ADSactly Literature: Benchmark Theater - The Lesson
If you’ve been following the @adsactly blog, you’re aware by now of our new Theater series. If this is, by chance, your first encounter with the series, I highly encourage you to go back and read some of our other articles on the subject.
So, we’ve talked, in the past, about various plays that are considered ‘benchmark theater’, aka they are more or less a golden standard, they started a new trend and style in the theatrical world and are still being produced today. And last time, we talked a bit about Samuel Beckett’s immensely famous ‘Waiting for Godot’, which marked the beginning of the ‘theater of the absurd’. And I thought it would only make sense to continue with this subject, so today, we are going to have a look at Eugene Ionesco’s ‘The Lesson’.
For me, this play is particularly meaningful, as Ionesco was a fellow countryman of mine and it’s difficult to find a theater in Romania that isn’t producing one of his plays. Right now, I’m debating mentally if I should go and see the latest production of ‘The Lesson’. Well, we’ll see, but let’s get back to the play itself.
Like with ‘Waiting for Godot’, it is a tad difficult to explain ‘The Lesson’, mainly because it’s so simplistic (in a way). The action itself is so clear – you could easily stage it as per the author’s instructions and sure, it would make for a nice show, but would it say all there is to say about the play?
‘The Lesson’ is a three-character play (The Pupil, The Professor and the Servant/Maid). The Professor and the Maid are around 50 years old, while the Pupil is an eighteen year old girl. The play begins with her arrival for a lesson, obviously, and at first, everything goes rather smoothly. The Professor questions the Pupil on some basic arithmetic (two plus one, three plus one, that sort of thing), she answers correctly and the Professor is pleased. The Maid warns him against doing arithmetic with the girl, claiming it’s dangerous for him, but he tells her to go away.
Throughout the lesson, they come up with silly, absurd answers such as, what is seven plus one – eight, although sometimes, it can be nine.
But the Professor grows irritated with the Pupil when she fails to subtract correctly. Interestingly, she fails some basic subtraction, such as four minus three, but knows the answer to a very complicated multiplication of billions instantly. She explains that, not trusting her own judgment, she had learned every answer by heart.
They move on to language and linguistics, the Professor questioning her on various translations, while the girl complains of a toothache, which becomes increasingly more painful for her as the play progresses. The Professor ignores her complaints and even threatens to pull out all her teeth himself if she doesn’t concentrate.
An Irish production source
Again, the questions are obviously absurd (for example, he asks her how do you say ‘grand-mere’ in French, which is obviously ‘grand-mere’) and this serves to build an interesting contrast for the audience. On the one hand, there is the silliness of the questions, and on the other, there’s the Professor’s mounting anger at the girl, which quickly degenerates into violence. The spectator can’t help but feel baffled at this extreme behavior, unwarranted by the questions themselves.
The lesson culminates with the Professor bringing out a knife, so as to get the girl to say ‘knife’. She resists, at first, complaining that her whole body is hurting – he threatens to cut her apart and the girl struggles to say the word, over and over, amid groans. The Professor, changing his voice, warns her not to touch him, for the knife kills. The Pupil repeats these words and he begins stabbing her.
The Maid returns, chiding the professor and mocking him, but in the end, she claims to pity him, saying he is, after all, “a good boy” and that she’ll take care of everything. She says they will bury her at the same time with “the other thirty-nine”. The play ends with the arrival of the forty-first Pupil.
A visually compelling adaptation in Sibiu, Romania source
‘The Lesson’ is a play that revolves around two things, in my opinion, rhythm and emotion. Rhythm because it’s a very fast-paced play. If the characters stopped to breathe every now and again or to think about what was happening, the play wouldn’t really work, because that would also allow the audience to stop and think about what’s happening, whereas a big part of its ‘charm’ is that it takes you so unawares, manages so well to confuse you.
And then, there’s the complex palette of emotions present in the characters. Since the text itself is so ludicrous and makes so little sense, one has to focus on the emotions, so as to understand the story (or at least, part of it). The Pupil, who arrives happy, energetic and confident, gradually slinks into uncertainty and becomes a rather meek character, by the end of the play, a puppet. She loses all independence in the face of the Professor, as she allows him to dominate her.
On the other hand, the Professor first appears as a very mild-tempered old man, very polite and “with his voice almost suffocated by shyness”, but as the play progresses, he becomes increasingly more dominant, a veritable tyrant towards the Pupil.
That seems to be a key word in the play – tyrant, because many have interpreted it as a satirical take on totalitarianism, with the Pupil as the opressed victim, the Professor the despot and the Maid serving as some sort of group conscience. She sees the Professor’s vicious acts, chides him for them, yet forgives him every time, accepting them as a necessary truth of his being. And we have to remember that ‘The Lesson’ premiered in 1951, at very little time after the events of World War II. With that in mind, it’s easy to assume that ‘The Lesson’ is a comment on the rise of dictators and totalitarian regimes across the world. In the end, the Maid also gives an armband to the Professor, which might well be a reference to the swastika armbands worn by Nazis.
