Used book – The Cave, Jean Anouilh, Benjamin Girault

Paris, 1900s. In the basement of a bourgeois house, the cook has been stabbed. Who killed Marie-Jeanne? A police commissioner leads the investigation. This could be a successful detective comedy. But, from the very first act, the author apologizes to the audience. The play is not written: it will be written before them! Worse still, as the performance progresses, the author refuses to show the infamous fate of his characters on stage. This is too much, the protagonists revolt: if they cannot say everything, they prefer not to exist. Under these circumstances, will the commissioner be able to solve the crime and the author complete his work? A play within a play, The Cave exposes the theatrical machinery and defies dramatic illusion. Challenging the conventions of the genre, Anouilh reveals to us the torments of creation and representation.