Telling it like it isn't: the importance of the non-dit in Green's Sud.

Julien Green is perhaps one of the most successful, but least known American writers. He wrote mostly in French, even though he was born an American, and considered himself to be an American throughout his life. Celebrated in France for his novels, journals, plays, and other writings, in 1973 he was elected to the Academie Francaise, France's most prestigious literary institution. Although one would think that such acclaim and the availability of decent English-language translations of most of his works would have cultivated an American readership, Green remains virtually unknown to the lay reader and literary critic alike.

Green's identity as an American is not the only important aspect of his drama to have been ignored; his role as a writer who helped articulate gay identity is also largely unacknowledged. Green's play, Sud is one of the most important early attempts to deal with same-sex sexuality on stage, either in France or in the United States. Written in 1953, at the height of McCarthyism and concern over "un-American" activities, the play was never actually performed in the United States, despite being set in its eponymous location, the American South (Rose 184). It has, however, continued to interest American literary critics, particularly within the last ten years, as it has been the subject of articles in a number of literary journals and even in such popular periodicals as the New York Review of Books (Weightman 53-56).

When celebrated director, Louis Jouvet first staged Green's play in Paris in 1953, audiences were baffled by what they saw. "Ils ne comprennent rien, et ils adorent ca," quipped one of the actresses in the original production (Green, OC 1728). (1) Green's subject matter was so unfamiliar and communicated with such subtlety that most spectators didn't realize that it was about homosexuality. While it is true that Green's play is understated, the confusion likely stems from the fact that it is the non-dit, i.e., what isn't said, that communicates the play's true meaning. In Sud Green communicated a clear message about sexuality through the use of sous-entendus and didascalia in a way quite new to the stage. Although his meaning may have been lost on part of the public, Green's use of the theatrical text allowed him to depict same-sex love in an overt, but non-threatening, manner virtually unknown at the time.

In order to fully appreciate the text's significance it is important to place it in the context of other writing about same-sex sexuality. Although there were many gay and lesbian people involved in the production of drama, homosexuality remained a taboo subject. The effect was not only a lack of representation on the stage or on the page, but also the lack of an appropriate discourse for even writing of such subjects. As Marguerite Yourcenar, a contemporary of Green's also wrote:

   L'ecrivain qui cherche a traiter avec honnetete de
   l'aventure [d'un personnage homosexuel], eliminant
   de son langage les formules supposees bienseantes,
   mais en realite a demi effarouchees ou a demi grivoises
   qui sont celle de la litterature facile, n'a guere le
   choix qu'entre deux ou trois procedes d'expression
   plus ou moins defectueux et parfois inacceptables. Les
   termes du vocabulaire scientifique ... ne valent que
   pour les ouvrages specialises, pour lesquels ils sont
   faits; ces mots-etiquettes vont a l'encontre de la litterature,
   qui est l'individualite dans l'expression.
   L'obscenite ... reste une solution exterieure: l'hypocrite
   lecteur tend a accepter le mot incongru comme
   une forme de pittoresque, presque d'exotisme ...
   L'obscenite s'use vite.(4). (2)

The fact that Green has almost never used the word "homosexual" in any of his writings would indicate similar ideas about the unsuitability of medical discourse and obscenity (Green, Interview, 23-24). In order to write about same-sex love, Green and other authors writing about the same subject were therefore forced to create their own lexicons of appropriate expression.

Sud was Green's response to this lacuna. Within the context of the rest of his literary output, it becomes clear that theatre was essentially a period in his work that allowed him to write openly about homosexuality for the first time. Green stopped producing novels, the genre for which he was well known, in order to write three plays between 1952 and 1955. As his friend and principal literary critic, Jacques Petit has written, "Le theatre apparait ainsi dans son oeuvre comme limite a une epoque, impose par une evolution interieure" (Green, OC, 1714). (3) This internal evolution undoubtedly had to do with coming to terms with his own sexuality, which is why Petit has called these three plays, "les oeuvres les plus autobiographiques qu'il ait ecrites" (Green, OC, 1716). (4) It seems reasonable therefore to conclude that Green began to write drama to deal with his own sexuality, but that he had no dramatic literary precedent to guide him in his endeavor. Sud's attempt to represent homosexuality in a careful, sensitive way on the stage is what makes it such a fascinating and important play.

