THE AUTHOR: Jean Anouilh was born in 1910 in Bordeaux, France, and died in 1987. He studied law and worked for a short time at an advertising agency as well as being the secretary to Louis Jouvet. According to his own words, the person who played a crucial role in his life as a writer was Jean Giraudoux, with his work 'Siegfried' (1928).

He divided his works into: 1: (Pieces roses) 'Pink': The Thieves' Dance (1932), a comedy-ballet full of cleverness, Leocadia (1934), and The Appointment at Sancil (1937). In these two works, the technique of 'theater within the theater' appears. 2: (Pieces noires) 'Black' (which he wrote at the same time as the pink ones): Traveler without Luggage (1937), The Wild Beast (1934), where he borrows something from Pirandello concerning the complexities of human personality.

During the war years, Anouilh began a new 'black' period in his works with themes taken from the classics but viewed with a new perspective: Eurydice (1942), Antigone (1942), Romeo and Janette (1946), Medea (1946). The value of these works lies in a strange combination of ironic sarcasm and a quest for truth with more passion than many of his contemporaries.

Despite his minor weaknesses, Anouilh felt the true meaning of tragedy. Let us remember the success that Antigone had in Paris. In the years of the theater of the absurd, Anouilh lost some of his fame, even though his later works were just as significant as the earlier ones he had written. All of his plays express a nostalgia for childhood innocence and the rebellion of some uncompromising individuals in a society mainly composed of vulgar people.