L'alouette

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La Table ronde, 1953 - Fiction - 228 pages
L'Alouette, a play written by French playwright Jean Anouilh in the 1950s, tells the story of Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) as a play-within-a-play. During her trial for heresy, there are flashbacks in which Jeanne replays key scenes of her life and mission to save France from the "godons" (goddamned English) during the Hundred Years War. One of the keys to the authenticity of Anouilh's voice is that he used the original transcripts of her trial in the 1400s to get it right.

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About the author (1953)

Jean Anouilh was born on June 23, 1910, in France. Anouilh studied law as a teenager and worked briefly in advertising. He soon became aware of his strong attraction to the theatre and became one of France's foremost playwrights and screenwriters. Anouilh's works are noted for their theatrical conventions. His plays, many of which are bleak dramas, feature characters facing highly moral dilemmas. He uses such conventions as flashbacks, role reversals, and play-within-a-play to achieve dramatic effects. Anouilh received a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for his play Waltz of the Toreadors and a Tony award for Thieves Carnival. Other well-known works include Antigone, Eurydice and the film Pattes Blanches. Anouilh suffered a heart attack and died in 1987.

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