DONA JUANA
The Book :
L’Avant Scène n° 812 – 1987
Price: 5.34 euros
Cast :
6 : 2 women and 4 men, could be played by 5 actors (2 females and 3 males)
The Plot :
Don Juan from the female angle. All the men fall under Juana’s charm especially those with a reputation for inaccessibility. It doesn’t take long to bring them round. With all the qualities of spontaneous comedy, this play is a serious statement in which the message is not immediately clear. In this farce we cannot help laughing at the innumerable misfortunes which strike victims from all ages, countries, professions, beliefs………and gender!
Translations :
- Translation into Turkish by Ferhan Sensoy
Dramatic Productions :
- at the National Theatre, Iasi, directed by Ovidiu Lazar
Reviews :- « a farce stuffed full of references, sprightly, cheeky, full of action and laughs, cocking a snoop at conventional morality. You come out of the experience on top form. »
Gérard Diard - Charlie Hebdo- « Anca Visdei, like many before her, is under the spell of Don Juan, or Don Giovanni if you like, whether he be myth, man or woman. Here the name is Dona Juana, the title of her latest play. This fascination with seduction clearly comes out in her first comedy "The Terrible Fate of a Seducer" which won the prize in the competition l’Acte (Metz 1985). It is also the dominant feature of her novel "The Eternal Lover or The Confessions of a Seducer" which took the bookshops by storm last summer. Have you noticed? In the theatre it’s the end of a seducer who assumes the identity of ‘Dona Juana’; in the novel it’s the confessions of a seducer, Don Juan, Dona Juana; the gender is of no importance; it’s always the personification of seduction. Don Juan! The ‘Joker’ the cheat, as they say in Spain, because seduction is fatally deceitful…As to the rest, Anca Visdei knows what she’s talking about. The relationship she has with her protagonist, male or female is oedipean and the protagonist, step by step, takes on the role of lover (or husband), of brother (or of sister) of father (or of confessor) who must be seduced – yet again, always seduced – or killed …. or yet again – a much more refined touch – prompted to kill himself …. Juana is the ultimate seducer in all her glory. The writer states that she has black hair and violet eyes….. a colour that she believes characterizes those she strives to conquer….. the colour that disappears the moment they no longer seduce….in other words as soon as she wins them over, ‘possesses’ them. It is undoubtedly a question of ‘possession’ – brutal, absolute, definitive. And then? On your way and enter the next victim! You can moralize as much as you like but here it is no longer a question of morality. In the meantime…. let yourself be seduced… »
André Camp- « A gift for chiselling dialogues, a way of biting characters with tenderness, but not without irony, a definite talent for unravelling delicious intrigues. Yet another stage in the journey of a writer who really matters… »
Armelle Héliot