be either liberal or conservative . Liberalism had an advantage in the post-independence period, drawing on the ideas of the liberators and creating the institutional frameworks of

7125-490: The authoritarian rule of conservatives, backed by the landowning class. Although he never sought the presidency, cabinet minister Diego Portales (1793–1837) is credited with creating a strong, centralized regime that lasted 30 years. In general, Chile prospered with an export-oriented economy based on agriculture and mining, an exception to most of the Spanish-American regimes. In the former Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata , political instability and violence were more typical of

7250-445: The brothel. July 1981, London . In the middle of the 1981 Brixton riot Internationalist Theatre staged a multi-racial performance of Genet's revolutionary play featuring the Sierra Leonean actress Ellen Thomas in the role of Irma,"While the ruling classes, the icons and figureheads fiddle, society burns around them...a comment on power and political manoeuvre" ... thought provoking .." The cast included French actor Yves Aubert as

7375-472: The café with the revolutionaries was cut and many of Genet's cruder words were omitted because the actresses refused to speak them; Genet objected to both decisions, as well as the use of a revolve. Public reaction to Brook's production was mixed. Lucien Goldmann thought that Brook's naturalistic decor and acting style (with the exception of Blin and Muselli's performances) obscured the play's "symbolic, universal character" (which an epic design, he suggests via

7500-551: The caudillo was unknown. … The caudillo entered history as a local hero whom larger events promoted to a military chieftain." In a rural area that lacked any institutions of the state, and where the environment was one of violence and anarchy, a caudillo could impose order, often by using violence himself to achieve it. His local control as a strongman needed to be maintained by assuring the loyalty of his followers, so his bestowing of material rewards reinforced his own position. Caudillos could also maintain their position by protecting

7625-599: The central government. Following the Mexican–American War , regional caudillos such as Juan Álvarez of the state of Guerrero and Santiago Vidaurri of Nuevo León - Coahuila ousted Santa Anna in the Revolution of Ayutla , bringing Liberals to power. Álvarez follows the pattern of the "folk caudillo ", whom historian François Chevalier calls a "good cacique , [who] protected the mainly indigenous and mestizo peasants of Guerrero, who in turn gave him their loyalty". Álvarez briefly served as President of Mexico, returning to his home state, leaving ideological liberals to institute

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7750-440: The city of Bochum designated a newly built street close to the Schauspielhaus Bochum as Peter-Zadek-Straße . Caudillo A caudillo ( / k ɔː ˈ d iː ( l ) j oʊ , k aʊ ˈ -/ kaw- DEE(L) -yoh, kow- , Spanish: [kawˈðiʎo] ; Old Spanish : cabdillo , from Latin capitellum , diminutive of caput "head") is a type of personalist leader wielding military and political power . There

7875-444: The closer power of the United States. Although elections were held in Mexico at regular intervals, they were by nature not democratic. The huge rural, illiterate, and mostly indigenous populations were more to be feared by the government than as a source for regime support. When Díaz failed to find a political solution to his succession, the Mexican Revolution erupted after the fraudulent 1910 general election . Diaz came to power by

8000-454: The composers Kurt Weill , Hanns Eisler , and Paul Dessau —all of them worked under Brecht. Zadek directed his first opera, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro , in 1983. He also directed Kurt Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny at the Salzburg Festival in 1998. Zadek acted in a small role in Rainer Werner Fassbinder 's film Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss ( Veronika Voss , 1982). Besides being chosen as "Director of

8125-557: The continuation of caudillismo from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth century. The formation of Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1929 effectively ended caudillismo . Men characterized as caudillos have ruled in Cuba ( Gerardo Machado , Fulgencio Batista , Fidel Castro ), Panama ( Omar Torrijos , Manuel Noriega ), the Dominican Republic ( Desiderio Arias , Cipriano Bencosme), Paraguay ( Alfredo Stroessner ), Argentina ( Juan Perón and other military strongmen), and Chile ( Augusto Pinochet ). Caudillos have been

8250-409: The contrast between Being and Doing that the Bishop articulates in the first scene recall the "two irreducible systems of values" that Jean-Paul Sartre suggested in Saint Genet (1952) Genet "uses simultaneously to think about the world." Marc Barbezat's company L'Arbalète published the first version of The Balcony in June 1956; the artist Alberto Giacometti created several lithographs based on

