Editing Jean Genet (section)

===Plays===
Genet's plays present highly stylized depictions of ritualistic struggles between outcasts of various kinds and their oppressors.<ref>See Martin Esslin's book for one perspective on Genet's relationship both to [[Antonin Artaud|Artaud]]'s '[[Theatre of Cruelty]]' and to Esslin's own [[Theatre of the Absurd]]. Not all critics agree that Artaud is Genet's most significant influence; both [[Bertolt Brecht]] and [[Luigi Pirandello]] have also been identified.</ref> Social identities are parodied and shown to involve complex layering through manipulation of the dramatic fiction and its inherent potential for theatricality and role-play. Maids [[Mimesis|imitate]] one another and their mistress in ''[[The Maids]]'' (1947); the clients of a brothel simulate roles of political power before, in a dramatic reversal, actually becoming those figures, all surrounded by mirrors that both reflect and conceal, in ''[[The Balcony]]'' (1957). Most strikingly, Genet offers a critical dramatisation of what [[Aimé Césaire]] called [[negritude]] in ''[[The Blacks (play)|The Blacks]]'' (1958), presenting a violent assertion of black identity and anti-white virulence framed in terms of mask-wearing and roles adopted and discarded. His most overtly political play is ''[[The Screens]]'' (1964), an epic account of the [[Algerian War|Algerian War of Independence]]. He also wrote another full-length drama, ''Splendid's'', in 1948 and a [[one-act play]], ''Her'' (''Elle''), in 1955, though neither was published or produced during Genet's lifetime.

''[[The Maids]]'' was the first of Genet's plays to be staged in New York, produced by [[Julie Bovasso]] at Tempo Playhouse in New York City in 1955. ''[[The Blacks (play)|The Blacks]]'' was, after ''[[The Balcony]]'', the third of Genet's plays to be staged in New York. The production was the longest running [[Off-Broadway]] non-musical of the decade. Originally premiered in Paris in 1959, this 1961 New York production ran for 1,408 performances. The original cast featured [[James Earl Jones]], [[Roscoe Lee Browne]], [[Louis Gossett Jr.]], [[Cicely Tyson]], [[Godfrey Cambridge]], [[Maya Angelou]] and [[Charles Gordone]].