TEHAN (IBNA) -- The 1955 play, ‘The Picture’ (French: Le Tableau) by leading Romanian-French ‎playwright Eugène Ionesco which portrays the dissolution of human existence deftly has ‎been rendered into Persian and published.‎
The play has been translated into Persian by Sanaz Sa’ei Dibavar. Tehran-based Ney Publishing has released ‘The Picture’ in 64 pages.
The work is a one-act play written by Eugène Ionesco and first published in Viridis Candela, the journal of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique. The first performance was in Paris at the théâtre de la Huchette in October 1955, directed by Robert Postec and with Pierre Leproux, Pierre Chevallier, Tsilla Chelton, Maria Murano.
Le Gros Monsieur, aka the fat gentleman, is an irresistible, shrewd businessman. Le Peintre, aka The Painter, wants to sell him his painting. Initially, he wants 500,000 francs for it but in the end, the fat gentleman so savagely criticizes the painting, when he finally looks at it, that the Le Peintre agrees to pay the fat gentleman to store his painting.
Alice, an old, ugly, and ill woman, is asked by her brother to lend him a hand. After the painter leaves, the brother-sister relationship is reversed and the meek creature becomes authoritarian and demanding, threatening her brother with her walking-stick.
The fat gentleman obeys her but, when she is not looking, he grabs a gun and shoots. A miracle happens: Alice transforms into a beautiful maid. The old and ugly neighbor comes in, and she becomes beautiful too. The painter then comes back and turns into Prince Charming. The fat gentleman is the only one who remains fat and ugly, so he asks the audience to shoot him.