8375-425: The country and ran for 20 months. As already mentioned, Garcia's boldness and endeavour led to the arrival of Jean Genet to Brazil in 1970, that considered this production the best montage of his text — making it an international reference to the genetians studies. Antoine Bourseiller directed the play twice, in Marseilles in 1969 and Paris in 1975. Genet saw Bourseiller's first production in February 1969, which set

8500-403: The coup was completed and cemented his position as president by quashing a counter-coup by Velasco. During his presidency, Belzu instituted several reforms to the country's economy in an effort to redistribute wealth more equitably. He rewarded the work of the poor and dispossessed. Like Paraguay ’s Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia , Belzu chose to enact the aforementioned welfare programs because

8625-425: The direction of Georges Lavaudant. JoAnne Akalaitis directed the play in a translation by Jean-Claude van Itallie at the American Repertory Theater (on their Loeb Stage) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which opened on 15 January 1986, with choreography by Johanna Boyce, sets by George Tsypin , costume design by Kristi Zea and music by Rubén Blades . Akalaitis set the play in a Central American republic and added

8750-432: The era of La Reforma . During the era of the Mexican Reform and the French intervention in Mexico , there were a number of generals who had regional personal followings. Important figures whose local power had consequences nationally included Mariano Escobedo in San Luis Potosí ; Ramón Corona in Jalisco and Durango ; and Porfirio Díaz in parts of Veracruz, Puebla, and Oaxaca. There were other caudillos whose power

8875-547: The era. In Argentina, Juan Manuel de Rosas (r. 1829–1852) dominated the Argentine confederation. He came from a wealthy landowning family, but also acquired large tracts of land in Buenos Aires Province . Rosas despised "the principles of political democracy and liberty [and] provided order in a region that had known near-anarchy since independence". During his two-decade reign, Rosas rose to power and created an empire. He used his military experience to gain support from gauchos and estancias to create an army that would challenge

9000-612: The film I'm an Elephant, Madame . It was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival , where it won a Silver Bear award. Zadek and his partner Elisabeth Plessen , have translated many of Shakespeare's works into German for the theater as well as works of Pinter and Chekhov , among others. Zadek was renowned for productions of Shakespeare 's plays and for sparking a greater interest in English drama among German audiences. Almost three years, as

9125-414: The historical process of "the growth in prestige of the technicians of repression in the consciousness of the great masses of people." The subject of the play is the transformation by means of which "the Chief of Police comes to be part of the fantasies of power of the people who do not possess it." This process is borne by Roger, the revolutionary leader whose downfall forms part of the third section: Roger

9250-440: The historical rise of technocracy, Rosen sees The Balcony as a theatre of cruelty staging of "a mythic dimension to the dark side of the human soul." Like Goldmann, J. L. Styan, too, detects the influence of Brechtian defamiliarisation in the play, which he reads as a "political examination of how man chooses his role in society." Styan argues that—despite the symbolism of evil and the sensational, emotionally disturbing staging of

9375-460: The idea of communalism was more in tune with the traditional values of native populations than the emphasis on private property that other caudillos embraced. Belzu was also known for his nationalization of the country's profitable mining industry – he enacted protectionist policies to reserve Bolivian resources for Bolivian use, provoking the ire of British, Peruvian, and Chilean shipping and mining interests. Many of Belzu's policies won him favor among

9500-548: The institutions of the colonial era as legacies to be rejected, but the Roman Catholic Church and traditional values remained strong in many regions, supported by elites seeking to maintain their power in the new order. Conservative caudillos , supported by the Church and elites, moved to the creation of strong, central governments. Although there was the hope of some Spanish American leaders of independence that

9625-433: The interests of regional elites. A local strongman who built a regional base could aspire to become a national caudillo , taking control of the state. In this situation, caudillos could bestow patronage on a large retinue of clients, who in turn gave him their loyalty. In general, caudillos ' power benefited elites. But these strongmen were also mediators between elites and the popular classes, recruiting them into

9750-640: The latter a controversial novel about Simón Bolívar . In 1946, Nobel Prize laureate Miguel Ángel Asturias published El Señor Presidente , based on the life of Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898–1920), which was translated to English in 1975. In 1974, Augusto Roa Bastos published I, the Supreme based on Francia's life. In Mexico, two fictional caudillos are depicted by Mariano Azuela 's 1916 novel The Underdogs and Carlos Fuentes 's novel The Death of Artemio Cruz . In 1929, Mexican writer Martín Luis Guzmán published his novel La sombra del caudillo ,

