Ondine (play)
Encyclopedia
Ondine is a play written in 1938 by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux
that tells the story of Hans and Ondine. Hans is a knight-errant who has been sent off on a quest by his betrothed. In the forest he meets and falls in love with Ondine, a water-sprite who is attracted to the world of mortal man. The subsequent marriage of people from different worlds is of course folly. By turns comic, enchanting, and tragic, Ondine is considered by some to be Giraudoux's finest work.
, the wind, and even the Old One
himself peer in at the windows gently mocking Auguste. Evidently this is not unusual—the old couple are well aware that Ondine is “not like anyone else”. A knight-errant
, Hans von Wittenstein zu Wittenstein, arrives seeking shelter. He is welcomed and while he is in the midst of telling Auguste and Eugenie about his betrothed, the princess Bertha, Ondine appears. On seeing Hans she says, “How beautiful he is!” In spite of taunts from Ondine's sister naiads, and against the advice of Auguste, Hans immediately falls in love with Ondine. All thought of Bertha, his “dark angel”—the woman who sent him off on his quest
—is banished. Ondine in turn swears eternal love for Hans. Her father, the King of the Sea, warns her, “The man will deceive you. He will abandon you.” Ondine does not believe him. The Old One gives a final warning “You will remember our pact.” Ondine reluctantly agrees.
Act two opens in the great hall of the king's palace. It is the day that Hans is to present his bride Ondine at court. The Lord Chamberlain
, who needs to arrange an entertainment for the day's ceremonies, is in conference with the director of the royal theater, the trainer of the seals, and the Illusionist (in actuality the Old One). Soon they are joined by the poet Bertram and several ladies of the court. The Illusionist says he will arrange a little private entertainment while they are waiting. As to what they would like to see, everyone is curious to see what will happen when Hans and the embittered Bertha finally meet after avoiding each other for three months. The Illusionist says he can arrange for this event to take place at once. Bertram objects asking, “Why are we doing this evil thing?” The Chamberlain cynically replies, “Sooner or later it would have to happen. That's life.” They all conceal themselves behind a pillar and watch as the inevitable events unfold. Hans and Bertha meet. Bertha manipulates Hans with guilt. The Illusionist gives the spectators a further glimpse into the future showing them the scene when Hans realizes that he married the wrong woman. Bertha intimately knows the Wittenstein family history, she plays the lute, she recites, she illuminates manuscripts—she is the perfect woman. When Bertha asks Hans what Ondine does that might advance her husband's interests at court, he replies, “Oh, she swims. Occasionally.”
Continuing the play within a play structure, the Illusionist presents the remaining events of the day in scenes which the astonished participants themselves watch from behind the pillar. The Chamberlain just has time to prepare Ondine for her reception with the king. Ondine is particularly advised not to mention the wart on the king's nose. Ondine tactlessly mentions that the Chamberlain's hand is damp and constantly interrupts him to talk to Bertram with whom she immediately establishes a rapport. At the king's reception Ondine cannot take her eyes off Bertha. She accuses Bertha of trying to steal Hans from her. The King says, “Bertha only wants to be your friend.” Ondine replies, “You are entirely mistaken! Bertha is a hypocrite. She flatters you constantly. Has she ever dared to speak to you about...the wart on your nose?” In panic, the Chamberlain clears the room. Ondine is alone with the king. The king asks, “Who are you, Ondine?” Ondine explains everything and says that she weeps because “they are trying to take Hans away from me.” But what if they did, the king asks. “would that be such a misfortune?” Ondine answers, “Oh yes. If he deceives me, he will die.” The king says, “Men have been known to survive such things.” “Not this one,” Ondine replies.
The Illusionist has one more scene. Bertha is revealed to be not a princess, but the long lost daughter of Auguste and Eugenie. When Bertha refuses to acknowledge her true parents, the king banishes her until she apologizes. She leaves sobbing but, at Ondine's urging, is soon forgiven. After the events of this disastrous day, Ondine laments, “Oh, how difficult it is to live among you, where what has happened can never again not have happened. How terrible to live where a word can never be unspoken and a gesture can never be unmade.”
