SOURCE: "Drama in France," in Landmarks of Contemporary Drama, Herbert Jenkins, pp. 49-80.

In the following excerpt, Chiari detects elements of the absurd in Anouilh's plays.

Anouilh shares with Cocteau the incapacity to grapple with tragic themes but he has a much wider range and he has a dramatic skill unequalled on the contemporary stage. His blend of comedy and seriousness, whimsicality and wry pathos is typically his own, and his remarkably fluent style is a perfect medium for the swift changing moods which it is meant to convey. He moves from naturalism to fantasy with grace and ease, and only O'Casey can so stab comedy with poignancy. With Anouilh, as with Giraudoux and Tennessee Williams, time always degrades and soils. Growing old is a degenerating process, children soon pass from innocence to corruption and pure love cannot live. Happiness is not of this world, and Orpheus, whether...