9875-449: The leaders of the nation-states they had helped bring into being. In the wake of the violence and political disruption, new nations were faced with widespread property destruction, the disappearance of trade, and states that lacked political authority. The first few decades after independence saw the rise of strongmen with roots in the military. Spanish America had known no other type of regime than monarchy, and Mexico established one under

10000-402: The leadership of Argentina. After his rise to power using the rural workers, he changed his system in favor of using the military. He attempted to impose a ban on imported goods to help and win the support of the artisans in Argentina, but failed. He was forced to lift the ban on certain imports, like textiles, which opened a trade with Great Britain. Through his power over the imports and exports,

10125-438: The long-downtrodden indigenous peoples of Bolivia, but came at the cost of enraging wealthy Creole Bolivians as well as foreign countries like Britain that sought to use resources from Bolivian mines. Belzu took steps to legitimize his leadership, and was at one point democratically elected. Despite his popularity in many sectors, Belzu had many powerful enemies and he survived 40 assassination attempts. His enemies wanted to destroy

10250-483: The lower orders with contempt. He gives examples of Juan Facundo Quiroga , Martín Güemes, and other Argentine caudillos , most importantly Juan Manuel de Rosas, who were popular and populist caudillos . Burns attributes the urban elites' bafflement and their contempt for followers of these folk caudillos for much of the negative role assigned to caudillos . National caudillos often sought to legitimize their rule by holding titles of authority such as "President of

10375-468: The metaphysical or sacred and the political and constitutes the most successful articulation to date of " post-modernist performance and Brechtian critical theatre ." It "shows us that performance is not divorced from reality," they suggest, but rather that it is "productive of reality." In November 1961, Genet met the American film director Joseph Strick , with whom he agreed to a cinematic adaption of

10500-467: The methods of the communal Indian society that existed previously in Paraguay. After independence the state gained control of the land which was once under control of the Church and the Spanish state. Francia created state ranches and rented out land for the use of citizens who were able to pay a fee. Francia's repressive measures included crushing the power of the elite American-born Spaniards and curbing

10625-465: The military, the police, and even the legislative branch of government, Rosas created a monopoly that would ensure his remaining in power for over two decades. By the 1850s, Rosas was under attack by the very people who had helped him gain power. He was driven out of power and eventually ended up in Great Britain, where he died in 1877. Uruguay attained independence from Brazil and Argentina and

10750-479: The most appropriate frame of reference for understanding it, they suggest. They observe that, in common with his other late dramas, The Blacks (1959) and The Screens (1964), The Balcony' s exploration of explosive political issues appears to contradict its author's calls for a "non-historical, mythical stage." They interpret The Balcony as an examination of "how revolutions are appropriated through mass-media manipulation." Taking their cue from Genet's note on

10875-428: The new nation-states via written constitutions. Free trade as an economic policy created market-oriented economies. The model that these nation-states often adopted was federalism , keeping power in the component regions. Federalism, however, tended toward centrifugalism and fragmentation and was characterized by weak central governments. Conservative caudillos also emerged around 1830. New nation-states often rejected

11000-531: The play as the rebirth of the spirit of the classical Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes , while the philosopher Lucien Goldmann argued that despite its "entirely different world view" it constitutes "the first great Brechtian play in French literature." Martin Esslin has called The Balcony "one of the masterpieces of our time." Most of the action takes place in an upmarket brothel in which its madam, Irma, "casts, directs, and co-ordinates performances in

11125-609: The play at the Aldwych Theatre , London, opening on 25 November 1971 with Brenda Bruce as Irma, Estelle Kohler as Carmen, and Barry Stanton as the Chief of Police; its director was Terry Hands and its designer was Farrah. The RSC premièred another production, with the same director and designer, on 9 July 1987 at the Barbican Theatre , in a translation by Barbara Wright and Terry Hands. Dilys Laye played Irma, Kathryn Pogson played Carmen, and Joe Melia played

11250-533: The play at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris, opening on 11 May 2005. Patrick Burnier designed the sets and Michel Fau played Irma, Frédéric Jessau played the Chief of Police, Xavier Couleau played the Envoy, and Marjorie de Larquier played Carmen. The director performed the role of the slave. An audiobook of the production with Patrick Magee , Cyril Cusack and Pamela Brown was recorded as an LP by conductor Howard Sackler and released by Caedmon Records in 1967. The philosopher Lucien Goldmann suggests that

