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Tristan Tzara's Mouchoir de nuages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2009
Extract
Tzara's role in the Dada onslaught on the theatre is well known. His Le Cœur à gaz (1921) is often regarded as the masterpiece of that genre. It is sometimes overlooked, though, that Tzara's theatrical activity did not cease with the disintegration of the Dada movement. His fourth and final play, Mouchoir de nuages (1924), is often relegated to the status of a minor coda to his earlier experiments. It is certainly a less revolutionary work than Le Cœur à gaz or the two celestial adventures of Monsieur Antipyrine. On its own terms, though – that is, as an attempt at theatrical renewal rather than theatrical demolition – it is no less noteworthy than its more notorious predecessors.
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References
Notes
1. Œuvres complètes, I (Paris: Flammarion, 1975), p. 301Google Scholar. Subsequent page numbers refer to this edition.
2. de Massot, Pierre, ‘Avec Tristan Tzara’, Paris-Journal, 20 06 1924.Google Scholar
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5. Ibid., p. 40.
6. ‘Tristan Tzara va cultiver ses vices’, Journal du Peuple, 14 04 1923.Google Scholar
7. Ibid.
8. Breton, , Manifestes du surrealisme (Pauvert, 1962), p. 48.Google Scholar
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11. ‘Ajoutons que la mise en scène révélera à notre public les ressources encore insoupçonnées du théâtre moderne (projections tenant lieu de décor, chœur antique et cependant moderne). Ce sera toute une époque’ (my italics) – Etienne de Beaumont in ‘Les Soirées de Paris’, Nouvelles littéraires, 10 05 1924Google Scholar. It is just possible, though, that there was some confusion in the Count's mind with Loïe Fuller's multi-coloured spotlights which were indeed a feature of the production.
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