A brief summary of the plot of the play underlines its unconventionality. Greatly simplified, Sud is the story of a lieutenant, Ian Wiczewski, who, on the eve of the Civil War, falls in love with a soldier in the Confederate Army, Erik MacClure. This happens while both (although independently of each other) are visiting friends in South Carolina. There are various unrequited love-relationships in the play, all of which manage to impede one another. The play ends with a disconcerting mixture of tragedy and uncertainty as Lt. Wiczewski, after challenging MacClure to a duel for no apparent reason, allows MacClure to kill him, rather than live with his unavowed, unrequited love. The curtain falls to the sound of cannon fire, which instead of bringing any resolve marks the beginning of the Civil War.

It is not surprising that the nature of the subject matter informs the way the story is told. To make a tale about homosexuality in the late eighteenth-century believable, the characters cannot openly proclaim their sexuality. The study of dialogue and didascalia becomes important because it shows how Green writes of homosexual love without ever putting it into the dialogue. For, although it is perfectly clear to the other characters and to whoever reads the play, Lt. Wiczewski never articulates the exact nature of his inner conflict.

Before Ian Wiczewski's sexuality becomes even an unstated issue, he is marked as "different." Ian is identified as a foreigner throughout the play; "Vous aurez beau faire, vous ne serez jamais de chez nous. Vous, vous etes d'ailleurs." (Green, Oeuvres, 1000). (5) This phrase uttered by Regina near the beginning of Act I, Scene One could be considered a summary of his position in the play. This symbolic mark of vague "difference" is a typical way of alluding to a character's homosexuality. As Judith Butler asserts, Gender Trouble, "difference" is the principal way of defining someone. The nuances of how someone is different are secondary:

   People are different from each other. It is astonishing
   how few conceptual tools we have for dealing with
   this self-evident fact. A tiny number of inconceivably
   coarse axes of categorization have been painstakingly
   inscribed in current critical and political thought:
   gender, race, class, nationality, sexual orientation are
   pretty much the available distinctions. They with the
   associated demonstrations of the mechanisms by
   which they are constructed and reproduced, are indispensable
   and they may indeed override all or some
   other forms of difference and similarity ... Even people
   who share all or most of our own positionings along
   these crude axes may still be different enough from
   us, and from each other, to seem like all but different
   species. (22)

In the 1950's, sexual orientation as a means of distinction, while it existed, was not often talked or written about--and it was certainly not widely recognized in the time and place where Green has set the play: the American South on the eve of the Civil War. Still, Butler's assertions about difference can be useful assuming that since sexual orientation might not have been an acknowledged form of difference when Green wrote his play, one or more of the other categories might therefore have "overridden" it. Ian's difference is expressed mainly in terms of his nationality. He is "d'ailleurs" (from elsewhere). Although neither Regina nor the other characters in the play can identify what makes Ian not like them, they consider him to be of a "different species" and ascribe it to his being born in a foreign country (i.e., Poland).

Green constructs his play so that the reader does not fail to look beyond Ian's foreignness; there is another foreigner of sorts present in the play who, while different, fits better into the society in which she finds herself than does Ian. Regina, a transplant from Boston, is carefully compared with the lieutenant at the beginning of the play. She herself says that she is not at home in North Carolina, "Simplement, je n'aime pas le Sud?" (Green, OC, 1010). (6) Regina is the person, however, who makes the most of Ian's difference. It is she who speaks of "chez nous," despite being far from what she considers her home.

Ian's identity is thrown into question by other characters as well. Mrs. Strong, the widow whose name indicates her matronly power in the household, exposes the lie in the soldier without even being aware of doing so. After Regina leaves the scene, Mrs. Strong tries to get Ian to comment favorably upon her--perhaps with the intention of matchmaking. She asks him, "Comment vous trouvez ma niece?" (Green, OC 1006). (7) He first repeats the question, and then says some typical things about her physical attributes: "Elle a de beaux yeux. Ses cheveux ... " (Green, OC, 1006). (8) Mrs. Strong misinterprets his mumblings and thinks that fan doesn't care for Regina's looks, rather than that he doesn't even notice them. So that the reader doesn't make the same mistake, Green includes an ironic monologue from Mrs. Strong that innocently, albeit directly, alludes to Ian's homosexuality:

   Je me demande, du reste ce qu'on epouse et ce qui fait
   delirer les hommes quand ils patient de ce qu'on
   appelle le beau sexe. Pour moi, le beau sexe, c'est
   l'autre, justement. Mon venere marl m'eut fait taire.
   Quant a ma niece, je l'ai si souvent regardee que je ne
   sais plus du tout de quoi elle peut avoir l'air.
   Aujourd'hui, pour une raison que je m'en vais vous
   dire, j'essaie de la voir par les yeux d'un homme. C'est
   si curieux, un homme ... Voulez-vous avoir la bonte de
   donner un coup a mon fauteuil? Enfin, vous qui connaissez
   les femmes ... Eh la! Comme vous y allez!
   Vous voulez m'envoyer au plafond? Doucement, s'il
   vous plait! (Green, OC, 1006). (9)

