The Lesson

If you are interested Eugene Ionesco was born Romanian in 1909 and grew up in France. He came to writing late – this play was produced in 1951 and falls immediately between his two other early plays, La Cantatrice Chauve and Les Chaises, all of which now make up part of his entry into the history books as an absurdist practitioner.The story begins with a maid cleaning a room when there is a knock on the door and a young girl enters. It transpires that this young girl is a pupil here for her lesson. Enter the professor. We follow the progression of the lesson throughout the play which climaxes with the professor becoming so infuriated with the young pupil’s ignorance and inability to follow his teaching that he murders her. A final appearance by the maid reveals the information that this is the fortieth student he has murdered today – she hides the body and begins to clean the room. Suddenly, a knock at the door and as the curtain comes down we hear the voice of another student ready for her lesson. I did say absurdist theatre.The acting is good, especially the lead male who embarks on a tour-de-force so strong, that one can only applaud at the end (I would name check him – but the venue were unable to locate a cast list or indeed any information on the show for me, despite having the extra twenty minutes that the show went up late by due to “loss of a cable”.)The direction was good given the limitations of the space – though perhaps giving the actors a little more to play with would be more interesting to watch - the books on the table remained untouched after the first five minutes. This could have benefitted and given the audience a break from professor’s aria – which at times, was very fast and very thick. There was also a clumsy moment involving an English broadcast of one of Hitler’s speeches and the two onstage characters giving the Nazi salute – we got the reference but it was a bit in-your-face and cheapened other great moments such as the removal and storage of the victim’s shoes.The company seemed strong and I’m sure there are great things to come in the future. Hopefully they will learn a few lessons from this year’s experience.