The State of Siege (), sometimes translated as State of Emergency, is a 1948 drama by the French philosopher Albert Camus. The play centers around the Spanish city of Cádiz during an outbreak of the bubonic plague. The plague itself is personified as a dictatorial non-commissioned officer who, along with his secretary and several collaborationists, implements martial law and enforces a confusing but rigid bureaucracy on the city.
The play began as an informal collaboration between Camus and Jean-Louis Barrault. Barrault had originally planned to write a plague myth and later aimed to base the work off Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year. He then reached out to Camus to write the dialog after the success of his novel The Plague the year prior. The two then agreed to aim the topic of the play toward a more contemporary audience, though Defoe's work is considered the most influential source of inspiration. Camus departed from his expected Greek tragedy–like style to develop something more akin to a morality play or , inspired by their ability to disseminate Catholic theology across medieval Europe.
Despite a prestigious cast and Camus's previous success, The State of Siege was a complete failure critically and commercially, with production ending only a few weeks after the premiere. Critics remarked that its characterization was one-dimensional, its practical effects and stage design overly stylized, and its action clumsy. Several opined that Camus might have been strong-armed by Barrault's forceful personality into writing something contrary to his style, especially given Camus's previous success. Camus, however, took full credit for the play and its failure, later remarking that "few plays have had the pleasure of being so thoroughly savaged". Modern retrospectives have had more mixed reviews, though they remain overall negative. It has been criticized for its heavy-handed symbolism and being contrary to the literary and theoretical inspiration on which it was based, though others have applauded it as experimental or at least ambitious.
Background Author
Albert Camus was a French writer and philosopher, best known for his propounding of absurdism. He was born in poverty in French Algeria in 1913 to a Spanish mother and a French father with longstanding roots in Algeria who died in World War I the year after Camus's birth. During the Nazi occupation of France, Camus served as part of the French Resistance and became entrenched in its underground paper Combat. Following the war, he was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature, its second-youngest honorand after Rudyard Kipling. Camus died in an automobile accident in southern France in 1960.
As outlined in his extended essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus argued that life was absurd in that it is inscrutable and impossible to rationalize. When people realize this fact, they either commit suicide or take a leap of faith into religion, which Camus termed "philosophical suicide". Instead, he argued that people should "revolt against the absurd"; in other words, they should reject both kinds of suicide and separate the meaninglessness in the universe from the idea that life itself was without meaning.
The play Although Camus was credited as the sole author, the effort began as something of a collaboration between himself and Jean-Louis Barrault. Barrault began working on a play in May 1942 and went through several titular variations before settling on . He had originally planned to dramatize a plague myth, but after a few years, he settled on using the English author Daniel Defoe's 1722 novel A Journal of the Plague Year as a general framing piece for the writing process.
When Barrault heard that Camus had published his novel The Plague on a similar topic, Barrault invited Camus to write the dialog for the play. At this point, Barrault had already written the entire first act and had prepared a framework for the rest of the play. The two ultimately agreed to depart from the idea of adapting Defoe's work and write something more pertinent for their contemporary audience. Camus later recounted to a journalist that the play went through at least seven variations before it premiered. Still, Camus used Defoe's work as The State of Siege main source of inspiration, though both Camus and Barrault were both also particularly inspired by the works of Antonin Artaud, particularly his collection of essays.
Like Barrault's original script, the final draft went through several title changes before The State of Siege was finally chosen. In order to pick a name, one told the other "Get dressed, darling, we're going to see [...]" wherein the other would respond with one of the titles. The original working title was Love of Life, followed by The Inquisition at Cadiz, then shortened to The Inquisition. Alternative titles included The Grand Inquisitors, The Scourge, The Rising Wind, and Us and Them.
Plot
A comet dashes through the sky and the citizens of Cádiz gathered at the city walls believe it to be a bad omen. The local drunk Nada proclaims that nothing serious will happen. The municipal government announces that the city will proceed as usual and references to the comet will meet with punishment. Diego, a medical student, and his fiancée Victoria are star-crossed lovers and flirt outside her window; Victoria's father Casado, a local judge, disapproves of their engagement. During a performance in the city square, an actor collapses dead of plague and the city erupts in a panic.
