Cover art compliments of the Brian Stewart Collection

Americans in France

Eugène Brieux, translated by Felicia Londré

$15.00$15.95

Book Item Icon $15.95
PDF ePlay Item Icon
Enter total users
$15.00
PERFORMANCE RIGHTS

Description

Misunderstandings arise when a bumptious but well-meaning American, Captain Smith, tries to bring Yankee innovation to a tradition-bound French family in a decaying ancestral home in Burgundy. France had welcomed the American soldiers and nurses who arrived in 1917 to help the war-ravaged nation beat back the invader. But in peacetime the immediate issue is how Americans have driven up the price of eggs. The Franco-American culture clash intensifies with Henri’s announcement that he wants to marry an American nurse he met when they together tended the wounded near the front. Nurse Nellie shows up, quite oblivious of the expected formalities. Henri’s older sister Henriette has her own ideas about what her brother’s future should be, and this eventually culminates in a cat-fight between the two women. Brieux took pains to allow sympathy for each woman, even as each epitomizes her own culture: the liberated New Woman vs. the presumed spinster. The comedy of misunderstandings plays out in hilarious scenes like that of a paper-shuffling notary and in Captain Smith’s lovably exuberant social clumsiness. While Brieux here favors warm laughter over his usual social justice issues, contemporary resonances lurk in his environmental and economic subtext. French and Americans alike are changed by their close encounters.

Production Info

Cast: 11 total (4 female, 6 male, 1 child, doubling possible)
Full Length Comedy (about 120 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
Reviews

Press Quotes

“Let’s congratulate M. Brieux for giving us something that can satisfy both Americans and French at the same time … Sudden contact between two peoples will inevitably spark dramatic crises … M. Brieux’s play has earned its success.” —Xavier de Courville, La Revue critique des idées et des livres

“The simple truths that M. Brieux teaches us in LES AMÉRICAINS CHEZ NOUS are truths we should all embrace.” —Jacques Villerest, Correspondance d’Orient

“M. Brieux adds another success to his roster … with clear and witty dialogue … it will interest and entertain.” —Maximin Roll, Les Potins de Paris

“LES AMÉRICAINS CHEZ NOUS … a work rich in observations, ideas, and dramatic exchanges.” —Léo Claretie, La Rampe

“The play is full of these bits that are both charming and touching … His artifice enchants with its elements of loyalty, frankness, serious and intelligent honesty.” —Henri Bidou, Journal des débats politiques et littéraires

About the Author

Author

  • Eugène Brieux

    Eugène Brieux (1858–1932) wrote LES AMÉRICAINS CHEZ NOUS (AMERICANS IN FRANCE, 1920) in a spirit of gratitude toward Americans for having rallied to the aid of the Allies in the Great War and with a warmth of feeling that turned him again after a long hiatus to write in a comic vein. He was also personally grateful to Americans for their acceptance of his earlier play LES AVARIÉS, which dealt with the effects of syphilis transmitted to a wife and child and which had been banned from the French stage in 1901. Touting its educational value, actor Richard Bennett successfully produced and toured it as DAMAGED GOODS in the United States in 1913, the same year that Upton Sinclair published a novelization of the play, with Brieux's approval. Brieux had risen from poverty and began by writing comedies while working as a journalist. His breakthrough came in 1892 when André Antoine staged BLANCHETTE at the Théâtre Libre, a Paris theatre that specialized in Zola-inspired gritty Naturalism. Brieux's plays of the 1890s, 1900s, and 1910s continued exploration of controversial social problems, demonstrating particularly the difficulties faced by women. LA ROBE ROUGE (THE RED ROBE, 1900) exposed corruption in the judicial system. MATERNITÉ (MATERNITY, 1900) touches on abortion. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1910. During the Great War, Brieux devoted himself entirely to aid for blinded soldiers. While posterity would not validate Bernard Shaw's declaration that Brieux was "the greatest writer France has produced since Molière," his plays brought difficult issues to mainstream audiences and often led to reforms. His contemporaries wrote of his sincerity, his unassuming humanity, and his personal generosity.

  • Felicia Londré

    Felicia Londré is Curators' Distinguished Professor Emerita of Theatre at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she taught theatre history for 42 years, supervised 90 M.A. theses, published 17 books and hundreds of articles and reviews. After retirement in 2019, she devoted three years, as president of the nonprofit KC MOlière: 400 in 2022, to an internationally-acclaimed city-wide, omni-arts celebration of Molière's 400th birthday. That project stimulated her verse translation of THE PESTS from Moliere's Les Fâcheux. With Brieux's AMERICANS IN FRANCE, she is back in her fin-de-siècle comfort zone. Felicia's other translations that have been produced are AN ITALIAN STRAW HAT by Labiche, TRIO by Kado Kostzer and Alfredo Arias, THE SHOW-MAN by Andrée Chedid, THE SNOWMAIDEN by Ostrovsky, TWO MAPLES by Shvarts, and LITTLE HUMPBACKED HORSE by Malyarevsky. Dr. Londré's 2008 book The Enchanted Years of the Stage won the Theatre Library Association's George Freedley Memorial Award. She served a term (2012–14) as Dean of The College of Fellows of the American Theatre. Felicia's recognitions include ATHE's 2001 Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education Award and the 2011 Betty Jean Jones Award for Outstanding Teacher of American Theatre and Drama. She taught a semester at Hosei University in Tokyo and has presented papers at many national and international conferences. As Honorary Co-Founder of Kansas City's Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, she served twelve years (1992–2004) on that board. She was resident dramaturg for Missouri Repertory Theatre, 1978–2001.

About the Book

Book Information

Publisher BPPI
Publication Date 9/6/2024
Pages 96
ISBN 9798888560181

Special Notes

Special Notes

Licensees are required to include the original stage producers credits in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
The following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
Americans in France is produced
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com