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Mar 24, 2024 · Both 'in the balcony' and 'on the balcony' are correct, but they are used in different contexts. 'On the balcony' is more commonly used to indicate someone's location on the balcony surface, while 'in the balcony' can be used to describe being inside the balcony area or space. Last updated: March 24, 2024.
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Sources
- Further Reading
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Genet was born on December 19, 1910, in Paris, France. He was the illegitimate son of Gabrielle Genet, a prostitute, and an unknown father. He was abandoned at birth, and did not discover the name of his mother until he was twenty-one years old. Genet spent his early years in a state-run orphanage, before being sent to the country to live with fost...
Scene I
The Balconyopens in a brothel, The Grand Balcony, that caters to the fantasies of its male clientele. Irma, the owner of the whorehouse, is arguing with a customer over a fee. He is dressed as a bishop, and is only interested in the revolution that is going on outside and the truthfulness of the sins the woman who serviced him has confessed to. Irma tries to hurry him, but he will not be rushed. He enjoys his role and continues to play it. He does not leave despite the fact that his safety is...
Scene II
Inside a room in the brothel, a client plays out a fantasy as a Judge. His whore plays a thief who is about to be executed by the executioner, played by a male employee of the establishment named Arthur. The Judge also relishes his role-play. Every outside noise, however, upsets him. He worries about the revolution, sharing the latest information with the other two. When he returns to his role, he can enjoy it too much, scaring the woman. Mostly, the Judge is the one who is humiliated by the...
Scene III
In another room, Irma arranges the setting for the liking of a client who plays a General. Though he is concerned about his safety, he is equally obsessed about the details of his fantasy, and wants them followed to the letter. The General’s whore is nearly naked and acts like his horse.
Arthur
Arthur (also known as The Executioner) works at the whorehouse, playing the Executioner and other roles in the male clientele’s fantasy. Irma was forced to hire him by George, the Chief of Police. Though she was reluctant at first, she came to rely on him. Arthur cares solely about his own interests and money. He goes to find George for Irma, only because she will give him money for silk shirts he has ordered. Arthur survives the rebellion in the street, only to be shot dead by a stray bullet...
The Bishop
The Bishop is one of the clients at the Grand Balcony. He is not actually a bishop, but a customer who plays one in his fantasy. As a client, he is rather fussy, concerned that the details of his fantasy are perfect and that he will survive in the streets after he leaves. Later, when Irma plays the Queen at the Envoy’s request to hold onto the loyalty of the people, the Bishop plays his role for real for a short time. He enjoys the power that comes with it, though he is totally unprepared. He...
Carmen
Carmen is Irma’s most loyal and favorite employee. At one time, Carmen worked as a whore in the brothel, but now only keeps the books and assists in preparing the studios for the clients’ fantasies. Carmen realizes the futility of the fantasies and can no longer do it, though Irma offers her a choice assignment. Carmen has a daughter who lives in the country. She desperately wants to see and be with her child, but she cannot. Carmen stays at the Grand Balcony to the end, even after it is bomb...
Illusion and Reality
The primary theme in The Balconyis the tension between the illusions that rule inside the brothel and the intrusion of reality that rules on the outside. Common men pay money to live out their fantasies in The Grand Balcony. They primarily choose to be men in power (a judge, a bishop, a general), though some who are rich chose to be poor (a tramp). Details are important to these men: their costumes must be perfectly realistic for their fantasies to be enjoyed. Irma, the brothel owner, is conc...
Death
An undercurrent of death permeates The Balcony. Though only two minor characters (Chantal and Arthur) actually die in the course of the play, death is used as a symbol of immortality. Irma’s clients often discuss its power. Chantal, a former prostitutes who leaves The Grand Balcony to join the rebellion with her lover, is chosen as a figure-head or symbol for the revolution, and she is assassinated on the balcony at the brothel. Upon her death, she is co-opted by the side of the royals and ma...
Value of Rituals and Symbols
Throughout The Balcony,rituals and symbols are depicted as both important and perverted representations of values. The clients of The Grand Balcony brothel insist that the rituals and symbols of the people they are depicting in their fantasies (judge, general, etc.) are as realistic as possible. In this sense, rituals and symbols are respected. Irma spends money to insure that these things are as accurate as possible. Rituals and symbols provide the realism needed to insure that illusion has...