Several things occur in Mrs. Strong's speech. First of all, she is most likely voicing Ian's thoughts exactly; he too has probably asked himself what makes men crazy about the supposed fair sex. When Mrs. Strong says that she is attempting to view Regina the way a man might, the reader becomes aware of a fairly subversive point of view on the part of Green. Namely, that a woman's attractiveness is in part due to the way that she is viewed by a man, and more importantly, that if only another woman could gaze at her in this same way then she, too would understand a man's desire. Ian's point of view being (literally) called into question makes him uncomfortable. If Mrs. Strong is able to "see" like a man, doesn't this imply that Ian may also be able to "see" like a woman? Moreover, could it imply that even if Ian does see like a man, he could be positioning himself in order to see this way--much as Mrs. Strong is doing while looking at Regina, but from a different point of view?

In feminist theory, this "gaze" has been often equated with a masculine position; the male is essentially a voyeur/subject that gazes upon the female/object (Mulvey 14). In her book, Male Subjectivity at the Margins, Kaja Silverman points out the link between male subjectivity and gazing, "The relationship between the eye and gaze is ... analogous in certain ways to that which links penis and phallus; the former can stand in for the latter, but can never approximate it." (130). Mrs. Strong's musings allude directly to this kind of viewpoint. She is somehow aware that if she can gaze as a man upon her niece, she will approximate a masculine point of view and therefore be able to judge her niece the way a man might. In other words, seeing as a man will give her masculine pleasure. Ian's own failure to see in this way could, therefore throw his masculinity into question, which is why he avoids the situation. Just as Mrs. Strong starts to question what Ian "sees" ("Enfin, vous qui connaissez les femmes ..."), he interrupts the conversation by pushing Mrs. Strong's chair (although at her request). This is an example of how Green uses dialogue to allude to Ian's homosexuality. He punctuates the non-dit with action (pushing the chair) but not in the form of stage directions, which he reserves for other purposes, as is shown in the latter part of this article.

The first act ends and the second begins with the appearance of Erik MacClure in a doorway. Ian, who simultaneously enters the room at the end of the act, is startled by the arrival of MacClure. He stands there, stunned, saying nothing. This awkward silence makes the reader aware that the meeting between Ian and MacClure is out of the ordinary; convention would dictate that the men introduce themselves immediately. This first scene of miscommunication establishes the difficulties that Ian and MacClure will have during the rest of the play. During their subsequent meeting, they engage in a similarly "ambiguous dialogue." (10) Each man thinks (or hopes) that he is talking about one thing, while in reality, the other man thinks (or hopes) that he is talking about something else. More specifically, MacClure believes that he and Ian are discussing the war and their allegiances, while Ian thinks that they are talking about matters of the heart. Even though MacClure may not understand what Ian is saying, it is in the second scene, however, that the meaning of Ian's words becomes most clear. Green even warns the reader to "read between the lines" through Ian's own introduction to his avowal:

   Ce que vous allez entendre vous etonnera, sans doute,
   et pourtant je seas trop bien que je ne pourrai jamais
   vous dire ce qui est en moi. En d'aurres temps, en
   d'autres lieux, peut-etre, mais ce soir, entre ces tours,
   non. Tout me ferme la bouche. L'air meme que je
   respire iciest pour moi comme un baillon. Ce decor,
   ces grands miroirs, ces arbres que je vois darts l'avenue
   me conseillent le silence. On ne doit pas parler, quand
   meme on devrait en mourir, et je crains cependant
   que de phrase en phrase, insensiblement, je ne sois
   amene a me livrer a vous, a romber dans le piege des
   mots ... (Ellipses part of the text.) (Green, OC,
   1068). (11)

The above quote would be difficult to interpret as something other than an allusion to "the love that dare not speak its name". (12) It is also a perfect description of Ian's predicament in a more general sense. We understand now that no one has directly addressed Ian's sexuality because no one knows how to articulate it. As Foucault argues in The History of Sexuality, prior to the late nineteenth century there existed no modern system for talking about sex. With the advent of a scientia sexualis (the discursive practice constituting the modern definition of sexuality), came the definition of both homosexuality and subsequently heterosexuality:

   The society that emerged in the nineteenth century ...
   put into operation an entire machinery for producing
   true discourses concerning {sex}. Not only did it
   speak of sex and compel everyone to do so; it also set
   out to formulate the uniform truth of sex. As if it suspected
   sex of harboring a fundamental secret. As it
   was essential that sex be inscribed not only in an
   economy of pleasure but in an ordered system of
   knowledge. (1:69)

On a plantation in the South, Ian would, of course, find himself in a society where this scientia sexualis was not in use. Far from being able to talk about his homosexuality, Ian would be silenced by his surroundings, which is why seemingly everything would prevent him from declaring his love or his identity.

