SOURCE: "Five Short Plays by Tremblay," in Essays on Canadian Writing, Summer, 1978, pp. 248-59.

In the essay below, Serafin discusses how Tremblay's use of language affects the theatricality, characterization, humor, and dialogue of the five plays comprising La Duchesse de Langeais, and Other Plays.

In her story "Copenhagen Season" Isak Dinesen tells of an artist who was "feted in society, but feared as well, because he would at times sit without saying a word, taking in the face and figure of a lady until she felt that she had no clothes on, and at other times, when once set upon a theme, would go on talking forever." Nothing could be more appropriate than the fact that Dinesen places this figure in an aristocratic milieu. After all, in what other milieu could one find individuals given to the fastidious and absorbed contemplation that this artist bestows not only on...