Jean Genet is a writer known for contradictions in his life and in his creative endeavours. As a playwright, he has been classified in various categories: as a part of the Theatre of the Absurd, as a representative of the rights of the gay community, as a spokesperson of the Palestinian cause, and so on. His comments about his life and works further complicate things. This book frees Jean Genet's plays from the overpowering Sartrean perspective, and offers an interpretation that reveals the otherwise hidden spaces of the prison, brothel or the maid's garret ingrained in them. The plays selected for analysis in this study make a bold statement about areas in society that escaped the attention of contemporary dramatists. In the process, the existing social fabric is meaningfully subjected to the playwright's gaze; this is achieved through the creation of a stage dynamic different from the one adopted by the Theatre of the Absurd. The chapters in the book explain paradigms informing the plays and enabling the viewer to forge their own response. Discussions in the book take the reader to possibilities of invention and experimentation in an act that belongs to the stage as much as to the world it controls. This book traverses challenging issues and spaces - the areas inhabited by the blacks, the ghettoized existence of social discards, and others rotting on the margins in the post-Second World War period. It is clearly suggested that the playwright spoke from his own experiences and of those others with whom he empathized; into these aspects he infused his imaginative and creative skills. An important method of enquiry used in this study is that of the panoptic machinery: the tower and its function of keeping watch on people caught in the web of the oppressive modern state. It is highlighted that the panopticon survives by hiding its dialectical link with its inhabitants. The panopticon can remain only as long as it conceals - therein lies its threatening presence. The three segments into which the discussion is divided are: Role-playing and The Maids, The Panopticon and The Balcony, and Decolonisation and The Blacks.
About the Author: Payal Nagpal, PhD, teaches English Literature at Janki Devi Memorial College at the University of Delhi. Her areas of interest are modern drama and literary theory. She has published a number of articles on drama, reviews of theatre performances, and notes on prevailing cultural trends in journals of repute. She has chaired sessions and presented papers at various national and international conferences. Her annotated edition of Shakespeare's Othello, published recently by Worldview, Delhi, offers a discussion of the text and the corresponding material. A theatre enthusiast and activist, she has engaged in issues of gender, democracy and secularism.