Poor Bitos

[pedrolino.livejournal.com]

Has anyone read Poor Bitos by Jean Anouilh? It's a really interesting play (or at least I thought so) about a revolution-themed costume party, but which ends up going back in time to show several scenes from the months leading up to Thermidor as well. While Robespierre certainly starts off as being villainized, I found it much more ambiguous by the end, especially considering that pretty much everyone else comes off looking like a complete jerk at the end, as well.

Anouilh deals somewhat loosely with the historical specifics-- implications that Robespierre was in love with Lucile Duplessis, etc-- but I still think it's a really interesting piece. Has anyone else read it, and what did you think?

Comments

[pedrolino.livejournal.com]

It could be that I misinterpreted it, but I did come out feeling sorry for Bitos, and I guess Robespierre by extension. I mean, of course it wasn't very flattering to Robespierre, but I think there was a part of it that wasn't entirely against Bitos' ideological purity. Of course he comes across as awful, but we're seeing it through the eyes and hearing it through the lips of the other characters, and they, frankly, aren't very nice people. I find it hard to believe that Anouilh would be asking us to sympathize entirely with them. But this point of view might be colored (and possibly inaccurately) by his other works I've read, which come out so strongly on the side of those who stand by their beliefs and judge hypocrisy so harshly.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I agree that you end up feeling sorry for Bitos, as he stands there feeling and looking like an idiot with his split trousers, but that's not the same as feeling political sympathy, as I read it - more like feeling pity for something wounded. It's the playwright, rather than the other characters, that have him standing there with split trousers - the political threat is defused by being reduced to farce.
I was thinking about the play a couple of days ago, because the film 'Night of the Generals' was on, with Donald Pleasance and Charles Gray, who were the two leads in the London production of Poor Bitos in the 60's. Gray - the aristocrat - never played sympathetic roles, though Pleasance (Bitos) seemed to alternate between sinister (Blofeld, various nazis, etc.) and pathetic (as in The Great Escape)- from that point of view, I would guess that in the London production, neither side came off well...I have a cartoon from the cover ofthe programe, somewhere - I might try posting it tomorrow if I can get lj to accept pics, but it's nearly 2am here now!