Biography

The life of Martinican author Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) spans the 20th century and its anti-colonial movements. He was not only responsible for Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (first published in Spanish 1942; original French version 1947; translated as Memorandum on My Martinique, 1947), a widely acknowledged masterpiece documenting the 20th-century colonial condition, but he was also an accomplished playwright. Like his poetry and polemical essays, Césaire’s plays explore the paradox of Black identity under French colonial rule. Césaire’s shift to drama in the late 1950s and 1960s allowed him to integrate the modernist and surrealist techniques of his poetry and the polemics of his prose. In what Césaire describes as his “triptych” of plays, La Tragédie du roi Christophe (published 1963, produced 1964; translated as The Tragedy of King Christophe, 1970), Une Saison au Congo (published 1965; translated as A Season in the Congo, 1968; produced 1976), and Une Tempête (published and produced 1969; translated as A Tempest, 1985), he explores a series of related themes, especially the efforts of Blacks—whether in Africa, the United States, or the Caribbean—to resist the powers of colonial domination.

Césaire was born in Basse-Pointe, in the north of the island of Martinique, the second of the six children of Fernand Césaire, a minor government official, and his wife, Eléonore, a seamstress. Although the family was poor, Césaire received a good education and early showed his aptitude for studies. He first attended the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique, and then he received a scholarship to attend the prestigious Lycée Louis le Grand in Paris. There he met a Senegalese student, the future poet and African politician Léopold Senghor. In 1934 Césaire, with Senghor and Guyanan poet Léon Damas, founded the student journal Etudiant Noir (Black Student). This group of Black Francophone intellectuals developed the concept of “Negritude,” the embrace of Blackness and Africanness as a counter to a legacy of colonial self-hatred. (Full bio)

Plays

And the dogs were silent (1956)

This play reflects the life of a revolutionary. In the moment of his death, he relives the past. He relives (or rehashes) his hesitations, his impulses, his dreams, his defeats, his victories: first, his origins as a hero in a colonial setting and his initiation into solitude; then his spiritual struggle as he grapples with the contradictory forces of “the spirit of life” and “the love of fate” (amor fati); finally, in act 3, is the confrontation with death. And the Dogs Were Silent (Et Les Chiens Se Taisaient) is adapted from a long poem of the same title; hence, the play marks Césaire’s transition from poetry to theater. (Source) (Source)

Cast Requirement: TBD

Characters: TBD

Publication: Et les chiens se taisaient. Paris: Présence africaine, 1974. In French. (Link)

the tragedy of king christophe (1963)

The Tragedy of King Christophe (1963, revised 1970) is recognized as the Martiniquan writer and activist Aimé Césaire’s greatest play. Set in the period of upheaval in Haiti after the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines in 1806, it follows the historical figure of Henri Christophe, an enslaved man who rose to become a general in Toussaint Louverture’s army. Christophe declared himself king in 1811 and ruled the northern part of Haiti until 1820. Césaire employs Shakespearean plotting and revels in the inexhaustible possibilities of language to convey the tragedy of Christophe’s transformation from a charismatic leader sensitive to the oppression of his people to an oppressor himself. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 10+

Characters: Henri Christophe, Madame Christophe, Vastey, Corneille Brelle, Magny, Pètion, Guerrier, Martial Besse, Hugonin, Richard, Steward, Metellus, Juan de Dios, and more.

Publication Info: The Tragedy of King Christophe: a play. Northwestern University, 2015. (Link)

a season in the congo (1967)

This play by renowned poet and political activist Aimé Césaire recounts the tragic death of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Congo Republic and an African nationalist hero. A Season in the Congo follows Lumumba’s efforts to free the Congolese from Belgian rule and the political struggles that led to his assassination in 1961. Césaire powerfully depicts Lumumba as a sympathetic, Christ-like figure whose conscious martyrdom reflects his self-sacrificing humanity and commitment to pan-Africanism. (Source)

Cast Requirements: 10+

Characters: 2nd Senator, Basilio, M'Siri, Massens, Pauline, The Singer, Patrice Lumumba, Ambassador, Mama Makosi, Mokutu, Hélène Bijou, Travele, Hammarskjold, Zimbwe, and more.

Publication Info: A season in the Congo. Seagull Books, 2020. (Link)

a tempest (1969)

A ship sinks in the raging waters of a brutal storm. From the island where he has been exiled following a disastrous plot, the duke and sorcerer Prospero surveys the shipwreck and sees his old enemy’s land. Revenge is near! But his enslaved Caliban revolts, and nothing will be the same again. In this adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Césaire demystifies the masterpiece and rings out the song of freedom. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 11 (2f, 9m)

Characters: Prospero, Ariel, Caliban, Miranda, Eshu, Ferdinand, Alonso, Antonio, Gonzalo, Trinculo, Stephano

Publication Info: A tempest: based on Shakespeare's The tempest, adaptation for a Black theatre. TCG Translations, 2018. (Link)