The rest of this fateful scene is an example of Ian's inability to voice his homosexuality through dialogue. His declaration of love for MacClure may be thinly veiled, but its meaning is still lost on the young man. Several times during their conversation, Ian is misled into thinking that MacClure understands his allusions. These misunderstandings are written similarly in each case; every time MacClure says something that allows Ian to hope, it is written in the form of Ian repeating something that MacClure has just said. The following examples clarify this phenomenon:

MACCLURE: ... J'ai l'impression que tous ces roots dont vous vous servez dissimulent ce que vous n'osez dire. Peut-etre puis-je vous aider ...

IAN : M'aider?

MACCLURE: ... J'ai horreur des confidences et de la familiarite qu'elles provoquent, mais je serais aveugle si je ne comprenais pas que l'homme que j'ai devant moi est un homme ... eh bien! un homme qui souffre ...

IAN : ... Qui souffre. Oui.(Green, OC, 1068). (13)

Another example occurs a few lines later:

MACCLURE: {...} Vous vous faites de moi une idee singuliere. Je crois que vous me prenez pour un de ces puritains qui jadis envoyaient au bucher les hommes et les femmes soupconnes d'avoir encouru la reprobation du Seigneur. Grace a Dieu, le monde a change. Je concois tres bien que vous soyez amoureux, puisque je le suis moi-meme. L'amour n'est pas un peche.

IAN: L'amour n'est pas un peche?

MACCLURE: Cette phrase a l'air de vous surprendre. De nous deux, n'est-ce pas vous le puritain? (Green, OC, 1071). (14)

There are many instances of this type of repeated dialogue (often accompanied by an interrogative) through out the play. Each time that they occur, they indicate failed communication--a moment in the dialogue where a character (usually MacClure) has said something that someone else (usually Ian) has over-interpreted. In the first part of the exchange, for example, MacClure misunderstands what Ian says in two ways: he thinks that he is considering deserting the South to be in the northern army, and that he is in love with Regina. In actuality, Ian is little concerned with either of these things. He suffers because he wants MacClure but cannot tell him so. When MacClure offers help, Ian hopes that he will acknowledge his love for him without making Ian verbalize it. The second part is all the more striking because of the note of irony: MacClure says resolutely that love is not a sin, which proves that homosexual love is not even an idea in his mind. While trying to comfort Ian, MacClure's point of view means that he will never reciprocate Ian's love.

Later in the same scene, Ian's words become more and more telling. The scene is so filled with double-entendres and misunderstood allusions to homosexuality that it is tempting to reproduce it in its entirety. Examining even a few lines, however, underscores the inappropriateness of dialogue when talking about homosexuality. In the following line, Ian goes so far as to actually say, "I love you" to MacClure, but MacClure hears nothing because of his own ignorance:

IAN: Concevez-vous qu'un homme manque de courage au point de ne pouvoir avouer son amour? Qu'il se tienne devant la personne dont il est epris et ne puisse lui dire : <<Je volts aime ...>>?

MACCLURE: Oui. On peut etre tres courageux et n'avoir pas ce courage-la. (Ellipses included in the text.) (Green, OC, 1071-72). (15)

This dialogue is another instance of cruel irony; Ian is, of course, admitting to MacClure that he loves him. The French language lends itself very well to Ian's declaration. The "lui" in Ian's line could be either "him" or "her," thus preserving the ambiguity of Ian's admission. MacClure is not aware of any of this, however. Even though he can understand how Ian's heart may suffer, he is still unable to conceive of himself as the object of Ian's affections.

After an entire scene of similar dialogue, one is forced to wonder what MacClure would think if Ian really did come out and say to him, "You are the one whom I love." The reader never gets to find this out, although there is a critical moment when Ian makes one more effort to let MacClure know. It is important to notice, however, that in order to make his meaning clear, Ian abandons his exclusive reliance on dialogue. He touches MacClure, encircling him in a cryptic embrace. This final scene illustrates how the dialogue becomes clear only when accompanied by action:

IAN: Que faites-vous ici, seul avec moi dans cette piece, a parler de l'amour? (Il le saisit par le bras et le pousse devant le miroir.) Regarde-toi! Il est autour de toi, l'interdit, le cercle d'horreur, autour de ton visage, de tes epaules, de tes mains. Regarde ce front pur de tout desir, cette bouche sur laquelle nulle bouche ne s'est posee parce que tu as peur et que tu fais peur ...

