Background
French playwright, was born June 23, 1910, in Bordeaux and educated in Paris. He studied law at the Sorbonne but left to do advertising copy writing, which he considered good discipline for precision and conciseness of expression in his writing. He had begun short plays at the age of 10, completed his first full-length play at 16, and now turned seriously to playwriting to supplement his income. He sold comedy ideas to film producers, wrote his 10-minute curtain-raiser Humulus le muet in 1929 (pub. 1945), and including one-acters wrote about two dozen stage plays and a dozen screenplays. Anouilh also wrote two ballets, Les Desmoiselles de la nuit (1948) and Le Loup (1953). He died in Lausanne, Switzerland, Oct. 3, 1987.
Anouilh's plays include Le Voyageur sans bagage (1937; Traveller Without Luggage, 1964), Le Bal des voleurs (1938; Thieves' Carnival, 1952), Eurydice (1942; tr. Legend of Lovers, 1952), Antigone (1943; Eng. tr., 1946), L'Invitation au châteauchateau (1947; adapted by Christopher Fry as Ring Round the Moon, 1950), La Valse des toréadorstoreadors (1952; The Waltz of the Toreadors, 1956), L'Alouette (1953; adapted by Lillian Hellman as The Lark, 1955), Becket (1960; Eng. tr., 1962), and Ne RéveillezReveillez pas, madame (1970). His plays are full of wit, charm, and fantasy but also contain pessimism and bitterness. Outside of France they have been most successful in the Scandinavian countries and in Germany, Spain, and Italy.