QUENEAU Raymond (1903-1976). - Lot 159

Lot n° 159
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Estimation :
2000 - 2500 EUR
QUENEAU Raymond (1903-1976). - Lot 159
QUENEAU Raymond (1903-1976). Autograph MANUSCRIT, [En passant, 1944]; 48 pages small in-4 in a Student Book. Complete manuscript of this play in two acts. En passant, "one act plus one act to precede a drama", was published in April 1944 in the n° 8 of the magazine L'Arbalète; the play was premiered in April 1947 at the Agnès Capri theater, by the Masques nus company, in a staging by Pierre Gout, in front of a photographic set by Brassaï, as a "curtain raiser" to Luigi Pirandello's drama La vie que je t'ai donnée. Queneau's play, set in a subway corridor, presents two symmetrical acts, whose characters and events respond to each other in pairs. Dominant poetic tone, verbal humor that evokes the theater of the absurd, this play is linked to the themes of incommunicability and impossible dreams. The manuscript, in black ink, includes 48 pages from two notebooks, preserved under a Student Book grey-green cover: the first act (25 pages) on lined paper (22.5 x 14.6 cm), and the "2nd table" (23 pages) on large-square schoolbook paper (22.5 x 17.6 cm). It presents numerous and important erasures, corrections, deletions and additions, in ink or in pencil, with notably about ten pages crossed out; as well as numerous variants with the published version, notably the first name of the heroine Irène which will become Odile. A title sheet with the header of the nrf presents the original title crossed out "Un invité", replaced by "Un passant", with two couples of characters: "Joachim / Le Passant" and "Irène / La Mendiante". The invitation to the general and the program of the Agnès Capri Theater are enclosed; plus a photocopy of the publication in review.
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