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informs the other man of his imminent departure. Y walks up and down, speechless." Then an actor planted in the orchestra cries out, "Is that all?… Will you soon be finished?" A second planted audience member says, "'I don't understand a thing. It's idiotic.' From the box we hear a voice asking him to be silent or to leave. No, he insists, he paid for his seat and he'll stay. Another voice intervenes from the orchestra, 'If only it were interesting.'" The second planted actor calls for the first to be thrown out. Finally, "the Second
Spectator has grown angry and shakes his fist at the stage. Amid the tumult caused by his obstreperous behavior one hears 'Vive la France', then 'Continue'. Finally the call for 'Author' is heard, and instead of Breton and Soupault walking out onstage two other actors take their place."
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the man's wife's stolen ring, Létoile, instead of pursuing the case, simply explains "Matters such as this concern the police," and the man "rises, bows, and leaves," ending the scene and the storyline. In a subsequent scene a woman enters his office and explains that her husband "feels an honest and upright love for another woman" and that she wants to give him a divorce to "grant him his independence." Létoile presents reasons why she shouldn't get a divorce but forcefully insists on executing the divorce for her.
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share a "long kiss." Valentine then replies, "A cloud of milk in a cup of tea." This act ends with another cliché of the romantic melodrama, murder at the hands of a jilted lover, but turned on its head. "Paul slowly draws a revolver from his pocket, barely taking aim. Valentine falls without a sound."
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In the text of the play, Act IV is only a note, stating "The authors of 'If You Please' do not want the fourth act printed." Bettina Knapp writes that the fourth act proceeds as follows: "The theater plunges into semi-darkness. Two characters are now visible in a doorway. X looks at his watch and
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Act II similarly reappropriates the detective story. Its protagonist, Létoile, apparently a private detective, sits in his office and encounters stock private investigator storylines, which quickly become absurd and are as quickly abandoned. In Scene 4, when a man tries to hire Létoile's to recover
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Act I is a Dada infidelity play that follows two lovers, Paul and
Valentine, and Valentine's husband. The Dada dialogue twists the conventions of the dramatic cliché, as in the opening lines which juxtapose the tritest of romantic dialogue with imagistic metaphor. Paul says, "I love you." The two
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The act ends with Maxime asking to go with Gilda to her flat. "Don't insist, sweetheart," she says. "You'll regret it. I've got the syph." Maxime replies simply, "Who cares," and they exit together. This act is followed by "a long intermission."
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The play is in four acts; each act begins a new and unrelated story. The first three acts borrow from popular genres, but the dialogue is often associatively poetic.
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Act III features an encounter between Mixime, a thirty-year-old man, and Gilda, a prostitute, who meet in a café. They exchange seemingly incoherent dialogue:
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MAXIME: The kingdom of the skies is peopled with assassins. Higher up there's a swing which waits for you. Don't lift your head again.
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Translation from
Benedikt, Michael, and George Wellwarth, eds.
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in Paris and was part of a larger Dada program that "included
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Modern French plays : an anthology from Jarry to
Ionesco
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play co-written by the French surrealist writer and theorist
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was written several years before the publication of the
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MAXIME: I don't think so; I've only just come in.
109:, a novel that is one of the first instances of
138:GILDA: The photographer said: Let's not move.
103:Breton and Soupault previously collaborated on
385:, New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001, pp. 82.
258:Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art
73:La Premiere Adventure céleste de M. Antipyrine
383:Performance Art: from Futurism to the Present
372:, London: MacMillan Publishers, 1985, pp. 40.
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297:Le Surréalisme au service de la revolution
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146:GILDA: Are your eyes really that color?
59:when Breton was primarily associated with
407:Knapp, pp. 44-45 (citing J. H. Matthews,
142:GILDA: Someone has dared to sadden you?
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93:Manifeste cannibale dans l'obscurité
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398:. London: Faber and Faber, 1965.
409:Theatre in Dada and Surrealism
140:MAXIME: I don't want to die.
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290:La Révolution surréaliste
265:Manifestoes of Surrealism
81:Le ventriloque désaccordé
370:French Theater 1918-1939
322:Anthology of Black Humor
79:by Ribemont-Dessaignes,
339:Jacqueline Lamba (wife)
212:Les Champs magnétiques
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106:Les Champs Magnétiques
43:and poet and novelist
438:Works by André Breton
251:The Automatic Message
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237:Surrealist Manifesto
99:Other collaborations
56:Surrealist Manifesto
18:1920 Surrealist play
381:Goldberg, RoseLee.
344:Elisa Breton (wife)
71:'s Zurich success
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111:automatic writing
45:Philippe Soupault
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433:Surrealist plays
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41:André Breton
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283:Littérature
229:Non-fiction
85:Paul Dermée
422:Categories
356:References
244:Un Cadavre
37:Surrealist
411:, p. 88).
304:Minotaure
275:Magazines
117:Synopsis
332:Related
197:Fiction
89:Picabia
35:–
314:Edited
87:, and
219:Nadja
69:Tzara
31:is a
61:Dada
33:Dada
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91:'s
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