MACCLURE: Lachez-moi! Si vous voulez vous battre, nous irons dehors, mais vous etes fou de me chercher querelle, je ne vous veux aucun mal.

IAN: Je ne te cherche pas querelle, imbecile! Je veux ta mort. (Green, OC, 1074). (16)

In one way, Ian is speaking metaphorically. "L'interdit, le cercle d'horreur" of which he is speaking could be interpreted by MacClure as unbridled emotion, corruption, or some other abstract threat to his purity. This time, unlike before when Ian merely made allusions, Ian is touching MacClure. His message is accordingly clear; finally MacClure begins to get his meaning, and responds with violence, "Lachez-moi! Si vous voulez vous batter ..." It is action, or more specifically, touch, that clarifies Ian's meaning. Green is imbuing action in his play with a power that words do not have. Despite Ian's declaration of love in several different ways, didascalia are what make everything clear. It is no coincidence that at the end of the scene, Ian goes on to seal his fate by slapping MacClure, thus challenging him to a duel.

DIDASCALIA IN GREEN'S SUD

As dramatic-literature critic Sanda Golopentia argues in her work, Voir les didascalies, the first significant didascalie is usually the list of characters, after the title (Golopentia 57). In Sud, "Personnages" has an important, if subtle didascalic function; it lists the characters not in order of their appearance, but first by their sex, and then by their importance in the play. It may be no surprise, given the secondary role of women in many of Green's works, that the female characters are listed last. Even though it may seem an arbitrary separation, it is arguable that this decision to list the women after the men accords them less importance. Looking more closely at the list of characters further supports this assertion: each of the male characters has a notation after his name (except for un negrillon (a black child), who hasn't a name). The character of Edouard Broderick, for example, has a didascalie explaining that he is "quarante ans, veuf" (forty years old, widowed) (Green, OC, 998). Most of the female characters, even those with important roles, are defined by their relationships with the male characters, for example, "REGINA, vingt-deux ans, niece d'EDOUARD BRODERICK." Ian is accorded even more importance than the other characters, although in an understated way. His name has an asterisk next to it, with a corresponding footnote explaining the pronunciation of his name. Even though this asterisk may seem more an issue of practicality than of preferential treatment, the fact still remains that his name is set apart visually by the asterisk, thus making it more noticeable. It is also first in the list. In this way the didascalie not only indicates that he is the protagonist, it also establishes a hierarchy for all the characters.

The didascalia included in the opening scene of Sud also make a statement about the Ian's masculinity and its subsequent vulnerability. They tell the reader not only who is on stage and where she/he is standing, but also describe how Lt. Wiczewski holds himself (debout et parfaitement immobile, le dos tourne aux spectateurs), and the object he is carrying (une badine)(Green, OC, 999). (17) At the risk of oversimplifying, Ian's erect position, and more importantly, the switch in his" hand could be considered indicators of his "phallic power." (18) The switch is mentioned several times during the first act; its physical position is always related to Ian's psychological position. At first he is accordingly presented as strong, if not as cruel, as he tries to force Regina to admit her affection for him, even though he does not reciprocate it. Ironically, as Ian is holding the switch, he begins to talk about being whipped by the Prussians after the execution of his father when he was a young boy. His tone is authoritative and unemotional, despite what must have been a painful experience:

REGINA: Les Prussiens ne vous ont rien fait?

IAN: Non. Rien. Ils m'ont fouette apres l'execution, pour l'exemple, disaient-ils C'est tout.

REGINA: On vous a fouette et vous trouvez que ca n'est rien?

IAN, riant doucement: Il y a douze arts de cela. La douleur est tres attenuee. (Green, OC, 1000). (19)

Ian's dismissal of the execution of his father and of his own beating is intended to show Regina how unemotional and masculine he is. The didascalie, "riant doucement" (laughing quietly) punctuates this statement.

The situation soon changes, however, as Ian faces assailants with more contemporary weapons; first in the form of Mrs. Strong, the ruler of the household, and then in the psychological presence of Erik MacClure, his destined object of desire. Soon after Mrs. Strong enters, she begins to talk about MacClure's impending visit. This excites Ian, although neither he nor the reader yet knows why. Almost as though she senses his emotion unconsciously, Mrs. Strong puts Ian in his place:

IAN: M. Broderick m'a mis au courant de [l'histoire des MacClures].