Act three takes place in the courtyard of castle
of the Wittenstein. Five years have passed. Hans has deceived Ondine with Bertha, and Ondine has long since vanished. It is the morning of the day of the marriage of Bertha and Hans. But Hans is troubled. He tells Bertha, that she should have married a man full of pride and joy. He complains, "Oh Bertha, how she lied to me, that woman!" Bertha points out that Ondine was no woman, "you married a creature of another world. You must forget her." Hans remembers the day that Ondine left and asks, "But why does she proclaim to the world that she deceived me with Bertram?" In addition to being preoccupied with Ondine, Hans is worried because the servants are starting to speak in poetry and there is a Wittenstein legend that this always happens just before misfortune strikes. Two fishermen arrive. The second fisherman is actually the Old One. They have caught Ondine. Two judges from the inquisition
are summoned and immediately put her on trial. Ondine is brought in draped in the net in which she was caught. She does not deny being an Ondine and proclaims to all who will listen that she deceived Hans with Bertram. The judge asks Hans to clearly state the exact nature of his complaint. Hans says, "My complaint? My complaint is the complaint of all mankind. I claim the right to be left in peace in a world that is free of intrusions by these creatures. Has there never been an age when they did not afflict us?" The judge answers, "An age? There has never been a moment." But the other judge says, "Yes, there was once a moment. For that instant, the whole world was single-hearted, at play, at peace—and yet I tasted for the first time a certain loneliness."
As the trial progresses it becomes clear that Hans is still in love with Ondine. Ondine, in a vain attempt to get out of the bargain with her father (Hans must die because he deceived Ondine with Bertha) continues to insist that she deceived Hans first with Bertram. Bertram is summoned and supports Ondine's story. But no-one believes them, least of all the second fisherman. Ondine is accused of sorcery
. The Old One leaps to her defense saying, "This woman could call upon the earth and the heavens to do her bidding. But she gave up her power to be human. Write this into your record, Judge—this Ondine was the most human being that ever lived. She was human by choice." In the end the judges decide that Ondine transgressed the boundaries of nature, but in so doing she brought only kindness and love. So they are compassionate in merely sentencing her to death while sparing her a public execution.
As the executioner attempts to lead Ondine away, the Old One waves him off and allows her a last reunion with Hans. He says kindly, "If you wish, I will let him die at the same moment that you forget him." Hans and Ondine have one last moment of tenderness. Her sisters will call Ondine three times, and then she will forget everything. Hans laments that their parting will be "a real farewell, a farewell forever. Not like those lovers who part, but are destined to be reunited again in the afterlife. We part for eternity, we go to different worlds." They recall their first meeting, the night Hans came out of the storm. Ondine recalls that she said, “In after years we shall have this hour to remember. The hour before you kissed me.” Hans says, I can't wait, now, Ondine. Kiss me now.” As they kiss, the third Ondine calls. Hans dies. Ondine looks around in puzzlement. She asks, "Who is this handsome young man lying here, can you bring him back to life, Old One?" He replies, "Impossible." As the curtain falls Ondine says, "What a pity! How I should have loved him!"
where charming fable
mingles with the rigor of classical tragedy
.
In one view the story of Ondine and Hans is a class drama. Maurice Valency puts it well: “A young man of good family is engaged to a girl of his own class. He suddenly becomes infatuated with a blonde of an inferior class and, impulsively, he marries this girl. But she doesn't make him happy, and after the vicissitudes usual in such cases of misalliance, the young man goes back to his first love, a brunette who is socially most acceptable. He is now in a predicament. He cannot live without the blonde; the brunette is indispensable to his happiness, and, torn apart by these two loves, the man dies.”
Giraudoux based his tale on the 1811 novella Undine
by the German Romantic Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué
. The theme of the water nymph who seeks to gain a soul while in human form is a typical fairy tale
, and is also found in the Celtic
myth of Melusine
. Giraudoux explains that the theme of Ondine is "the liaison of man with the natural elements, the flirtation of the natural world with the kingdom of man." The story bears a fairly close resemblance to la Motte Fouqué's original tale, but, "Instead of being the story of a water-sprite who marries a man to acquire a soul, the play becomes the tragedy of man divorced from nature and stultified by his confinement within the strictly human sphere."