11375-532: The play dramatises the way in which the prestigious images of the established order—the Bishop, the Judge, the General—belie the actual bearers of power in modern society: Genet employs the image of a house of ilusions, a brothel, in which, it must however be recalled, sexuality plays almost no role, and in which we are principally shown the desire for power ...The first scenes show us three typical specimens...What

11500-410: The play from 1960, they conclude that Genet felt that "conventional political theatre too often indulges the spectator by depicting the revolution as having already happened. Instead of encouraging the audience to change the world, it acts as a safety valve, and thus works to support the status quo." His is a form of political theatre that is "neither didactic nor based on realism "; instead, it fuses

11625-457: The play that appeared on its cover (including a tall, dignified Irma, the Bishop who was made to resemble Genet, and the General with his whip). Genet dedicated this version to Pierre Joly, a young actor and Genet's lover at the time. Genet began to re-write the play in late October 1959 and again in May 1960, the latter prompted by its recent production under the direction of Peter Brook . He worked on

11750-460: The play. The film version of The Balcony was released in 1963, directed by Strick. It starred Shelley Winters , Peter Falk , Lee Grant and Leonard Nimoy . The film garnered nominations for George J. Folsey for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and for Ben Maddow for a Writers Guild of America Award . Robert DiDomenica composed an operatic version of the play in 1972, though it did not receive its première until Sarah Caldwell of

11875-424: The plumber comes to the house of illusions—like those who earlier had dreamed of being Judge, Bishop or General—to live out for a few hours his dream of being a technician of power. Yet by doing that, Genet tells us, the revolutionary who dreams of being Chief of Police castrates himself as a revolutionary. To the extent that " realism " is understood as "the effort to bring to light the essential relationships that at

12000-406: The political contours of regions would reconstitute the former viceroyalties , but with local autonomy. The Roman Catholic Church as an institution remained strong and the militaries won victories against royalist forces. The state as an institution in most areas was weak. Conflicts over the form the new governments should take were rampant, and veterans of the wars of independence saw themselves as

12125-436: The political left for opposing slavery and distrust of the U.S. and the right, which admires his authoritarianism . Veterans of the wars of independence assumed the leadership of the newly created nation-states, each with a new constitution. Despite constitutions and ideological labels of liberals and conservatives, personalist and opportunistic leaders dominated the early nineteenth century. As with Mexico and Central America,

12250-530: The political turmoil and penury of the governments of the Bolivarian republics prevented foreign investors from risking their capital there. One caudillo who was progressive for his time was Bolivia ’s Manuel Isidoro Belzu , who served as the fourteenth president from 1848 until 1855. The former president, Jose Miguel de Velasco , executed a coup for the presidency in 1848, promising the position of Minister of War to Belzu. Belzu seized power for himself once

12375-406: The power base, but also restraining them from achieving power themselves. There were a few strongmen who either rose from a humble background to protect the interests of indigenous groups or other rural marginalized groups, or strongly identified with those groups; historian E. Bradford Burns referred to them as "folk caudillos ,". In his analysis, they contrasted with Europeanized elites who viewed

12500-479: The power of the Roman Catholic Church. Francia allowed for religious freedom and abolished the tithe. He actively encouraged miscegenation. He has been a controversial figure in Hispanic American history: many modern historians credit him with bringing stability to Paraguay, preserving independence, and "bequeathing to his successors an egalitarian, homogeneous nation". However, because of his crackdown on

12625-499: The presidency in 1861, but he was gunned down by one of his rivals by the time he tried to run for presidency again. He was unable to leave a legacy and his populist programs died with him. After Bolivia's independence, Bolivia lost half of its territory to neighboring countries including Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Brazil through the war and agreements reached under the threat of invasion. In contrast to most of Spanish America, post-independence Chile experienced political stability under

12750-551: The presidency in 1911. Pancho Villa also helped oust Díaz, supported Madero, and following his murder in 1913, became a general in the Constitutionalist Army commanded by civilian Venustiano Carranza . Emiliano Zapata , peasant leader from the state of Morelos, opposed to Díaz and every subsequent Mexican government until his murder in 1919 by Carranza's agents. Álvaro Obregón emerged as another brilliant general from northern Mexico, defeating Villa's Division of