MRS. STRONG: Ce que vous ne savez pas, car enfin vous n'etes pas d'ici ... Oh, je ne dis pas cela pour vous offenser, lieutenant Wiczewski. (Elle rit doucement.) C'est meme ce qui fait votre charme aupres des femmes, ce quelque chose d'etranger. Allons, ne le niez pas, lieutenant Wiczewski, les femmes vous adorent. Vous les transportez avec vous clans la Pologne de M. Chopin, elles se croient tres malheureuses, tres interessantes, et cela les amuse comme des folles.

IAN: Madame ...

MRS. STRONG: Qu'est-ce que je vous disais?

IAN: Le jeune MacClure ...

MRS. STRONG: Parfaitement. Le jeune MacClure et son pere. Sachez que les MacClure sont de tres bonne famille. Ils habitent la region depuis deux siecles et leurs ancetres d'Ecosse etaient des voleurs de bestiaux, ce qui, vous ne l'ignorez pas, est une distinction dans ce pays-la. Ah! Mon Sventail a glisse. (Ian le ramasse et le lui tend.) (Green, OC, 1006-7). (20)

Note the similarity between this scene and the previously examined one where Ian moves Mrs. Strong's chair. Once again, she touches upon an uncomfortable subject for Ian: his attractiveness to women. This time, however, she prefaces her remarks with the reoccurring observation that Ian "n'est pas d'ici." Just as Regina makes a spectacle to call attention to his difference, so does Mrs. Strong to suggest the incompleteness of Ian's knowledge. The didascalic notation in this passage, "(Elle rit doucement)," punctuates Mrs. Strong's statement. She is laughing at the effect of Ian's exoticism: it makes him seem charming to women by making them think that both he and they are different people. Ian is only able to protest weakly, which marks, along with the subsequent dialogue, his deference to Mrs. Strong. He reminds Mrs. Strong of what she was talking, even though she was making him uncomfortable. A few lines later, he stoops to pick up Mrs. Strong's fan upon her command. The resemblance of this scene to the earlier one between the lieutenant and the widow invites the reader to compare the aforementioned badine to the fan, and subsequently to interpret Ian's gesture as deferent. By giving Mrs. Strong her fan, he is returning the phallic symbol to the person with the power. (21) It is also worth noting that fan is not carrying his switch at this point.

Just as Green uses scenic indications to question Ian's integrity during the first act of the play, he uses didascalia to clarify Ian's inner conflict during subsequent acts. As the didascalia implied in Ian's attempted declaration of love for MacClure show, he depicts his love as a physical threat encircling MacClure, while simultaneously embracing him. It is the didascalia at the end of the play that represent the final judgment of Ian, however. The most important action of act three, scene three (i.e., the duel between Ian and MacClure) happens off-stage. The audience sees only others' reactions to the duel, and then to Ian's death. At the end of the scene, when Ian's corpse is brought in, Edouard Broderick, MacClure, and Regina lament his death. The following didascalie explains the arrival of Ian's body on stage, and sets the scene for the final judgment:

      M. White sort par la droite. Regina se place
   a droite, exactement a l'endroit ou se tenait le lieutenant
   Wiczewski au debut de la piece. Elle ne bouge
   pas. Au bout de quelques secondes enrrent Edouard
   Broderick et deux negres portant le corps du
   lieutetenant {sic} Wiczewski. On lui a enveloppe la
   tete de sa tunique. Entre apres eux MacClure. Il fait
   encore assez sombre pour que personne ne remarque
   la presence de Regina. Les negres s'arretent au milieu
   de la piece. (Green, OC, 1081). (22)

This didascalie literally re-arranges the characters to assume new roles for the end of the play. Regina, as the didascalie specifically points out, places herself in the exact spot where Ian was standing at the beginning of the play, which leads the reader to believe that she and Ian are somehow changing places. Considering that the Lieutenant has just died, the symbolism of this didascalie is heightened; the spectator is supposed to see Ian and Regina representing two examples of unrequited love. Regina, who is in love with the now dead Ian, is condemned to dissatisfaction, just as Ian could never hope to possess the object of his desire, nor can Regina, thus inviting the conclusion that unrequited love is like death. Also significant is the fact that Regina remains unseen--much as Ian did during several scenes of the play. Her quasi-invisibility is reminiscent of Ian*s former fate: to hide a part of himself.