Ondine is also a moving love story. As Dorothy Knowles remarks, "Ondine is a force of nature but also love incarnate, and Hans's tragedy is that he is as unequal to such a love as he is to the revelations of nature which Ondine brings." Laurent LeSage explains, "No elemental spirit, she is a glimpse of a better and purer world ... But if man dreams of such love which turns life into paradise, he cannot endure its reality." But then LeSage adds, the closing scenes "constitute a remarkably poignant lovers' farewell ... The play closes on a beautiful love poem."
Ultimately, however, Ondine is pure theatre. Donald Inskip says, "There is about Ondine a completeness, a sense of fully-rounded achievement, accompanied by an all-pervading if gentle melancholia gripping audience and actors alike, which puts this play in a category of its own ... The naive and the ultra sophisticated are blended here in such a manner as to blur the frontiers of human experience and transport audiences completely out of themselves."
"Giraudoux's lines, imaginatively adapted by Maurice Valency
, glint with romantic gems... [and] exotic verbal nuggets..."
(Milton Shulman, Evening Standard
, January 13th 1961)
“With Giraudoux's lyrical insights and elegiac phrasing, his plays read like a combination of epic poetry and a Henry James novel. The characters and situations are hyperbolic, mythical, biblical and canonical, and yet the text contains disorienting psychological insight.” (Julia Jonas in a 2004 review)
"Impulsive, frank and filled with wonder, Ondine is a creature of water and air, riding the storm at night, spontaneously performing little feats of magic ... delivers nearly three hours of pure magic and philosophy." (Sylvie Drake in a 1993 review)
, in Jean Giraudoux, Four Plays, vol. 1, (1959) and by Roger Gellert, in Jean Giraudoux, Plays, vol. 2 (1967).
Ondine was first performed on 27 April 1939 in Paris at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in a production by Louis Jouvet
with a cast including Jeanne Hardeyn
, Louis Jouvet
, Madeleine Ozeray
, Robert Bogar, Romain Bouquet, Simone Bourday, Auguste Boverio, Maurice Castel, Guitty Flexer, Jean Gournac, Marcel Lupovici, Félix Oudart, Jean Parédès, Raymone, Jeanne Reinhard, Alexandre Rignault, Henri Saint-Isles, and Odette Talazac.
The play as adapted by Maurice Valency
, opened on Broadway in 1954 in a production by Alfred Lunt
with a cast including Mel Ferrer
, John Alexander
, Peter Brandon, Alan Hewitt, Edith King, Robert Middleton
, William Podmore, Marian Seldes
, and Audrey Hepburn
—in the role that made her a star. Ondine won the 1954 New York Drama Critics' Circle
Award for Best Play. This production also garnered the 1954 Tony awards for best director (Lunt) and best actress in a play (Hepburn).
The London premiere of Ondine was presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company
in 1961, directed by Peter Hall, with Leslie Caron
in the title role, and a cast that included Richard Johnson
, Diana Rigg
, Eric Porter
, Clive Swift, Sian Phillips
, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies
, Roy Dotrice
, Ian Holm
and Peter Jeffrey
.
Jean Giraudoux
Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy...
that tells the story of Hans and Ondine. Hans is a knight-errant who has been sent off on a quest by his betrothed. In the forest he meets and falls in love with Ondine, a water-sprite who is attracted to the world of mortal man. The subsequent marriage of people from different worlds is of course folly. By turns comic, enchanting, and tragic, Ondine is considered by some to be Giraudoux's finest work.
Plot summary
The play opens in a fisherman's hut near a lake in the forest. Outside a storm rages. Here live the old fisherman Auguste and his wife Eugenie. And here lives Ondine who the old couple found as a baby at the edge of the lake, and brought up in place of their own daughter who was mysteriously snatched away as an infant. Auguste is upset because Ondine is out somewhere in the storm. As Auguste rages, naiadsNaiad
In Greek mythology, the Naiads or Naiades were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks....
