Portrait Of A Woman
by Michel Vinaver, Donald Watson

Considered the outstanding dramatist of the "theatre du quotidien," Michel Vinaver is probably the only living playwright in France today whose challenging plays have such a passionate international constituency.

Unique among them is this play based on the actual trial of a young woman, a medical student, who murdered her lover and was tried, convicted and condemned to hard labor for life.

What fascinated the playwright was the startling verbatim accounts of the young woman's trial which were published in Le Monde.

Packed away for some years, then irresistibly drawing the playwright back, they ignited what has become Michel Vinaver's most extraordinary play.

The woman's even greater crime, it appears, was her refusal to conform to the roles and the attitudes expected of her, thrust at her and ultimately demanded of her.

Intricate, simultaneous actions swirl around her, but she will not be contrite or angry.

Her replies do not coincide with the expectations of her questioners.

Untouched at the trial, her emotional needs only emerge from flashback scenes that evoke the key relationships of her earlier life.

And ultimately the playwright achieves a "portrait",of darkness, of light and of many colors.

Area staging.