Ardèle ou la Marguerite

Ardèle ou la Marguerite is a 1948 play by French dramatist Jean Anouilh. It was the first of his self-styled pièces grinçantes - i.e., 'grating' black comedies.

Set in 1912 "or thereabouts", the play concerns a family conference convened by the ageing General Léon Saint-Pé to discuss a romance entered into by his hunchbacked sister Ardèle. His other sister Liliane, a Countess, is accompanied by her husband Gaston (the Count) and her lover, Hector de Villardieu. All of them, especially the Countess, are scandalised by Ardèle's supposedly inappropriate passion for a fellow hunchback who has been engaged as tutor to the General's small son, Toto.

Their self-interested entreaties to her are communicated through her bedroom door, behind which she has locked herself and embarked on a three-day hunger-strike. The action culminates with the General's insane and apparently bed-ridden wife, Amélie, erupting from her room at dead of night while Ardèle and her lover (neither of whom is ever properly seen) take drastic action.

Other characters include Nathalie, the General's daughter in law; Nicolas, his middle son; Marie-Christine, the Countess' ten-year-old daughter, and Ada, the General's maid/mistress.

Ardèle was first presented in Paris at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées on 4 November 1948; directed by Roland Piétri and designed by Jean-Denis Malclès, it starred Marcel Pérès as the General, Mary Morgan as the Countess and Jacques Castelot as the Count. (Because it was a relatively short play by Anouilh's standards, it was staged with a brief 'curtain-raiser' in the form of Anouilh's semi-autobiographical vignette Episode de la vie d'un auteur.) Anouilh later developed the characters of the General and his wife in La Valse des toréadors (The Waltz of the Toreadors), which opened at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées in January 1952. Paris revivals of Ardèle itself followed in 1958, 1979 and 1998. A French television adaptation starring Daniel Ivernel was broadcast in October 1981.

On Broadway, the play failed utterly in a production at the Mansfield Theatre directed by Martin Ritt, with set and costumes designed by Cecil Beaton; translator Cecil Robson changed the title to Cry of the Peacock in reference to Amélie's repeated, bird-like cries of "Léon!" Opening on 11 April 1950, it closed on the 12th. The cast included Raymond Lovell as the General with Oscar Karlweis and Marta Linden as the Count and Countess.

...
Wikipedia