Sartre, Jean-Paul-Charles-Aymard

Sartre, Jean-Paul-Charles-Aymard (1905–80), French dramatist and philosopher, probably the best known of the post-war French play-wrights outside his own country. His philosophy of Existentialism—the responsibility of each man for his own acts and for the consequences of those acts—is implicit in his dramatic works. His first play, Les Mouches (1942), was a modern interpretation of the story of Orestes; as The Flies it was seen in New York in 1947 (London, 1951). Huis-Clos (1944) was produced in London as Vicious Circle and in New York as No Exit, both in 1946, the year in which Morts sans sépultures and La Putain respectueuse were first seen in Paris. As Men without Shadows and The Respectable Prostitute these were seen in London in 1947. The second was produced in America in 1948 as The Respectful Prostitute, a more appropriate title, since the prostitute betrays her coloured lover out of a craven respect for the dictates of society. Sartre's plays have often been given different titles in translation; Morts sans sépultures was seen in New York in 1948 as The Victors; Les Mains sales (1948) was produced in London as Crime passionel and in New York as Red Gloves, both in 1948. Sartre's next play, Le Diable et le bon Dieu, based on the same story as Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen, has been variously translated as The Devil and the Good Lord and Lucifer and the Lord. In 1956 Unity Theatre gave the first English production of Nekrassov (1955), later seen at the Royal Court, where in 1961 Les Séquestrés d'Altona was produced as Altona (NY, as The Condemned of Altona, 1965). In 1969 one of Sartre's many film scripts, L'Engrenage, was successfully adapted for the theatre, and in 1971 his adaptation of the elder Dumas's Kean (1836), first seen in Paris in 1953 with Pierre Brasseur, was produced in London.