Martine

By: Jean-Jacques Bernard, John Fowles (Translator)

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Paperback | 17 April 2014

At a Glance

Paperback
80 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.59 x 13.34 x 1.27

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"When you're away I can't survive without her, I keep talking to her about you. And I hurt her. I seem to have to do it." The Great War is over. It is the summer of 1920, in rural France. By a dusty road, a girl is sitting under the shade of an apple tree. She sees someone walking towards her. He is a young man, just back from fighting in Syria. He joins her under the tree, and a tragic love story begins. Often compared to Chekhov, and much admired by Harold Pinter, Jean-Jacques Bernard creates a unique emotional landscape of beauty and longing, desire and disappointment. Originally written in 1922, Martine was produced all over the world during the 1920s with many leading actresses of the day in the title role, including Madeleine Renaud. It was first produced in English at the Gate Theatre in 1929, and played the West End in 1933. During the 1920s and 1930s, it was performed all over the world. It was filmed for the BBC in 1952 with a cast including Claire Bloom and Denholm Elliot, and in 1985 John Fowles's translation was produced at the National Theatre, directed by Peter Hall, starring Wendy Morgan.

Industry Reviews

'A luminous minor masterpiece - Deeply moving.' The Sunday Times 'Extraordinarily effective and intensely moving.' Peter Hepple, The Stage 'Marvellously and movingly real - It's with good reason that Bernard has been compared to Chekhov. He's interested in suggestion and moral nuance, not in sensational event or the blacks and whites of melodrama. It's his aim to show very little, not how much, can destroy a person.' Benedict Nightingale, New Statesman 'A beautiful play - The rare and lasting quality of the play is that it succeeds in dramatising a cycle of commonplace events which most writers would have felt obliged to distort for theatrical effect.' Irving Wardle, The Times 'Nothing is said, but emotions throb beneath the lines. And you may catch the sound of a heart breaking.' Mail on Sunday 'Bernard shows himself to be a masterly theatrical ironist - a minor masterpiece - a timeless tragedy.' Michael Billington, Guardian

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