, the wind, and even the Old One
Old One
Old One may be a term used to refer to a god or other deity. Old Ones may also be a term used to refer to beings who co-existed with early humans according to many religions...
himself peer in at the windows gently mocking Auguste. Evidently this is not unusual—the old couple are well aware that Ondine is “not like anyone else”. A knight-errant
Knight-errant
A knight-errant is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. "Errant," meaning wandering or roving, indicates how the knight-errant would typically wander the land in search of adventures to prove himself as a knight, such as in a pas d'armes.The first known appearance of the term...
, Hans von Wittenstein zu Wittenstein, arrives seeking shelter. He is welcomed and while he is in the midst of telling Auguste and Eugenie about his betrothed, the princess Bertha, Ondine appears. On seeing Hans she says, “How beautiful he is!” In spite of taunts from Ondine's sister naiads, and against the advice of Auguste, Hans immediately falls in love with Ondine. All thought of Bertha, his “dark angel”—the woman who sent him off on his quest
Quest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...
—is banished. Ondine in turn swears eternal love for Hans. Her father, the King of the Sea, warns her, “The man will deceive you. He will abandon you.” Ondine does not believe him. The Old One gives a final warning “You will remember our pact.” Ondine reluctantly agrees.
Act two opens in the great hall of the king's palace. It is the day that Hans is to present his bride Ondine at court. The Lord Chamberlain
Chamberlain (office)
A chamberlain is an officer in charge of managing a household. In many countries there are ceremonial posts associated with the household of the sovereign....
, who needs to arrange an entertainment for the day's ceremonies, is in conference with the director of the royal theater, the trainer of the seals, and the Illusionist (in actuality the Old One). Soon they are joined by the poet Bertram and several ladies of the court. The Illusionist says he will arrange a little private entertainment while they are waiting. As to what they would like to see, everyone is curious to see what will happen when Hans and the embittered Bertha finally meet after avoiding each other for three months. The Illusionist says he can arrange for this event to take place at once. Bertram objects asking, “Why are we doing this evil thing?” The Chamberlain cynically replies, “Sooner or later it would have to happen. That's life.” They all conceal themselves behind a pillar and watch as the inevitable events unfold. Hans and Bertha meet. Bertha manipulates Hans with guilt. The Illusionist gives the spectators a further glimpse into the future showing them the scene when Hans realizes that he married the wrong woman. Bertha intimately knows the Wittenstein family history, she plays the lute, she recites, she illuminates manuscripts—she is the perfect woman. When Bertha asks Hans what Ondine does that might advance her husband's interests at court, he replies, “Oh, she swims. Occasionally.”
Continuing the play within a play structure, the Illusionist presents the remaining events of the day in scenes which the astonished participants themselves watch from behind the pillar. The Chamberlain just has time to prepare Ondine for her reception with the king. Ondine is particularly advised not to mention the wart on the king's nose. Ondine tactlessly mentions that the Chamberlain's hand is damp and constantly interrupts him to talk to Bertram with whom she immediately establishes a rapport. At the king's reception Ondine cannot take her eyes off Bertha. She accuses Bertha of trying to steal Hans from her. The King says, “Bertha only wants to be your friend.” Ondine replies, “You are entirely mistaken! Bertha is a hypocrite. She flatters you constantly. Has she ever dared to speak to you about...the wart on your nose?” In panic, the Chamberlain clears the room. Ondine is alone with the king. The king asks, “Who are you, Ondine?” Ondine explains everything and says that she weeps because “they are trying to take Hans away from me.” But what if they did, the king asks. “would that be such a misfortune?” Ondine answers, “Oh yes. If he deceives me, he will die.” The king says, “Men have been known to survive such things.” “Not this one,” Ondine replies.
The Illusionist has one more scene. Bertha is revealed to be not a princess, but the long lost daughter of Auguste and Eugenie. When Bertha refuses to acknowledge her true parents, the king banishes her until she apologizes. She leaves sobbing but, at Ondine's urging, is soon forgiven. After the events of this disastrous day, Ondine laments, “Oh, how difficult it is to live among you, where what has happened can never again not have happened. How terrible to live where a word can never be unspoken and a gesture can never be unmade.”
