Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh (French: [Ê'É'̃ anuj];[1] 23 June
1910 â€" 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist whose career spanned
five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist
farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play Antigone, an adaptation
of Sophocles' classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal
Pétain's Vichy government. His plays are less experimental than those
of his contemporaries, having clearly organized plot and eloquent
dialogue.[2] One of France's most prolific writers after World War II,
much of Anouilh's work deals with themes of maintaining integrity in a
world of moral compromise.[3]Anouilh was born in Cérisole, a small
village on the outskirts of Bordeaux, and had Basque ancestry. His
father, François Anouilh, was a tailor, and Anouilh maintained that
he inherited from him a pride in conscientious craftmanship. He may
owe his artistic bent to his mother, Marie-Magdeleine, a violinist who
supplemented the family's meager income by playing summer seasons in
the casino orchestra in the nearby seaside resort of Arcachon.
Marie-Magdeleine worked the night shifts in the music-hall orchestras
and sometimes accompanied stage presentations, affording Anouilh ample
opportunity to absorb the dramatic performances from backstage. He
often attended rehearsals and solicited the resident authors to let
him read scripts until bedtime. He first tried his hand at playwriting
here, at the age of 12, though his earliest works do not survive.[4]In
1918 the family moved to Paris where the young Anouilh received his
secondary education at the Lycée Chaptal. Jean-Louis Barrault, later
a major French director, was a pupil there at the same time and
recalls Anouilh as an intense, rather dandified figure who hardly
noticed a boy some two years younger than himself. He earned
acceptance into the law school at the Sorbonne but, unable to support
himself financially, he left after just 18 months to seek work as a
copywriter at the advertising agency Publicité Damour. He liked the
work, and spoke more than once with wry approval of the lessons in the
classical virtues of brevity and precision of language he learned
while drafting advertising copy.[5]Anouilh's financial troubles
continued after he was called up to military service in 1929.
Supported by only his meager conscription salary, Anouilh married the
actress Monelle Valentin in 1931. Though Valentin starred in many of
his plays, Anouilh's daughter Caroline (from his second marriage),
claims that the marriage was not a happy one. Anouilh's youngest
daughter Colombe even claims that there was never an official marriage
between Anouilh and Valentin. She allegedly had multiple extramarital
affairs, which caused Anouilh much pain and suffering. The infidelity
weighed heavily on the dramatist as a result of the uncertainty about
his own parentage. According to Caroline, Anouilh had learned that his
mother had had a lover at the theatre in Arcachon who was actually his
biological father. In spite of this, Anouilh and Valentin had a
daughter, Catherine, in 1934 who followed the pair into theatre work
at an early age. Anouilh's growing family placed further strain on his
already limited finances. Determined to break into writing full-time,
he began to write comic scenes for the cinema to supplement their
income.[6]
1910 â€" 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist whose career spanned
five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist
farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play Antigone, an adaptation
of Sophocles' classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal
Pétain's Vichy government. His plays are less experimental than those
of his contemporaries, having clearly organized plot and eloquent
dialogue.[2] One of France's most prolific writers after World War II,
much of Anouilh's work deals with themes of maintaining integrity in a
world of moral compromise.[3]Anouilh was born in Cérisole, a small
village on the outskirts of Bordeaux, and had Basque ancestry. His
father, François Anouilh, was a tailor, and Anouilh maintained that
he inherited from him a pride in conscientious craftmanship. He may
owe his artistic bent to his mother, Marie-Magdeleine, a violinist who
supplemented the family's meager income by playing summer seasons in
the casino orchestra in the nearby seaside resort of Arcachon.
Marie-Magdeleine worked the night shifts in the music-hall orchestras
and sometimes accompanied stage presentations, affording Anouilh ample
opportunity to absorb the dramatic performances from backstage. He
often attended rehearsals and solicited the resident authors to let
him read scripts until bedtime. He first tried his hand at playwriting
here, at the age of 12, though his earliest works do not survive.[4]In
1918 the family moved to Paris where the young Anouilh received his
secondary education at the Lycée Chaptal. Jean-Louis Barrault, later
a major French director, was a pupil there at the same time and
recalls Anouilh as an intense, rather dandified figure who hardly
noticed a boy some two years younger than himself. He earned
acceptance into the law school at the Sorbonne but, unable to support
himself financially, he left after just 18 months to seek work as a
copywriter at the advertising agency Publicité Damour. He liked the
work, and spoke more than once with wry approval of the lessons in the
classical virtues of brevity and precision of language he learned
while drafting advertising copy.[5]Anouilh's financial troubles
continued after he was called up to military service in 1929.
Supported by only his meager conscription salary, Anouilh married the
actress Monelle Valentin in 1931. Though Valentin starred in many of
his plays, Anouilh's daughter Caroline (from his second marriage),
claims that the marriage was not a happy one. Anouilh's youngest
daughter Colombe even claims that there was never an official marriage
between Anouilh and Valentin. She allegedly had multiple extramarital
affairs, which caused Anouilh much pain and suffering. The infidelity
weighed heavily on the dramatist as a result of the uncertainty about
his own parentage. According to Caroline, Anouilh had learned that his
mother had had a lover at the theatre in Arcachon who was actually his
biological father. In spite of this, Anouilh and Valentin had a
daughter, Catherine, in 1934 who followed the pair into theatre work
at an early age. Anouilh's growing family placed further strain on his
already limited finances. Determined to break into writing full-time,
he began to write comic scenes for the cinema to supplement their
income.[6]
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