num_pages: 439
description: The Devil and the Good Lord is Sartre's most ambitious work for the theater. Outstripping in scope and magnitude his previous plays, this dramatic epic, which calls for a cast of over ninety and takes some four hours to perform, is a synthesis of the basic tenets of Sartre's philosophy. It is based on the Peasants' Revolt in fourteenth-century Germany, a period that he considers closer to the modern epoch than any other; and through the actions of his protagonist, Goetz, the bastard son of a noble, Sartre demonstrates man's inability to achieve the absolute either through good or evil.In Kean Sartre has done more than rewrite the play by Alexandre Dumas père , (which was in turn an adaptation of an 1836 play by Théaulon, inspired by the career of the English actor Edmund Kean). Sartre has re-created the drama, and in his version the original flamboyance of character and situation embodies as well as a serious moral issue. Fast-paced and witty, his Kean is at the same time a thoughtful and subtle play about the question of emotional sincerity.Nekrassov , a political satire in the form of a farce, is a lampoon of anti-communist journalism in France. Revolving around a master swindler who impersonates a famous escapee from Soviet terror, the play abounds in comic situations and bristles with topical allusions. Sartre is not only having fun here reducing to an absurdity the extreme anti-communist position, but Nekrassov is further evidence of his versatility and theatrical craftsmanship.
language: English
title: The Devil & The Good Lord
titlecomplete: The Devil & The Good Lord
genres: Drama, Theatre, 20th Century, Literature, Philosophy, Plays, French Literature, Classics, Fiction, France
ratings_count: 2031
publisher: Vintage