The Screens

Genet was writing the piece as a war of independence was being conducted in French colonial Algeria. The work has no narrative structure, but comprises a series of 17 individual scenes depicting Arab insurrection against a stupid and blundering colonial power. Although the occupying army is not identified as specifically French (nor is the action intended to depict only the then-current insurgence—the French conquest of Algeria in the 1840s is also referenced), when the play was first performed in France, at the eminent Odéon theatre, Paris, in 1966 it was seen as a provocative insult to national prestige and caused serious protest demonstrations.[4]

The "screens" of the title are metaphors: in one sense, for example, they stand for on-screen television news reports filtering the realities of war, both political and physical. But they are also real stage properties, mounted on rubber wheels and manipulated, as part of the action, by a visible stagehand.[5][6]

Genet began writing the play in 1955 and continued to develop it over the following few years, completing a first version in June 1958.[7] He re-wrote the play further while in Greece towards the end of 1959.[8] Marc Barbezat's publishing company L'Arbalète published it in February 1961, after which Genet re-wrote the play again.[8] It was first published in English by Grove Press, New York in 1962 (translated by Bernard Flechtman), with Faber and Faber publishing the UK edition the following year. In 1976, Genet published a second, revised version, which appears in the French edition of his Complete Works.[9]

The play premièred in an abridged German version in May 1961 at the Schlosspark-Theater in Berlin, which Hans Lietzau directed.[10] A slightly revised version of the problematic German translation used in Berlin was staged by Leon Epp two years later at the Volkstheater in Vienna in 1963.[3] Epp's interpretation emphasised the political conflict between the French and Algerians in the play.[11]

In 1964 in London, Peter Brook staged two-thirds of the play (its first twelve scenes, in a performance that lasted for two-and-a-half hours) at the Donmar Rehearsal Rooms as part of his experimental "Theatre of Cruelty" season with the Royal Shakespeare Company; he abandoned plans to stage the complete text, partly due to dissatisfaction with Bernard Frechtman's translation. There were no public performances: the rehearsal space was fitted out with seating to form an improvised theatre and the audience for the fully staged and costumed final version was by invitation only.[12] An abridgement by Howard Brenton, with a running time of three hours, was mounted by Walter Donohue, the RSC literary editor, at the Bristol Old Vic studio in 1973.[13][14]

The play's first complete performance was directed by Per Verner Carlsson at the Stadsteater in Stockholm in 1964.[3] Its five-hour-long production required six months of rehearsal preparation.[11]

Roger Blin directed the play's French première at the Odéon theatre in Paris, which opened on 21 April 1966.[15]

Genet became closely involved in rehearsals and published a series of letters to Blin about the theatre, the play, and the progress of its production.[16] André Acquart designed the sets and costumes, providing via three collapsible platforms four levels which 27 gliding screens divided into different playing areas, as wells as "sumptuous and theatrical" costumes and make-up.[17] Madeleine Renaud played Warda, Jean-Louis Barrault played the Mouth, María Casares played the Mother, and Amidou played Saïd.[18] Blin directed a German production in Essen in November 1967.[19]

Minos Volanakis directed the play's US première in New York 1971.[20] Patrice Chéreau directed a production at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers in Nanterre, near Paris, in 1983.[21] In 1989 Joanne Akalaitis directed Paul Schmidt's translation at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, with Jesse Borrego as Said, and music by Philip Glass and Foday Musa Suso.