One must also remember that Ionesco spent a large majority of his life in France, with brief returns to his birthplace, Romania. He returned in 1939, but decided to leave again, as WWII progressed, and eventually arrived in Marseilles in 1942, which I suppose was very lucky for him, given the fact that after WWII, Romania became a communist country. So obviously, these events would have had a profound impact on Ionesco.
'The Lesson' in 2009 at the National Theater in Bucharest, Romania source
“Ionesco’s Lesson is a tragic farce which denounces the absurdity of standardized and exclusive testing, of language as a tool for power and of the lethal relationship between sexuality and dictatorship. On the other hand, the contemplative stupidity, a maneuvering field for anointed butchers. Since the world has learned nothing from the mistakes of history, the lesson of this show does not propose to be a boring and moralizing ruler, but more aptly a clear mirror” Horațiu Mălăele (The Professor in the above picture)
But perhaps it’s not a comment on totalitarian regimes. I hate it when people try to define a literary work as ‘oh, it’s about this and this alone’. Because more often than not, that’s not true and ‘The Lesson’, in particular is such a rich text, it’s a shame to narrow it down as being about one thing.
I’ve also heard many interpretations claim it’s about the futility of language or perhaps the feeling of a ‘useless’ society, in the wake of the Second World War. Yet again, perhaps it’s a satire about the slowly-dying bourgeoisie, with the Professor methodically crushing the young Pupil, who represents (presumably) the best in human nature, the happy, crushed by a strict class society.
A lesson in ‘The Lesson’ that I find particularly interesting is the ease with which the characters distort the truth. In the words of the Professor,
“We can’t be sure of anything, young lady, in this world.”
Basically, the play is telling us, the audience, that reality isn’t reality, but anything the Professor makes out as ‘reality’. A particularly important message, both in the fifties, as well as in our society today.
A current production in Bucharest, Romania source
But again, this is a hugely versatile text and I feel that, like with many important plays, it’s really up to each spectator what they understand and ideally learn from it. It also depends a lot on how the play is presented, because there are so many ways in which this play can be done. And it seems like a waste to do it in the regular fashion, as per the author’s instructions.
It can be a political regime taken to the extreme. It can be a farce, even a comedy, depending on how it’s acted. It can be a sexual domination game. (The text itself is very sexually charged, so I feel any production of the play has to touch upon that, at least on some level.)
It can be many things and anything.
And whatever it is, I highly encourage you to go see it, preferably in a theater, since the story feels very different when it’s happening right in front of you.
I thought it natural to follow-up our post about Beckett and Godot with Ionesco and 'The Lesson' because the two have been long-running contenders for the title of ‘father of the absurd’. And for that, I could have also chosen Ionesco’s first big play, ‘La Cantatrice Chauve’ (The Bald Soprano) and it will probably be featured in a later article. However, to me, ‘The Lesson’ is a far richer text and it demonstrates Ionesco’s talent and depth as a writer. A depth (and density) that truly rivals that of Beckett’s Godot.
I hope with this post, I have awakened your curiosity and interest in the works of the literary master that was Eugene Ionesco.
Have you seen/read ‘The Lesson’? What did you think?
Authored by @honeydue
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I remember reading The Lesson many years ago. Ionesco is one of my favorite playwrights and The Bald Singer is one of my favorite pieces. Now that I read your review of The Lesson, I can remember the debate that took place at that time in the classroom and that is now more relevant: Violence as a daily occurrence, impunity for crime. Today an anomalous situation, such as the murder of another person, not only happens as something natural or everyday, but it is also rewarded. Although it is the theatre of the absurd, we can always find that in the background of the play, there is a message that moves, shudders, forces you to think. I hope you can review La Cantante Calva and Las criadas de Genet. Always pleased to read you, @honeydue
My curiosity at least is certainly awaken. I had read some plays that can be placed in the category of the theater of the absurd, but I did not know about Ionesco.
That quote by him about totalitarianism and people's inability or unwillingness to be different is priceless.
I would not see it as a limitation that The Lesson be interpreted politically. There is a great value in that and sometimes it can be a mistake to overemphasize artistic aspects over some pragmatic lesson.
True, literature is open to multiple interpretations, but not all interpretation are equally valid (supported by textual evidence) or useful.
I will read The Lesson now
@honeydue, Some aspects of Literature leave signs for long time. In my opinion The World Of Theaters is very unique world.
In old times people were going to Theatres to watch plays and dramas and in my opinion this experiece is unique and it hold the personal touch.
And stories which hold depth definitely effect viewers deeply. Stay blessed.
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interesting post .thanks for your excellent preview @adsactly
Eugene Ionesco and the writers who experienced a period of religious war were very imprisoned by the conditions. the writers who have had a hard time putting their works together in one sense. A sense of alienation, distrust and hatred of violence until they overflow with the use of language that makes provocation. Just as Waiting for Godot the Lesson's level of absurdity is also very thick. We can see the performance by following the plot that drains the feeling. The meaning of dialogue makes us invited to trace sad stories a journey of human life.
In The Lesson script, Ionesco plays words, using simple words, the same words that should be different. Ionesco sees that the word has a personal connotation. Humans have interpretations of meaning in each word, so that language eventually becomes complicated and absurd. Not only that, "language" if drawn into the level of ideas will always contain a plan of shrimp behind the rock. there is something to be achieved but not explicitly indicated.
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