La Cantatrice Chauve: Anti-Piece / La Lecon: Drame Comique (Collection Folio, 236)

Both plays by Ionesco make for interesting reads but "La cantatrice chauve" certainly outshines "La lecon". There are some successful elements in "... (show more)

Both plays by Ionesco make for interesting reads but "La cantatrice chauve" certainly outshines "La lecon". There are some successful elements in "La lecon"; it is hard to judge it without actually seeing it in performance but I imagine that the professor is typically being portrayed as taking all his strange teachings very seriously, all the more satirizing the self-absorbed instructor. Some of his scholarly convictions are highly creative - however, all in all, the play does not strike me as outstanding. "La cantatrice chauve", however, is something else. It might very well make my list of the ten greatest plays I have come across - be it the clock, the scene with all the Englishness or the married couple that gets to know each other when in the end they are not who they think they are. When all communication breaks down in the end, this is absurd theater at its best. (show less)