(‘L’Arbre*) by Jean Dutourd
English version by Lothian Small and E. J.King Bull
Production by E. J. KingBull
This is less a play than a glittering debate by a young French writer, about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. M. Dutourd gives his own version of that historic tenancy in a way that would amaze the authors of the Book of Genesis: he deals with such matters as Original Sin, Predestination, the Fall, the nature of God, Man, and the Devil, in a way that is light and witty as well as serious and searching. Eve is shown as a vain flibbertigibbet, Archangel Gabriel as a windy old majordomo, and deep arguments about ethics mix with irreverent asides about the boredom of listening to eternal church music in heaven. It is rather as though Anatole France had collaborated on a play by Andre Obey , since it has something of the quiet, subtle, deadly irony of the one writer, and a touch of the other's sophisticated simplicity in dealing with a Bible subject.