In this play, written in 1905, Claudel explores the relationship between the adulterous lovers Mesa and Ysé on two levels—the real world (on a boat and in China) and the Platonic eternity in which their union has been forged. There is a tension between a Romantic, fatalistic attitude to love and its effects, and Christian responsibility for evil; despite Claudel's later preface (to the stage version of 1948), the tension is not resolved even by the lovers' Liebestod in Act III. In the cadre of a ‘well-made play’ on an adulterous theme, Claudel succeeds in producing a drama of cosmic dimensions.
[Richard Griffiths]