Although there are still many more examples of both didascalia and dialogue that illustrate the relationship between the non-dit and the representation of Ian's sexuality, those analyzed already point to several conclusions: Green uses dialogue to allude to, but not to reveal his protagonist's sexuality. Although the characters of the play freely recognize Ian's difference, they cannot articulate it. This is accomplished through the didascalia. The scenic indications of Sud establish a hierarchy of importance for the characters, indicating who the protagonist is and privileging his conflicts. Didascalia also make clear Ian's fragile position and wavering power, showing the reader that Ian is most threatened by and vulnerable to the attentions of women. He resolves his conflict by choosing death at the hands of a man, rather than live in a world that recognizes only heterosexual desire.

Although Sud was so subtle that many of its readers may not have understood either its subject or its message, the courageousness of both earns the play an important place not only in the history of American drama, but also in that of gay and lesbian literature. Rather than be stymied by the dearth of appropriate language to talk about homosexuality or by the potentially hostile reception by an uninitiated public, Green used the subtle interplay between dialogue and didascalia to give clues about Ian's sexuality through the former that were then clarified by the latter. The net result was a play in which the protagonist recognizes, accepts and dies for the love in which he believes, rather than continue to live a lie. Although such a tragic ending is hardly an acceptable fate for a gay man, it is still an accomplishment that Ian was gay, and that Green said he was so. Happily, within only a decade or so after the publication of Sud, other authors were writing of similar subjects with less horrible outcomes. Such progress must be attributed in part, however, to authors like Green, who were among the first to write plays in which homosexuality was the principal subject of the play, and in which the protagonist who came to terms with his difference was not simply an aberration, but an admirable, if struggling man.

Notes

(1.) They don't understand a thing, and they love it.

(2.) The writer who is looking to treat adventure of a homosexual character honestly, eliminating from his language the supposedly "decent" formulas, but which are in reality half-timid and half-licentious which are those of easy literature, has hardly a choice between two or three procedures of expression more or less defective and sometimes unacceptable. The terms from scientific vocabulary ... are only of value for specialized works, for which they were coined, these word-labels go against literature, which is individuality in expression. Obscenity ... remains an exterior solution: the hypocritical reader tends to accept the incongruous word like a Pittoresque form, or almost like exoticism ... Obscenity gets old very quickly.

(3.) Theatre thus appears in his work as if limited to a period, imposed by an internal evolution.

(4.) The most autobiographical works that he wrote.

(5.) Do what you will, you will never be one of us. You, you are from elsewhere.

(6.) Simply, I don't like the South.

(7.) What do you think of my niece?

(8.) She has beautiful eyes. Her hair ...

(9.) I ask myself, moreover, what one marries and what makes men crazy when they speak of what is called the fair sex. For me, the fair sex is the other, of course. My revered husband would have made me shut up. As to my niece, I have looked at her so often that I no longer have any idea what she's like. Today, for reasons that I'm going to tell you, I'm trying to look at her with the eyes of a man. Men are so strange ... Would you be so good as to give my armchair a push? After all, you who know women ... Hey there, how you're going at it! Do you want to send me to the ceiling? Gently, please!

(10.) This was how Camus described the dialogue of the entire play in a letter to Julien Green, "Votre lenteur est ici necessaire, vos reticences sont cenes du sujet, et l'ambiguite du dialogue que j'ai goutee par-dessus tout est ellememe de la fatalite que vous depeignez" (OC, 3:1730).

(11.) IAN: What you are going to hear will surprise you, no doubt, I feel too acutely, however, that I will never be able to tell you what is in me. In other times, in other places, perhaps, but tonight, between these walls, no. Everything is keeping my mouth shut. Even the air that I breath here is for me like agag. This decor, these big mirrors, these trees that I see in the avenue counsel me silence. One mustn't speak, even if one die of it, yet I fear, however, that from sentence to sentence, imperceptibly, I am induced to surrender myself to you, to fall into the trap of words ...

(12.) Homosexuality was first called "the love that dare not speak its name" by Oscar Wilde.

(13.) MACCLURE: ... I have the impressions that all these words that you are using are concealing what you don't dare say. Perhaps I can help you ...

IAN: Help me?

MACCLURE: ... I have a horror of confidences and the familiarity that they provoke, but I would be blind if I didn't understand that the man before me is a man ... well! a man who suffers ...

IAN: Who suffers. Yes. (Green, OC, 3:1068)

(14) MACCLURE: ... You have a some very curious ideas about me. I think that you take me for one of those Puritans that formerly sent men and women suspected of incurring the reprobation of God to he burned at the stake. Thank God, the world has changed. I comprehend very well that you are in love, because I am myself. Love is not a sin.

