Splendid's

by Jean Genet, Neil Bartlett (Translator)

Splendid's, a two-act police thriller written in 1948, was never staged in Jean Genet's lifetime. In 1952 he announced that he had destroyed the manuscript, and the play was assumed lost. Only in 1993 did a surviving copy reappear.

Exhausted, unshaven and wearing evening dress, Genet's gangsters never let go of their machine-guns - not even when they dance together. Their conversations contain some of Genet's finest dialogue; an insane mixture of melodramatic speech-making and low-camp bickering, all wrapped up in a sexy pastiche of forties American film noir, lurching stylishly from tough realism into wicked black humour.

Translated by writer, performer and director Neil Bartlett, this volume also contains an introduction by Genet's biographer, Edmund White.

Genres: Plays

45 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Jean Genet was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His work, much of it considered scandalous when it first appeared, is now placed among the classics of modern literature and has been translated and performed throughout the world.

Reviews

[Gabe Root · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I would’ve loved this play a bit more if there weren’t the barrier of translation, but i was really invested in the themes that Genet was tackling, especially in the second act. i would love to be able to see it staged at some point

[Zowie · Rating 4 out of 5]

ce mec est objectivement mieux que les autres

[Theodore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Described as a turning point in Genet’s theatre and I agree. So visceral and yet so performative but it definitely works, despite how weird it is. It’s so internal.

[Mikael]

i went thru a french playwrights phase it ended before i got really gay but i loved jean genet who was gay but somehow i never got around to really read this thing i think i just got it for edmund whites introduction and since it mentioned ken tynan who i was in love with at that time