Interview: Eugène Ionesco

Author(s): Emmanuel Jacquart and Eugène Ionesco

Source: Diacritics, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer, 1973), pp. 45-48
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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OKOW
INTRODUCTION/ I first met lonesco in 1965. He was
supposed to give a public lecture in an art cinema in
Bordeaux. He began by asking his audience whether
he should start by reading one or two of his short
stories which Gallimard had just published. Opinion
was of course divided, but lonesco opened his book
and began with Oriflamme. An hour or so later the
audience showed signs of impatience. Indeed, lo-
nesco's reading was by no means artistic. As he pro-
ceeded with his reading some students stamped their
feet and told him to stop. For a brief moment he
tried to go on. Then, he gave up and shouted:
"Rhinoceroses! You are a bunch of rhinoceroses!"
Whereupon he haughtily walked off the stage.
I wondered if he ever had any intention of giv-
ing a lecture. I noticed he had no notes at all. Did
he-like the Dadaists and the Surrealists-plan a
"spectacle-provocation"? This hypothesis was sup-
ported by another fact. Before his performance,
Ionesco, who was sitting a few seats away from me,
was drinking a rather large glass of whiskey, perhaps
trying to muster up enough courage to provoke the
public.
Anyhow, when I met Ionesco for the interview
printed below, I was astounded to see how nervous
he was. His voice was shaking and when I asked
whether I could start the recording, he answered:
"Not yet. In a little while." After chatting with me
for ten minutes, he finally gave me the signal.
Throughout the interview I noticed how uncomfort-
able the tape recorder seemed to make him feel.
Both this shyness and the kind of bravado
noted above seem to be inherent in lonesco's per-
sonality. As a matter of fact, they can also be found
in several of his plays. In The Lesson, the Professor
who is at first shy with his student ends up by raping
and killing her; in Victims of Duty the Policeman is
first described as "excessively timid," then "[he]
bangs his fist on the table," and gives repeated orders
to Choubert, ranging from "I'll teach you to be obe-
dient" to "Swallow! Chew! Swallow! Chew!" etc.
Also in Rhinoceros, Berenger, who is a rather un-
obtrusive character at the beginning of the play fi-
nally exclaims: "Against everybody, I'll protect my-
self! I am the last man, I will remain so right up
until the end! I won't give in!"
diacriticS/Summer 1973
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ooLl5
Emmanuel Jacquart: If you have no objection, I
would like to start with the fifties and your early
days in the theatre. How do you explain that authors
as different as Beckett, Adamov and yourself, al-
though influenced by different writers, and having
different backgrounds, nevertheless rejected the same
things: "Aristotelian" psychology, engagement, real-
ism, and the Boulevard play.
Eugene lonesco: I believe that this was due to an
objective necessity, the necessity of opposition. When-
ever there is novelty, there is opposition. For ex-
ample, Romanticism opposed Classicism. After Ro-
manticism, there was the Parnassian school which,
in some respects, was a return to Classicism-with
some new elements of course-but also an opposi-
tion to Romanticism. Then came Symbolism which
was a sort of return to Romanticism; then Natural-
ism which was a return to Realism, and so on. But
there may be reasons I am not aware of. You think
that writers are objectively determined. This is pos-
sible. But again, in my own case, I don't clearly see
what the determining factors were. It is up to the
critic to discover them.
E.J.: In your own case, what were the reasons for
all these rejections?
E.I.: As far as I am concerned-and it's in this re-
spect that I come closest to Beckett-the existential
condition is unbearable.
E.J.: Could you develop this idea?
E.I.: Well, you see what is going on around you.
What I am going to say is trite. . . . We come into
the world crying, we end up loving the world and
then we no longer want to leave it. We are trapped.
It is this mortal condition which is unsatisfying. Also,
we would like to be ubiquitous. It is having limita-
tions that distresses me.
E.J.: From the start, your plays were unquestionably
original and yet, it seems to me, they exhibited some
similarities with Beckett's and even Adamov's.
E.I.: Quite so; I think The Chairs and Waiting for
Godot on the one hand, and Exit the King and
Endgame on the other, have common themes. Again,
this means that we are historically determined. New
assertions, oppositions, counteroppositions, and so
forth, obey an historical determinism.
E.J.: When you first began writing plays, did you
46
choose a situation or a character as the starting
point, or did you let yourself be carried along by
language?
E.I.: I let myself be carried along by language. I had
a very vague idea of what was to follow. Thus, for
Amedde I wanted a corpse to grow continually in an
apartment. It was around this central image that I
conceived the play, as it is around the central image
of chairs arriving en masse that I constructed The
Chairs. And when I wrote Exit the King, I put my-
self in the position of someone to whom one would
say: "You are going to die tonight." That was all.