IAN : Love is not a sin?

MACCLURE: This phrase seems to surprise you. Of the two of us, isn't it you who is the Puritan? (Green, OC, 3:1071)

(15.) IAN : Can you imagine that a man lacks courage to the point that he cannot admit his love? That he stands before the person with whom he is taken and cannot say to [her/him]: "I love you ..."?

MACCLURE : Yes. One could be very courageous and not have that kind of courage." (Green, OC, 3:1071-72)

(16.) IAN: What are you doing here, alone with me in this room, talking about love? (He takes him by the arm and pushes him in front of the mirror) Look at yourself! It is around you, the forbidden one, the circle of horror, around your face, your shoulders, your hands. Look at this forehead pure of all desire, this mouth which no mouth has ever touched, because you are afraid and you frighten ...

MACCLURE: Let go of me! If you want to fight, let's go outside, but you are crazy to quarrel with me. I don't wish you any harm.

IAN : I'm not looking for a fight, imbecile! I want your death. (Green, OC, 3:1074)

(17) ... on his feet and perfectly immobile, his back towards the audience" ..." a switch." (Green, OC, 3:999)

(18.) I am referring to Lacan's theory about the fungibility of the penis and phallus as the symbol of power in Western society. I am assuming that the reader has knowledge of and will accept this equation.

(19.) REGINA; The Prussians didn't do anything to you?

IAN: No. Nothing. They whipped me after the execution, as an example, they said. That's all.

REGINA: They whipped you and you call that nothing?

IAN, laughing quietly: That was twelve years ago. The pain is very dull. (Green, OC, 3:1000)

(20.) IAN: Mr. Broderick brought me up to date on the Mac Clures' story. MRS. STRONG: What you don't know because you aren't from here ... Oh, I'm not saying that to offend you, Lieutenant Wiczewski. (She laughs quietly.) It's even just what makes you charming to women, this foreign something. Well, don't deny it, Lieutenant Wiczewski, women adore you. You transport them to the Poland of Mr. Chopin, they think themselves very unhappy, very interesting, and that amuses them to no end.

IAN: Madame ...

MRS. STRONG: What was I saying to you?

IAN: The young MacClure ...

MRS. STRONG: Exactly. The young MacClure and his father. Know that the MacClures come from a very good family. They have lived in the region for two centuries and their ancestors from Scotland were horse thieves, which, as you know, is a distinction in that country. Ah! My fan fell. (Ian picks it up and gives it to her.) (Green, OC, 3:1006-7).

(21.) In Act III, Scene II we see a similar scene with Eliza, the mulatto slave, who fetishizes the very same fan Mrs. Strong has dropped in the scene above. When she finds it between the cushions, she takes it and preens before a mirror until she is interrupted. The scene further supports the fan's status representation of power.

(22.) M. White exits right. Regina places herself to the right, in the exact spot where Lieutenant Wiczewski was standing at the beginning of the play. She does not move. After several seconds, enter Edouard Broderick and two Negroes carry the body of Lieutetenant [[sic].sup.**] Wiczewski. His head has been wrapped in his tunic. Enter Mac Clure after them. It is still dark enough that no one remarks Regina's presence. The Negroes stop in the middle of the room. (Green, OC, 3:1081). The typographical error "Lieutetenant" is grimly humorous, in that it has inadvertently added the French word for head, "tete," to the title of Lieutenant Wiczewski, who has just died from a head-wound.

WORKS CITED

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Golopentia, Sanda et Monique Martinez Thomas. Voir les didascalies. Toulouse: Iberia, 1994.

Green, Julien. Interview with Pierre Assouline. Lire. Sept. 1993: 22-29.

--. CEuvres completes. Vol. II. Edition de Jacques Petit. Paris: Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, 1972-1993.

Mulvey, Laura "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Visual and Other Pleasures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. 14-26.

Rose, Marilyn Gaddis. "Traduction-Retour: A Strategy for Making Stage Sense of a Bilingual Dramatist--the Example of Green's SUD." Page to Stage: Theatre as Translation. Ed. Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1984. 183-190.

Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.

Silverman, Kaja. Male Subjectivity at the Margins. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Weightman, John. "Sex and the Devil." The New York Review of Books, 5 Dec. 1991.53-56.

Yourcenar, Marguerite. CEuvres romanesques. Paris: Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, 1982.

THOMAS J. D. ARMBRECHT is an Assistant Professor of French at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Tom is currently completing a book that compares the textual representation of sexual identity in prose, theatre and autofiction in the works of Marguerite Yourcenar and Julien Green.