![]() In Paris, by contrast, newspapers were “rife with fear that cubism was a direct threat to the country’s identity.” Even in the 1920s and 1930s, when Picasso had long since become a well-paid and highly sought-after member of the Right Bank beau monde, Cohen-Solal finds French nationalist critics attacking him and the state utterly indifferent to his work. Already in 1901, Cohen-Solal writes, he was considered an “alien suspect” for his apparent ties to anarchists four years later, one of his first solo exhibitions provoked a police investigation.īy the eve of World War I, Picasso’s star had begun its rapid rise - at least in other parts of Europe and, Cohen-Solal maintains, the United States. Montmartre, we learn, was crawling with police informants with names like Finot, Foureur, Bornibus and Giroflé as for the Bateau-Lavoir, the much-mythologized artists’ building where Picasso lived and worked during his first cubist breakthroughs, it was in reality “one of those shameful habitations that the capital offered its immigrants and marginals.” In this unpromising milieu, the young Picasso, with his broken French and outcast friends, struggled to avoid arrest or even expulsion. In place of the seedy Belle Epoque glamour usually associated with Picasso’s first years in Paris, she presents a paranoid and xenophobic city, still reeling from a decade of antisemitism and anarchist violence. Sure, it's a little improbable, but it's great fun and also very sweet.Cohen-Solal lays out her case in a formidable battery of documents, statements, immigration policies and sociological research. He finds himself developing that elusive personality, as he learns his new made-up tongue, falls in love with Catherine, and devises a heroic plan to save her, Betty, and Ellard from the Ku Klux Klan. "You're such a good listener," Catherine tells the silent Charlie Ellard, who will lose his share of the family inheritance unless he proves to Catherine that he's intelligent, finds that he is able to rapidly "teach" Charlie how to talk and read, with the latter "mastering" Shakespeare within hours.Īs for Charlie himself, the new persona fits better than he ever imagined. The lodge's other residents-Catherine Simms, a pretty young heiress who is engaged to a patient, smooth-talking reverend named David Marshall Lee, and her somewhat dull-witted brother, Ellard-join the Charlie bandwagon, too. Soon, she's convinced that she and Charlie have developed a special way of communicating with one another (she's positive that she taught him his first words of English, "Thank You," his reflexive response to a proffered cup of coffee). His friend Froggy LeSueur, a British military man on assignment in America, has found him this restful spot and, to ensure that no one bothers him, has told the proprietress Betty Meeks that Charlie is a foreigner and neither speaks nor understands a word of English.īetty, a cheery if not-too-bright elderly lady, is thrilled at the prospect of having a gen-u-wine foreigner at her inn, and quickly takes to the quiet young fellow. His wife (whose indifference to him has been marked by a prodigious number of affairs with other men) is dying he despairs of losing her and also that he does not seem to have a personality. Written in 1983, The Foreigner tells the story of Charlie Baker, a painfully shy fellow from England who has come to a remote town in rural Georgia for some R&R. It looks as though at least one full-length (high school) performance of the play and excerpts from at least one professional production are available to watch online. Especially in the first act it reminded me a bit of The Importance of Being Earnest, and that is high praise since it’s probably my favorite play. It’s mostly a very silly story but it’s smart, and there is also seriousness and a lot of heart. Uplifting too! I had a couple issues with the ending and enjoyed the first act more than the second, but overall it has a wonderful resolution, with an extra twist at the end. ![]() I found it to be wickedly funny, smart, and witty. I chortled my way through it and there were a few times I burst into laughter. ![]() I’m so glad that I got to it, eventually. Thanks to a recommendation and some urging from GR friend Caroline, I finally read this very funny and entertaining play. This edition does have illustrations at the end, of the stage set and of a special effect. The print in my (this) edition is so tiny that it did slow me down a bit. I was able to read Act 1 one day and Act 2 the next day and that worked well enough. I wish I’d started on a day when I could have read the entire play in one day. ![]()
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