Description
Drama. Translated from the French by David Willinger. Michel de Ghelderode (1898-1962) was a Belgian playwright who is ranked by many as a key member of the international avant-garde, on par with Beckett, Brecht, Ionesco, Genet and Pinter. Writing most of his plays between 1918 and 1937, he wasn't discovered in Europe until after World War II, where he was hailed as the "Belgian Shakespeare," and in America until the 1960's. Both discoveries led to great, though still cult level, popularity. In the early 60's not a week went by without a production of one of Ghelderode's plays happening somewhere in the United States. This unique volume includes three plays--The Siege of Ostend, The Actor Makes His Exit and Transfiguration in the Circus--in their first-ever English translation.
Author Bio
Michel de Ghelderode (1898 - 1962) was an avant-garde Belgian dramatist, writing in French. He was born on Palm Sunday April 3rd, 1898, as Adh�mar-Adolphe-Louis Martens in Ixelles and married in 1924 to Jeanne-Fran�oise G�rard. He died in Brussels, and is buried in the Laeken cemetery. A prolific writer, he wrote more than sixty plays, a hundred stories, a number of articles on art and folklore and more than 20,000 letters. He is the creator of a fantastic and disturbing, often macabre, grotesque and cruel world filled with mannequins, puppets, devils, masks, skeletons, religious paraphernalia, mysterious old women... etc. His works create an eerie and unsettling atmosphere although they rarely contain anything openly scary. Among his influences are puppet theater, commedia dell'arte and the paintings of fellow Belgian James Ensor. His works often deal with the extremes of human experience, from death and degradation to religious exaltation. His 1934 play La Balade du grand macabre served as inspiration for Gy�rgy Ligeti's opera Le Grand Macabre.
Author City: USA