Act three takes place in the courtyard of castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
of the Wittenstein. Five years have passed. Hans has deceived Ondine with Bertha, and Ondine has long since vanished. It is the morning of the day of the marriage of Bertha and Hans. But Hans is troubled. He tells Bertha, that she should have married a man full of pride and joy. He complains, "Oh Bertha, how she lied to me, that woman!" Bertha points out that Ondine was no woman, "you married a creature of another world. You must forget her." Hans remembers the day that Ondine left and asks, "But why does she proclaim to the world that she deceived me with Bertram?" In addition to being preoccupied with Ondine, Hans is worried because the servants are starting to speak in poetry and there is a Wittenstein legend that this always happens just before misfortune strikes. Two fishermen arrive. The second fisherman is actually the Old One. They have caught Ondine. Two judges from the inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
are summoned and immediately put her on trial. Ondine is brought in draped in the net in which she was caught. She does not deny being an Ondine and proclaims to all who will listen that she deceived Hans with Bertram. The judge asks Hans to clearly state the exact nature of his complaint. Hans says, "My complaint? My complaint is the complaint of all mankind. I claim the right to be left in peace in a world that is free of intrusions by these creatures. Has there never been an age when they did not afflict us?" The judge answers, "An age? There has never been a moment." But the other judge says, "Yes, there was once a moment. For that instant, the whole world was single-hearted, at play, at peace—and yet I tasted for the first time a certain loneliness."
As the trial progresses it becomes clear that Hans is still in love with Ondine. Ondine, in a vain attempt to get out of the bargain with her father (Hans must die because he deceived Ondine with Bertha) continues to insist that she deceived Hans first with Bertram. Bertram is summoned and supports Ondine's story. But no-one believes them, least of all the second fisherman. Ondine is accused of sorcery
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
. The Old One leaps to her defense saying, "This woman could call upon the earth and the heavens to do her bidding. But she gave up her power to be human. Write this into your record, Judge—this Ondine was the most human being that ever lived. She was human by choice." In the end the judges decide that Ondine transgressed the boundaries of nature, but in so doing she brought only kindness and love. So they are compassionate in merely sentencing her to death while sparing her a public execution.
As the executioner attempts to lead Ondine away, the Old One waves him off and allows her a last reunion with Hans. He says kindly, "If you wish, I will let him die at the same moment that you forget him." Hans and Ondine have one last moment of tenderness. Her sisters will call Ondine three times, and then she will forget everything. Hans laments that their parting will be "a real farewell, a farewell forever. Not like those lovers who part, but are destined to be reunited again in the afterlife. We part for eternity, we go to different worlds." They recall their first meeting, the night Hans came out of the storm. Ondine recalls that she said, “In after years we shall have this hour to remember. The hour before you kissed me.” Hans says, I can't wait, now, Ondine. Kiss me now.” As they kiss, the third Ondine calls. Hans dies. Ondine looks around in puzzlement. She asks, "Who is this handsome young man lying here, can you bring him back to life, Old One?" He replies, "Impossible." As the curtain falls Ondine says, "What a pity! How I should have loved him!"
Themes
Ondine is a medieval love story of a water nymph and a knight, and the folly that results from their union. The playwright tells the tale of this doomed relationship in a theatrical fantasyFantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
where charming fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
mingles with the rigor of classical tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
.
In one view the story of Ondine and Hans is a class drama. Maurice Valency puts it well: “A young man of good family is engaged to a girl of his own class. He suddenly becomes infatuated with a blonde of an inferior class and, impulsively, he marries this girl. But she doesn't make him happy, and after the vicissitudes usual in such cases of misalliance, the young man goes back to his first love, a brunette who is socially most acceptable. He is now in a predicament. He cannot live without the blonde; the brunette is indispensable to his happiness, and, torn apart by these two loves, the man dies.”