The action was set in motion from this starting point.
As Val6ry pointed out, writing is a search, an ex-
ploration. One discovers the answer on the way.
E.J.: For your first two plays, The Bald Soprano and
The Lesson did you proceed in the same manner?
E.I.: You know, it's been such a long time since I
wrote these plays. ... For The Lesson I would
answer "yes." A professor kills his student in a com-
ical way: that was the starting point. What I wanted
most of all was to write a play devoid of action.
When it was performed for the first time, every-
one, myself included, thought there was no action;
but now we realize that there is action. I wanted it
to follow a rising curve. A very simple structure,
don't you think?
E.J.: How would you characterize the structure of
your early plays?
E.I.: I don't know. How would you?
E.J.: First, there is a kind of circular structure, as in
The Bald Soprano. I wonder, however, whether this
was intentional. You had actually planned another
ending: the actors would insult the spectators and
pretend to shoot them.
E.I.: Oh yes! In The Lesson it was intentional, not in
The Bald Soprano; in this case we couldn't perform
the ending you are referring to. It required too many
actors and . . . we couldn't kill the audience every
night! I had to look for another ending and I found
it by chance. It struck me as being interesting, which
is why I used it again in The Lesson and Victims of
Duty.
E.J.: I was surprised to read somewhere that you
were once a Dadaist critic. Is that true?
E.I.: No. . . . I was a critic, but not a Dadaist. But
Dadaism must have influenced me because it was a
movement which preceded my youth. Moreover,
we are always influenced by books we read and by
the ideas of the time.
E.J.: Coming back to your first works, however,
what did you regard as the essential element of a
play? Were characters more important than situa-
tions, themes or language... ? so on. If I had written around 1935 or 1940 they
E.I.: I did not worry at all about that, but in The
Bald Soprano language was the most important ele-
ment. There are no characters, they don't exist as
characters. There, language was the theme of the
play.
E.J.: Are you under the impression that your early
plays concealed a "rhetoric" as Jean Paulhan would
have said? Aren't the same essential elements to be
found in all of them?
E.I.: That's how it turned out. I discovered it after-
wards. You know there is no single explanation to
anything. There are many wrong explanations, but
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also many valid ones. For example, The Bald So-
prano can be interpreted as a tragedy of language, a
parody of theater, or a criticism of stereotyped be-
havior. Besides, I had more personal reasons in writ-
ing this play. I wanted to express the feeling I ex-
perience when I see people living senselessly. My
characters became extraordinary by their very ba-
nality. I sort of stood back and looked at them the
way I am apt to look at the world, with amazement.
This is probably why it was called an absurdist play.
But again, there are several levels, several interpreta-
tions possible. It is a parody but also a criticism of
Boulevard theater. You can make the same kind of
generalization with regard to any work. You can
find a Marxist interpretation, a psychoanalytic one,
a humanistic one, etc.
E.J.: It is then a matter of polysemy, or to use Um-
berto Eco's expression, of "open works." Robbe-
Grillet, for example, sometimes writes novels with
several interpretations. Or else he uses a plot that
leads the reader into a blind alley since there is no
solution to the riddle posed. In this respect, Robbe-
Grillet has somewhat modified the traditional detec-
tive story.
E.I.: Yes, The Erasers reads almost like a work by
Simenon. As a matter of fact, I think Robbe-Grillet
does not hide his indebtedness to Simenon.
E.J.: Have you used similar techniques?
E.I.: To tell you the truth, I did not think of all this
when I wrote my first play. I thought of it when I
read the critics. Then I realized that it had to be
something other than what they were saying. What I
think of my theatre contradicts what some critics
said at the time when these plays were first per-
formed. But I think that all works have many pos-
sible explanations. We had to wait for centuries to
have a new interpretation of Sophocles: he knew
nothing about psychoanalysts but his works can be
psychoanalyzed.
E.J.: I was thinking of some of your plays that have
been called "mystery plays," Victims of Duty for
example. But in this case, wasn't there only one
solution to the plot?
E.I.: Yes, of course, that's right. There are some in-
terpretations that are not valid. For example, it was
an error to think that my plays were only an attack
on la bourgeoisie and consequently that my thinking
was revolutionary and Marxist! It is according to
the ideologies of the time that critics interpret a
work of art. My work is no exception. At first, they
said it belonged to the Theater of the Absurd; then
it was supposed to be a criticism of la bourgeoisie;
then it was labeled thedtre du nouveau langage, and
would have said that I was seeking authenticitd, or
who knows what!
E.J.: In reference to the "new theater" there has
been a lot of discussion about matirialisations, about
putting ideas into concrete form by means of sym-
bolic objects. One thinks, for example, of the empty
chairs that "materialize" the feeling of absence. How
important is this langage scinique?