Setting
The Balconyis an absurdist play set in no specific time or place. Nearly all of the action of the play takes place inside The Grand Balcony, a brothel that serves the fantasies of its male clientele. The brothel has different rooms, or studios, that are set up to fulfill these fantasies. The studios shown in
TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Research the theories of Antonin Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty. Analyze The Balconyin this context. 2. Compare and contrast The Balcony with Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit(1943). Especially focus on the characters of Irma in The Balcony and Inez in No Exit. How do the two women try to control their situation? 3. Do sociological and psychological research into women who become prostitutes. Why do women like Carmen chose to stay at the brothel instead of going to find their daughters? I...
Props, Costumes, and Scenic Decor
Key to the construction and themes of The Balcony are the props, costumes, and scenic decor, especially, the mirrors. To fulfill the fantasies of the clients and emphasize the illusionary element of the play, these costumes and other props must be as realistic as possible. Irma complains of the cost of creating such detail, but later, when she is pressed into service to play the Queen for the public and her clients assume their fantasy roles as well, they seem to have been accepted as the rea...
In the mid- to late-1950s, France was still recovering from World War II. During the much of the war, the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. While there were those who collaborated with the Germans—including the Vichy government, which ruled France under the direction of the Germans—an underground movement also existed. The French Resistance wor...
Though The Balcony was Genet’s first commercially successful play, the playwright was intensely critical of its first production in London in 1957. Genet believed it was not true to his text; that it was too ordinary and small, whereas his text called for big, theatrical, and bawdy. Martin Esslin, in his book The Theatre of the Absurd,called it “a ...
Annette Petruso
Annette Petruso is a freelance author and screenwriter in Austin, TX. In the following essay, Petruso explores the complex depiction of women inThe Balcony. Of Jean Genet’s The Balcony, Robert Brustein noted in the New Republic that “Genet is less interested in the titillations of pornography than its philosophical implications; and the erotic scenes are merely a prologue to his theaticalized version of society, of life, and of history.” Though The Balcony is absurdist, it is revealing in its...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. The Blacks (Les Núgres)is a play by Genet that was first published in 1958. In the play, there is also tension between the status quo and a rebellion. Here, the rebels, black actors, mock white colonial society and, to some degree, win some measure of revenge. 2. The Visit, a play by Friedrich Durrenmatt that was first performed in 1960, concerns topics similar to The Balcony. The anti-capitalist play focuses on a woman who runs a brothel. 3. Our Lady of the Flowers (Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs)...
Albert Bermel
In this excerpt from “Society as a Brothel: Genet’s Satire in ’The Balcony,”’ Bermel explores the implementation of imagination to portray satire. Genet’s plays, like Pirandello’s, have become a treasure house for the rococo critical imagination. As the visitor basks in the heady atmosphere—the mirrors, the screens, masks, grandiose costumes and cothurni,the role-playing, verbal efflorescence, and paradoxes—he burbles about the undecipherable nature of levels, dimensions, contexts, multiple i...
Abel, Lionel, “Metatheater,” in Partisan Review,Spring, 1960, pp. 324-30. Atkinson, Brooks, review of The Balcony, in The New York Times,March 20, 1960, section 2, p. 1. ______, “Work by Genet Opens at Circle in Square,” in The New York Times,March 4, 1960, p. 21. Brustein, Robert, “The Brothel and the Western World,” in The New Republic,March 28, ...
Jacobsen, Josephine, and William R. Mueller, Ionesco and Genet: Playwrights of Silence,Hill & Wang, 1968. Sartre, Jean-Paul, and Bernard Fechtman, trans., Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr,Pantheon Books, 1963. Thody, Philip, Jean Genet: A Study of His Novels and Plays,Stein and Day, 1968. White, Edmund, Genet: A Biography,Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
The Balcony is a black comedy that explores the themes of reality and illusion, sex and power, and revolution and crime. Set in a brothel where customers play out their fantasies, the play reflects on the emptiness of societal roles and the dangers of the outside world.
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2 days ago · After placing the smaller building, use the editing tools to transform it into a balcony. Begin by dragging the bottom of this smaller structure upward, elevating it to create a pedestal effect. This gives your balcony a sense of height and separation from the ground. Next, adjust the roofline by dragging it down until the roof is completely ...
