VIGOROUS AND WITTY
4IGER Al IHE GATES, a Ah A by Jean Giraudoux, transl by Pp Fry; Methuen, English price 8/6. T is said that Byron, of all English poets, has been most popular on the Continent. One can understand this; for Byron, throughout his work, adhered to a single principle-the audience exists to be entertained. Not to be instructed, warned, buffeted, or placated; but to
be entertained, as surely and completely as a fair ground crowd are entertained by a Wall of Death rider. This view of the relation of artist and audience, one feels, is worth its weight in deuterium, It governs French literature and humanises even the armour-plated existentialists. It makes Jean Giraudoux’s play live and snappy every centimetre of the way, crammed with conscious anachronisms and crisp as a_ lettuce leaf. It all begins when young Paris, yachting off the coast of Greece, hooks Helen without her Bikini suit, while her husband bellows over the water and yanks a’ crab from his big toe. Helen sees life in pictures, unfortunately for peace-loving Hector and the city of Troy: ". .. When I imagine the future some of the pictures I see are coloured, and some are dull and drab, And up to now it has always been the coloured scenes which have happened in the end." Hector does not want war; nor does Ulysses. But war breaks upon them through the ironic farce of human vanity. No one is really to blame. The vigorous and witty pessimism of the play sharpens the reader’s wits. Christopher Fry is the right man to translate it. Surely it could be played here.
James K.
Baxter
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 873, 27 April 1956, Page 12
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274VIGOROUS AND WITTY New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 873, 27 April 1956, Page 12
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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