E.I.: It's a symbolic language. The empty chairs rep-
resent both presence and absence for me.
E.J.: Critics have talked about a littirature du signe,
and a littirature de l'image. Do you lean more to-

ward one than the other?
E.I.: It is the image that is symbolic or significant.
Visualization, as well as dialogue, is part of the lan-
guage of the theater. What is new in what I have
written is precisely this visualization which frequently
exists in Adamov's works but not often in Beckett's.
E.J.: Doesn't visualization become more important
than language?
E.I.: Well, I don't know. Images are closely linked
to spoken language, they matter as much as spoken
language, maybe more. I don't know.
E.J.: Over the years, your theater has changed.
Critics have distinguished, for example, three styles
in your works. Can this evolution be explained by a
mere need for renewal?
E.I.: It came about quite naturally. My first manner
is less different from the other two than one might
think. Similar elements recur: a certain type of
humor, images, and visualizations. On the other
hand, it seems to me that Exit the King is much more
heavily written than the other plays. It is more
rhetorical.
E.J.: When you first began, your plays were mostly
funny, like The Bald Soprano. It was almost a
game. ...
E.I.: Yes, it was a game.
E.J.: Afterwards, you wrote tragi-comedies like The
Chairs. In this kind of play nonsense was less ap-
parent. Are there elements in your life which account
for this change or were you simply trying something
new?
E.I.: I felt like trying something new. I thought I
had not said everything I had to say. That's why I
said something new or wrote in a different manner.
E.J.: One of your characters feels that he used to be
cheerful and that all of a sudden he became a pes-
simist. Is this an experience drawn from your private
life?
E.I.: Yes, but this happened before I began to write
plays. I began writing for the stage rather late, when
I was about thirty-five. Everything I have written is
based on previous experiences. I started writing, in
dramatic form, what I had already been through.
And I used all sorts of materials, my anxiety and my
dreams for example. Dreams are very important to
me, they reveal some sort of truth, they make you
more aware of certain problems. Also, dreams are,
according to Jung, theater par excellence. Jung
thought that dreams were comparable to plays. The
central character is at once actor, critic and spectator.
E.J.: I would now like to ask you a few questions
about your fondness for long enumerations, plays
on words and ddlire verbal, which you indulge in
once in a while. Were these characteristics rein-
forced by reading authors like Rabelais, Jarry or the
Surrealists?
E.I.: Perhaps.
E.J.: I am thinking for example of Les Salutations.
This play, which is only four or five pages long,
seems to be written with Rabelaisian gusto.
E.I.: Perhaps, but words in Rabelais are more color-
ful and more expressive. They mean something. The
proliferation of words in my works aims at exploring
a vacuum.
E.J.: Isn't it also a game you play with logic? Isn't
playing with nonsense a kind of pleasant escape?
dlioCritics/Summer 1973
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47
E.I.: I don't know. But literature is always a redis-
covery of reality as well as an escape.
E.J.: Are there any young playwrights in France who
seem to be influenced by your plays?
E.I.: It's not for me to say. It's up to the critic to
decide. I think that I have accomplished something.
I believe I've influenced Georges Michel, Pinter, the
first Albee plays, the Pole Mrozek, and the English-
man Saunders (who acknowledges this influence).
One writes to be read and to have sons but if I said
that I have influenced them-which is true-they
would get angry.
E.J.: What sets you apart from other contemporary
playwrights? What are your specific characteristics?
E.I.: I think that the difference between Boulevard
theater and ours is that Boulevard plays are nothing
but entertainment; they question nothing, whereas
Beckett, Adamov and I, through questioning lan-
guage and the way of composing plays, created a
new expression. And where there is novelty of ex-
pression, one has a valid work of art, since the his-
tory of art and literature is the history of their ex-
pression. Whenever there is a change in expression
there is originality, there is value. So, our plays ques-
tioned both language and human destiny. I don't
know whether we succeeded, we'll see later. Such
was our half-conscious, half-spontaneous endeavor.
In Boulevard theater nothing is questioned, least of
all Boulevard theater!
E.J.: It seems that you have kept the notion of con-
flict. For example, in Victims of Duty, Madeleine
and the Policeman are in opposition to Choubert.
Why have you retained the notion of conflict when
you have rejected most of the basic ingredients of
"traditional" theater, like that of Giraudoux, Sartre
and Camus, for example?
E.I.: Because from its very beginnings theater has
been conflict.
E.J.: Have you been influenced by painting, music,
cinema, or any of the other arts?