As the governor addresses the citizenry, a man dressed as a non-commissioned officer enters unexpectedly with his secretary. The man announces that he is the Plague itself and demands control of the local government. The governor scoffs and sends a guard to arrest him. The man tells his secretary to cross off the guard's name from her book and the guard drops dead. The governor relinquishes control and the quickly acquiesce to the new administration. The Plague and his secretary institute a dictatorship, demanding that all citizens resist helping plague victims, mark their doors with a particular sign, and stuff their mouths with vinegar-soaked rags. After discovering his nihilistic outlook, the secretary eagerly enlists Nada as a bureaucrat, who accepts the position with great enthusiasm. He integrates the townsfolk into the new byzantine bureaucracy to their great confusion and dismay.
Diego begins helping the sick, but becomes infected himself. Casado threatens to turn Diego in to save the family and Diego grabs the youngest son, threatening to infect the boy if Casado turns him in. Casado is unmoved and reveals the boy is his wife's illegitimate son. Diego leaves and tries to escape to an offshore quarantine, but is foiled by the secretary, who expresses fondness for him. In a rage, he throttles her, which causes his buboes to recede and prompts the secretary to hint that rebellion stifles the Plague's administration. Diego goes to the town and convinces some of the townsfolk to rebel, leading to a crackdown. In the ensuing mêlée, a rebel snatches the notebook from the secretary and the crowd rejoices. The judge's other daughter grabs it and strikes the name of a family member and the people begin to call for the deaths of some fellow citizens.
Victoria is brought out on a stretcher, ill but alive. Diego requests the Plague spare Victoria in exchange for his life. Based on an archaic rule of his code, the Plague rejoins with an offer to spare the couple if he may continue running the city. Diego states that his choosing death is his own choice and thus the citizenry ought to be left alone. The Plague relents and tortures Diego to death with the pestilence, during which Victoria wails with grief and the secretary admits pity for the townsfolk. The Plague and his secretary leave the city and the original administration returns. In a fit of rage, Nada throws himself from the city walls into the sea. The widower fisherman castigates him and remarks that the sea has avenged the city.
Cast and design The play's cast was a collaboration between some of the most prestigious names in French theater. Barrault served as director and starred as Diego opposite Maria Casarès as Victoria. The Plague and the secretary were played by Pierre Bertin and Barrault's wife Madeleine Renaud, respectively, while Nada was played by Pierre Brasseur. Minor roles were also cast with relatively big names, including Marcel Marceau as "the transporter of the dead" (), and both Jean Desailly and his wife played unnamed members of the citizenry.
The State of Siege music was composed by the Swiss musician Arthur Honegger, while the Polish-French artist Balthus served as the production's set and costume designer. Balthus developed an apocalyptic style for the play's design with the second act transitioning the city to resemble a Spanish-style bullfighting ring, staging the dispute between Diego and Victoria as the "bullfight". Camus and Barrault originally disagreed on the costuming design for the Plague character. While Camus wanted to be forthright about the relationship of the character to totalitarianism, Barrault sought to emulate the more subtle Artaudian style, envisioning the Plague as a "totemic" figure garbed in green and yellow scarabs.
Reception Contemporary
The State of Siege premiered on 27 October 1948 at the Théâtre Marigny in the eighth arrondissement of Paris. During its run, The State of Siege was universally panned by critics and a commercial failure. Though there was a consensus that Camus achieved expressing the importance of revolt and even garnered sympathy for it, critics were unimpressed with the one-dimensionality of its characters, its overly stylized practical effects and stage design, and its clumsy action. The play was only performed for a few weeks before production closed. Camus thought closing production too early had been a rash decision, but Barrault argued that the monetary cost of keeping the play going was too high for the remote hope that the situation would improve. Camus himself described the effort as a total failure, remarking that "few plays have had the pleasure of being so thoroughly savaged". He later joked: "Naturally, I prefer that my plays be successful. But I also find a number of subtle satisfactions in such a failure. Example: I have fewer appointments."
Given the topic, audiences and critics had actually been expecting the production to be a theatrical adaptation of Camus's novel The Plague, in large part due to its recency and massive critical success. The style was similarly puzzling; The State of Siege consciously medieval morality play–like structure seemed to be at odds with Camus's regular lionization of the traditional Greek tragedy. Critics at the time even blamed Barrault for having negatively affected Camus with his imposing disposition, causing Camus to write something contrary to his style and ability. It seemed to them unthinkable that a rising literary figure like Camus, who had produced a masterpiece on the same topic the year prior, could have produced such a failure. However, Camus took full responsibility for the play itself, including in its publication, and remarked that he had specifically intended to emulate medieval French morality plays and the similar Spanish . This emulation aimed to impart an allegorical approach to the audience, which Camus felt had demonstrated success in spreading Catholic theology during the medieval period.
Modern