12875-571: The prostitutes, has quit the brothel to become the embodiment of the spirit of the revolution. An Envoy from the Queen arrives and reveals that the pillars of society (the Chief Justice, the Bishop, the General, etc.) have all been killed in the uprising. Using the costumes and props in Irma's "house of illusions", the patrons' roles are realised when they pose in public as the figures of authority in

13000-474: The rise of caudillos in Spanish America is rooted not in the distant Spanish past but in the immediate context of the Spanish American wars of independence . The wars overthrew colonial rule and left a power vacuum in the early nineteenth century. Caudillos were very influential in the history of Spanish America and left a legacy that has influenced political movements in the modern era. The term

13125-423: The scenes with the revolutionaries inside Irma's brothel and cast non-actors in the leading roles, including Bourseiller's wife, Chantal Darget, as Irma. Writing to the cast, Genet advised: "You can break it [the play] into pieces and then glue them back together, but make sure that it holds together." Genet wrote many letters at that time to Bourseiller about the art of acting. The Royal Shakespeare Company staged

13250-403: The secret desires of its audience—there is in Genet's theatre "a sharp intellectual edge, a shocking clear-headedness" that "links him more with Pirandello than with Artaud." Genet's theatre, the editors of Jean Genet: Performance and Politics argue, stages an interrogation and deconstruction of "the value and status of the theatrical frame itself." Postmodern performance , though, provides

13375-550: The security of foreign investments, facilitate extraction of resources, and production of agricultural crops and animals were the necessary structures. Industrialization also took hold in a few countries (Mexico, Argentina, Colombia) to produce consumer goods locally. In general, foreign governments and entrepreneurs had no interest in directly administering countries of Hispanic America in a formal colonial arrangement so long as their interests could be nurtured by modernizing national governments, often seen as neocolonialism . There are

13500-399: The state-run projects that helped nationalist program but likewise improved the public sphere on which the country's poor were reliant. However, the despotism that is so rife among the caudillos also found a home with Belzu – from the early 1850s until his abdication of power in 1855, he is said to have ruled despotically, making himself very wealthy in the process. Belzu considered returning to

13625-758: The story from the bankrupt businessman and the deadly pledge for the saving credit wisely and harmoniously into the modern every daylife. Despite suffering from an illness, Zadek continued working in his later years. In 2008, he staged Pirandello's Naked at the St. Pauli Theater in Hamburg. Zadek's last production was Shaw's Major Barbara , performed at the Schauspielhaus Zurich in February 2009. He died on 30 July 2009 in Hamburg, survived by his two children. He headed up such major German theatres as

13750-507: The subject of literature in Spanish America. Hispanic America is not unique in having strong leaders emerge during times of turmoil. The cause of their emergence in Spanish America is generally seen to be in the destruction of the Spanish colonial state structure after the wars of independence, and in the importance of leaders from the independence struggles for providing government in the post-independence period, when nation-states came into being. Historian John Lynch states that "Before 1810

13875-522: The theatre director by working at the same time both directly on the text with his chosen actors, and in pursuit of a ‘conceptual’ method of directing. Thus he has found, and continues to find, his personal vision and create with it a lively impact in each production, while retaining the principles of his ‘guiding spirits’, Shakespeare , Ibsen and Chekhov . Following Zadek's death, British critic Michael Billington wrote in The Guardian : "Zadek

14000-534: The theatre. Genet objected to what he called its " Folies Bergère "-style mise en scène. The production was well-received for the most part. Two years later in 1959 the play was produced at the Schlosspark-Theater in Berlin under the direction of Hans Lietzau . This production utilised a colour TV set for Irma's surveillance and switchboard machine. The first New York production opened Off-Broadway in

14125-489: The third version between April and October 1961, during which time he also read Friedrich Nietzsche 's The Birth of Tragedy (1872), a work of dramatic theory that was to become one of Genet's favourite books and a formative influence on his ideas about the role of myth and ritual in post- realist theatre. In a note of 1962, Genet writes that: "In London, at the Arts Theatre , I saw for myself that The Balcony

14250-632: The time in newspaper reports of two projects for massive tombs: the Caudillo ' s own colossal memorial near Madrid, the Valle de los Caídos ("Valley of the Fallen"), where he was buried in 1975, and the projected mausoleum of Aga Khan III in Aswan, Egypt. They provided the source for the Chief of Police's longing for a great mausoleum and the founding of a funerary cult around him in the play. The meditations on