Giraudoux based his tale on the 1811 novella Undine
Undine (novella)
Undine is a novel by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in which Undine, a water spirit, marries a knight named Huldebrand in order to gain a soul. It is an early German romance, which has been translated into English and other languages...
by the German Romantic Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué
Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué
Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué was a German writer of the romantic style.-Biography:He was born at Brandenburg an der Havel, of a family of French Huguenot origin, as evidenced in his family name...
. The theme of the water nymph who seeks to gain a soul while in human form is a typical fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
, and is also found in the Celtic
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
myth of Melusine
Melusine
Melusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
. Giraudoux explains that the theme of Ondine is "the liaison of man with the natural elements, the flirtation of the natural world with the kingdom of man." The story bears a fairly close resemblance to la Motte Fouqué's original tale, but, "Instead of being the story of a water-sprite who marries a man to acquire a soul, the play becomes the tragedy of man divorced from nature and stultified by his confinement within the strictly human sphere."
Ondine is also a moving love story. As Dorothy Knowles remarks, "Ondine is a force of nature but also love incarnate, and Hans's tragedy is that he is as unequal to such a love as he is to the revelations of nature which Ondine brings." Laurent LeSage explains, "No elemental spirit, she is a glimpse of a better and purer world ... But if man dreams of such love which turns life into paradise, he cannot endure its reality." But then LeSage adds, the closing scenes "constitute a remarkably poignant lovers' farewell ... The play closes on a beautiful love poem."
Ultimately, however, Ondine is pure theatre. Donald Inskip says, "There is about Ondine a completeness, a sense of fully-rounded achievement, accompanied by an all-pervading if gentle melancholia gripping audience and actors alike, which puts this play in a category of its own ... The naive and the ultra sophisticated are blended here in such a manner as to blur the frontiers of human experience and transport audiences completely out of themselves."
Critical reception
"In 1938 Giraudoux produced what many believe to be his finest work, Ondine." (Phyllis Hartnoll in The Oxford Companion to the Theatre)"Giraudoux's lines, imaginatively adapted by Maurice Valency
Maurice Valency
Maurice Valency was a playwright, author, critic, and popular professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, best known for his award winning adaptations of plays by Jean Giraudoux and Friedrich Duerrenmatt. He wrote several original plays, but is best known for his adaptations of...
, glint with romantic gems... [and] exotic verbal nuggets..."
(Milton Shulman, Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
, January 13th 1961)
“With Giraudoux's lyrical insights and elegiac phrasing, his plays read like a combination of epic poetry and a Henry James novel. The characters and situations are hyperbolic, mythical, biblical and canonical, and yet the text contains disorienting psychological insight.” (Julia Jonas in a 2004 review)
"Impulsive, frank and filled with wonder, Ondine is a creature of water and air, riding the storm at night, spontaneously performing little feats of magic ... delivers nearly three hours of pure magic and philosophy." (Sylvie Drake in a 1993 review)
Original productions
Ondine was translated into English by Maurice ValencyMaurice Valency
Maurice Valency was a playwright, author, critic, and popular professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, best known for his award winning adaptations of plays by Jean Giraudoux and Friedrich Duerrenmatt. He wrote several original plays, but is best known for his adaptations of...
, in Jean Giraudoux, Four Plays, vol. 1, (1959) and by Roger Gellert, in Jean Giraudoux, Plays, vol. 2 (1967).
Ondine was first performed on 27 April 1939 in Paris at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in a production by Louis Jouvet
Louis Jouvet
Louis Jouvet was a renowned French actor, director, and theatre director.- Life :Overcoming speech impediments and sometimes paralyzing stage fright as a young man, Jouvet's first important association was with Jacques Copeau's Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, beginning in 1913...
with a cast including Jeanne Hardeyn
Jeanne Hardeyn
Jeanne Hardeyn was a French comedian and actress.-Selected filmography:* The Shameless Old Lady * Le Prussien...
, Louis Jouvet
Louis Jouvet
Louis Jouvet was a renowned French actor, director, and theatre director.- Life :Overcoming speech impediments and sometimes paralyzing stage fright as a young man, Jouvet's first important association was with Jacques Copeau's Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, beginning in 1913...
, Madeleine Ozeray
Madeleine Ozeray
Madeleine Ozeray , was a French stage and film actress. She appeared in many films between 1932 and 1980...
