DURAS, Marguerite
Agatha / Savannah Bay

Agatha is a semi-autobiographical play about a woman and her brother who meet at a deserted seaside hotel to confront their incestuous love for each other. Agatha was released as a film, Agatha et les lectures illimitées [Agatha and the Limitless Readings], directed by Duras, in 1981. As Duras wrote about the play, “Incest cannot be seen from the outside. It has no particular appearance… It is like nature. It grows up with nature, dies without ever having come to light, remains in the darkness of the bottom of the sea, in the darkness of the sands of the depths of time…”

Savannah Bay was played in Paris to delirious audiences. It was a play written (and directed) by Duras for Madeleine Renaud, a unique actress for whom she wrote in the Foreword: “You know you must play: you don’t remember what, you just play. Nor can you remember what your roles were, nor which of your children are alive or dead. Nor which are the locations, the settings, the capitals, or the continents, where you cried the passion of lovers. Only that the people in the audience have bought a ticket and that somebody owes them a performance. You are the stage actress, the splendor of the age of the world, its crowning achievement, the glory of its last delivery. You have forgotten everything except Savannah, Savannah Bay. Savannah Bay is you.” [publishers’ note]

Translated by Howard Limoli.

Published by The Post-Apollo Press, 1992
Literature