E.I.: Among the authors who have influenced me the
most, the one who comes to mind immediately is
Kafka. I would perhaps not have written the plays I
wrote if there hadn't been Kafka. As for painting, I
like it but I don't think it has influenced me. Per-
haps some philosophers have affected me, but not
playwrights.
E.J.: In reading Notes and Counternotes, I got the
impression that you had been negatively influenced
by some of your professors. Your reaction was one
of opposition. I wonder if this does not actually ap-
pear in your early plays.
E.I.: I think so. Yes, I think this is quite right. I
even remember that when I was a student, one of
my professors had an esthetic theory that was anti-
historicist; and because he was an enemy of Croce, I
looked for my arguments in Croce! I have always
felt the need to oppose something.
E.J.: Is this a defense mechanism?
E.I.: Yes, it's a form of defense. I don't want to be
bothered by anyone, to belong to anyone. It is an
expression of my freedom. Never to be a follower.
E.J.: Among your own plays which ones do you
prefer?
E.I.: The Chairs, Victims of Duty and A Stroll in
the Air; A Stroll in the Air perhaps because it didn't
48
get good reviews; The Chairs because I put a lot of
myself into it and also because what has been said
about this play is not all there is to say about it. On
the other hand, I still like Victims of Duty, but
everything has been said about it. It was my most
obscure play, but fifteen years after its publication it
has become very clear to everyone. People now
realize that the Policeman represents social con-
science, that he is the superego.
E.J.: Why was the Policeman a young man?
E.I.: I wanted him to be a sort of symbol of purity.
The Policeman is, so to speak, the angel of the
Police, he is social conscience, he is the superego
and he is pure. Ordinarily we believe that there is a
certain purity in youth. He was supposed to be
rather good-looking and "angelic," but wherever the
play was produced he was older-except in Zurich.
So now I am used to his being older.
E.J.: Towards the end of the play, Nicolas kills the
Policeman but he himself becomes an oppressor.
Like the Policeman, he threatens Choubert and
orders him to "swallow, to chew, to swallow." How
can we account for this complete turn-about?
E.I.: Choubert feels hemmed in by social conscience
whereas Nicolas is an anarchist. Generally, anarchists
turn into tyrants. All revolutions do nothing but
establish more firmly the system they had attacked.
A regime is overthrown when it has become liberal,
when it is no longer worth overthrowing. It's as if
people were unconsciously afraid of freedom. They
pretend to love it but deep down they are afraid of
it. People have noticed that revolutions only restore
an old archetypal structure which is and can only
be order. Actually, to me, revolutionaries are reac-
tionaries, since each revolution ends up by reinforc-
ing order.
E.J.: In this respect, have you been influenced by
Camus?
E.I.: I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe. I've read
The Rebel. It is difficult to be aware of influences. I
don't know myself. . . . You read a lot of things,
books, articles, you go to lectures. In the end, you
give back-in another form or in another order-
what the world has given you.
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E.J.: In The New Tenant, the mover tosses a bouquet
of flowers into the enclosure which the hero had
built for himself with his furniture. Are you sug-
gesting that material possessions bury man alive?
E.I.: I don't think it's altogether that. It isn't material
possessions that bury him alive but material pres-
sures. It is true, however, that he is buried alive.
Tossing the bouquet into the enclosure amounts to
tossing a bouquet onto a coffin.
E.J.: Did the tenant gather .his furniture around him
in order to build himself a fortress?
E.I.: No, in order to sink deeper. Again, it's as if he
were burying himself. He conducts his own burial.
E.J.: In other words, there is no close connection be-
tween the concierge episode and what follows. The
concierge wouldn't represent a somewhat frightening
world from which the tenant wants to protect him-
self?
E.I.: I don't know. . . . The concierge is certainly
the world, the world that is constantly making com-
ments. But in withdrawing from the world and tak-
ing refuge behind his furniture-his material goods
-the hero sinks down and buries himself.
E.J.: When you wrote this play, did you have a clear
idea of what you wanted to do, or did you follow
your "inspiration"?
E.I.: Of course what one does is half conscious and
half spontaneous. What is most interesting is to dis-
cover the sources, the underlying meanings of what
one writes. But it is difficult for me to discover them
because critics tend to speak of themselves and of
their own obsessions. If the critic is a structuralist,
he chooses a certain type of analysis, if he is a
psychoanalyst he applies a psychoanalytical method,
and so on with a sociologist or a Catholic. Finally,
it is quite difficult to be a good judge, to know who
is right. Is it the author or the exegete?
E.J.: There are however certain signs in the work
itself, which have to be taken into account.
E.I.: There are obviously certain signs and I think
that criticism is sound when most critics agree on
the meaning of these signs. If several critics who
use different methods end up agreeing, then one can
believe in an objective reality. The various critical
interpretations have to corroborate each other.