14375-439: The wealthy elite and the subsequent weakening of their power, he was accused of anti-clericalism. Nevertheless, Paraguay prospered under Francia in terms of economics and trade through a trade route with Buenos Aires, which was opposed by the wealthy Argentinian elites. "Sometimes counted among the dictators of the era, contemporary history has viewed Francia as an honest, populist leader who promoted sovereign economic prosperity in

14500-646: The year" numerous times by the Theater heute magazine, he received the following awards: In 2007, he was awarded the XI Europe Theatre Prize , in Thessaloniki . The prize organization stated: In giving the award to Peter Zadek, we wanted to salute the work of an artist who, in a long career beginning in England and continuing for more than forty years in Germany, has reinvented the art of

14625-521: Was badly acted. It was equally badly acted in New York, Berlin and Paris – so I was told." The play received its world première in London on 22 April 1957, in a production directed by Peter Zadek at the Arts Theatre Club , a "private theatre club" that enabled the production to circumvent the Lord Chamberlain 's ban on public performances of the play (though the censor still insisted that what he considered to be blasphemous references to Christ,

14750-508: Was forced to postpone when the theatre's artistic director, Simone Berriau, was threatened by the Parisian police. Brook recounts: For while she was with the police, a hand beckoned her into an inner room and she was told, off the record, that if she proceeded with this play, a riot would be organized (by the police, naturally!) and the theatre would be closed. This incidentally was a play that had run in London without scandal, but as it showed

14875-564: Was like a combination of Agatha Christie and Kafka ". But Zadek also understood Pinter's play profoundly: rarely have I seen Pinter's idea that women possess an emotional awareness denied to men so vividly expressed." In 1999 in Vienna , when he directed Hamlet with a woman in the title role, the Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung criticized him having too much of a "children belief in justice" (Kinderglaube an Gerechtigkeit). In 2015,

15000-511: Was mercurial, intuitive, even populist in his approach – and the results were sometimes astonishing. Four of his shows came to the Edinburgh International festival and he always made you re-assess a play. I recall a modern-dress Merchant of Venice in which Gert Voss's assimilated Shylock, even after his humiliation in the trial scene, coolly strolled off stage as if preparing to phone his broker. In 2004, Zadek also brought us

15125-890: Was more local but still important, including Gerónimo Treviño and Francisco Narajo in Nuevo León, Servando Canales and Juan Cortina in Tamaulipas , Florencio Antillón in Guanajuato, Ignacio Pesqueira in Sonora , Luis Terrazas in Chihuahua , and Manuel Lozada in Tepic . Following the defeat of the French in 1867, the government of Benito Juárez and his successor following his death, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada , faced opponents who objected to their increasingly Centralist administrations. Those opponents gravitated to supporting Díaz,

15250-478: Was ruled by Fructuoso Rivera . In Paraguay, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (r. 1814–1840) was Supreme Dictator of the Republic, maintaining the landlocked country's independence from Argentina and other foreign powers. Sealed off from outside trade, Paraguay developed economic self-sufficiency under Francia. He based society on communal properties, rather than centralized authoritarianism, attempting to revert to

15375-400: Was staged under the new regime of Brazil's military dictator General Garrastazu Médici ; the actress who played Chantal, Nilda Maria, was arrested for anti-government activities and her children were sent to Public Welfare, prompting Genet to petition the wife of the city's governor for their release. In Garcia's production, the audience observed the action from vertiginous balconies overlooking

15500-475: Was very well-received and won the 1960 Obie Awards for Genet for Best Foreign Play, for David Hays for its scenic design, and a Distinguished Performance award for both Livingston and Marchand; the production became what was at the time the longest-running Off-Broadway play in history, with 672 performances. Peter Brook had planned to direct the play in 1958 at the Théâtre Antoine in Paris, until he

15625-680: Was “order and progress”, which was enforced by armed men controlled by the president, the Rurales . Díaz was averse to being dependent on the Mexican army, since as a general and leader of a coup d'état himself, he knew their potential for intervening in national politics. Díaz coopted or crushed regional opposition to his regime, creating a political machine to forward his vision of modern Mexico. Desirous of economic development that necessitated foreign investment, Díaz sought capital and expertise from European powers (Britain, France, and Germany) to offset

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