The Balcony

It is set in an unnamed city that is experiencing a revolutionary uprising in the streets; most of the action takes place in an upmarket brothel that functions as a microcosm of the regime of the establishment under threat outside.

The play's dramatic structure integrates Genet's concern with meta-theatricality and role-playing, and consists of two central strands: a political conflict between revolution and counter-revolution and a philosophical one between reality and illusion.

"[7] Most of the action takes place in an upmarket brothel in which its madam, Irma, "casts, directs, and co-ordinates performances in a house of infinite mirrors and theaters.

Using the costumes and props in Irma's "house of illusions", the patrons' roles are realised when they pose in public as the figures of authority in a counter-revolutionary effort to restore order and the status quo.

"[17] Marc Barbezat's company L'Arbalète published the first version of The Balcony in June 1956; the artist Alberto Giacometti created several lithographs based on the play that appeared on its cover (including a tall, dignified Irma, the Bishop who was made to resemble Genet, and the General with his whip).

[26] This production was directed by José Quintero, who shortened the text considerably, and featured Nancy Marchand as Irma (who was replaced by Grayson Hall), Roy Poole as the Chief of Police, Betty Miller as Carmen, Jock Livingston as the Envoy, Arthur Malet as the Judge, Sylvia Miles as Marlyse, and Salome Jens as Elyane.

[26] Peter Brook had planned to direct the play in 1958 at the Théâtre Antoine in Paris, until he was forced to postpone when the theatre's artistic director, Simone Berriau, was threatened by the Parisian police.

[32] Erwin Piscator directed a production at the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt, which opened on 31 March 1962 with scenic design by Johannes Waltz and music by Aleida Montijn.

[34] In Britain, the Oxford Playhouse also produced the play in 1967, under the direction of Minos Volanakis, a friend of Genet's who, working under a pseudonym, also designed the sets.

[37] The production was staged under the new regime of Brazil's military dictator General Garrastazu Médici; the actress who played Chantal, Nilda Maria, was arrested for anti-government activities and her children were sent to Public Welfare, prompting Genet to petition the wife of the city's governor for their release.

[38] As already mentioned, Garcia's boldness and endeavour led to the arrival of Jean Genet to Brazil in 1970, that considered this production the best montage of his text — making it an international reference to the genetians studies.

[42] The Royal Shakespeare Company staged the play at the Aldwych Theatre, London, opening on 25 November 1971 with Brenda Bruce as Irma, Estelle Kohler as Carmen, and Barry Stanton as the Chief of Police; its director was Terry Hands and its designer was Farrah.

[12] This version was also used in a production at the Abbey Theatre in New York, which opened on 4 December 1976 and featured Karen Sunde as Irma, Ara Watson as Carmen (later replaced by Carol Fleming), Tom Donaldson as the Chief of Police, and Christopher Martin as the Envoy.

In the middle of the 1981 Brixton riot Internationalist Theatre staged a multi-racial performance of Genet's revolutionary play featuring the Sierra Leonean actress Ellen Thomas in the role of Irma,[47]"While the ruling classes, the icons and figureheads fiddle, society burns around them...a comment on power and political manoeuvre" ... thought provoking .."[48] The cast included French actor Yves Aubert as the General [49] and Angelique Rockas as Carmen .

[50] The Balcony was the first play by Genet that the Comédie-Française staged, although he neither attended rehearsals nor saw it performed there; the production opened on 14 December 1985, under the direction of Georges Lavaudant.

[51] JoAnne Akalaitis directed the play in a translation by Jean-Claude van Itallie at the American Repertory Theater (on their Loeb Stage) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which opened on 15 January 1986, with choreography by Johanna Boyce, sets by George Tsypin, costume design by Kristi Zea and music by Rubén Blades.

[60] Those that we may recognise from Genet's earlier work—the double, the mirror, sexuality, dream-death vs. reality-impure life—belong to the secondary level, he argues, while the play's essential theme is a clear and comprehensible analysis of the transformation of industrial society into a technocracy.

[61] Genet relates the experiences of his characters "to the great political and social upheavals of the twentieth century," Goldmann argues, particularly important among which is "the collapse of the tremendous hopes for revolution.

[62]To the extent that "realism" is understood as "the effort to bring to light the essential relationships that at a particular moment govern both the development of the whole of social relations and—through the latter—the development of individual destinies and the psychological life of individuals," Goldmann argues that The Balcony has a realist structure and characterises Genet as "a very great realist author":[66] One may disagree with the lack of hope that prevails in Genet's play.

But it would be difficult to deny that it is perfectly realistic insofar as it transposes onto the literary level the fundamental transformations that modern society has undergone over the past forty years, and also that it does this in a particularly clear and comprehensible manner.

Irma's brothel is the intangible shadow of a real social phenomenon," she suggests, "her closet dramas are the Artaudian double of their impotent bases in truth.

[71] In contrast to Goldmann's analysis of the play as an epic defamiliarisation of the historical rise of technocracy, Rosen sees The Balcony as a theatre of cruelty staging of "a mythic dimension to the dark side of the human soul.

"[72] Like Goldmann, J. L. Styan, too, detects the influence of Brechtian defamiliarisation in the play, which he reads as a "political examination of how man chooses his role in society.

"[73] Styan argues that—despite the symbolism of evil and the sensational, emotionally disturbing staging of the secret desires of its audience—there is in Genet's theatre "a sharp intellectual edge, a shocking clear-headedness" that "links him more with Pirandello than with Artaud.

They observe that, in common with his other late dramas, The Blacks (1959) and The Screens (1964), The Balcony's exploration of explosive political issues appears to contradict its author's calls for a "non-historical, mythical stage.

[79] Having seen the New York production of the play in 1960, DiDomenica based his libretto on Bernard Frechtman's revised translation of 1966, though he did not acquire the rights to do so until shortly before Genet's death, in 1986.

[79] A reviewer for The New York Times found the production "a wonderfully intelligent construct, overlaid with a lyrical and dramatic sensibility that makes searing emotional contact at many crucial points.