, Robert Bogar, Romain Bouquet, Simone Bourday, Auguste Boverio, Maurice Castel, Guitty Flexer, Jean Gournac, Marcel Lupovici, Félix Oudart, Jean Parédès, Raymone, Jeanne Reinhard, Alexandre Rignault, Henri Saint-Isles, and Odette Talazac.
The play as adapted by Maurice Valency
Maurice Valency
Maurice Valency was a playwright, author, critic, and popular professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, best known for his award winning adaptations of plays by Jean Giraudoux and Friedrich Duerrenmatt. He wrote several original plays, but is best known for his adaptations of...
, opened on Broadway in 1954 in a production by Alfred Lunt
Alfred Lunt
Alfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for a long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...
with a cast including Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Early life:Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in Elberon, New Jersey, of Catalan and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer , was born in Cuba, was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St....
, John Alexander
John Alexander (actor)
John Alexander was an American stage and film actor.Perhaps his most memorable performance was as Teddy Brewster, a lunatic who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt, in the 1944 classic film Arsenic and Old Lace opposite Cary Grant. He had previously portrayed that role in the 1941 Broadway play of the...
, Peter Brandon, Alan Hewitt, Edith King, Robert Middleton
Robert Middleton
Robert Middleton, born Samuel G. Messer , was an American film and television actor known for his large size and beetle-like brow. With a deep, booming voice, Middleton trained for a musical career at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
, William Podmore, Marian Seldes
Marian Seldes
Marian Hall Seldes is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Life and career:...
, and Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
—in the role that made her a star. Ondine won the 1954 New York Drama Critics' Circle
New York Drama Critics' Circle
The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
Award for Best Play. This production also garnered the 1954 Tony awards for best director (Lunt) and best actress in a play (Hepburn).
The London premiere of Ondine was presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
in 1961, directed by Peter Hall, with Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
in the title role, and a cast that included Richard Johnson
Richard Johnson (actor)
Richard Johnson is an English actor, writer and producer, who starred in several British films of the 1960s and has also had a distinguished stage career. He most recently appeared in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.-Life and career:...
, Diana Rigg
Diana Rigg
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
, Eric Porter
Eric Porter
Eric Richard Porter was an English actor of stage, film and television.-Early life:Porter was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, to Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth Spall...
, Clive Swift, Sian Phillips
Siân Phillips
Jane Elizabeth Ailwên "Siân" Phillips, CBE, is a Welsh actress.-Early life:Phillips was born in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Neath Port Talbot, Wales, the daughter of Sally , a teacher, and David Phillips, a steelworker-turned-policeman...
, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies
Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies
Dame Gwen Lucy Ffrangcon-Davies, DBE was a British actress and centenarian. She was born in London of a Welsh family; the name "Ffrangcon" originates from a valley in Snowdonia...
, Roy Dotrice
Roy Dotrice
Roy Dotrice, OBE is a British actor known for his Tony Award-winning Broadway performance in the revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten.-Life and career:...
, Ian Holm
Ian Holm
Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear...
and Peter Jeffrey
Peter Jeffrey
Peter Jeffrey was a British actor with many roles in television and film.Jeffrey was born in Bristol, the son of Florence Alice and Arthur Winfred Gilbert Jeffrey. He was educated at Harrow School and Pembroke College, Cambridge but had no formal training as an actor...
.
Further reading
- Grossvogel, David I. (1958), 20th Century French Drama , Columbia University Press, New York.
- Cohen, Robert (1968), Giraudoux; Three Faces of Destiny, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, ISBN 0226112489.
- Giraudoux, Jean (1963), Three Plays, Oxford University Press, New York.
- LeSage, Laurent (1959), Jean Giraudoux; His Life and Works, The Pennsylvania State University Press.
- Inskip, Donald, (1958), Jean Giraudoux, The Making of a Dramatist, Oxford University Press, New York.
- Knowles, Dorothy (1968), French Drama of the Inter-War Years, 1918-39, Barnes & Noble, Inc., New York.
External links
- Ondine at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....
- Analysis of the play Ondine (in French)