THE BALD SOPRANO
Eugene Ionesco
Eugene Ionesco: THE BALD SOPRANO. New York: Grove Press, 1965. First English-language edition [original edition, published under the title La Cantatrice chauve by Editions Gallimard in 1964 for the unpublished text, the presentation, and the illustration of the new edition]. Quarto. Glossy printed paper covered boards. Matching printed dust jacket. Unpaginated [188 pp]. Elaborate book design and typography by Massin. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. Price clipped jacket with mild edge wear and trivial soiling to the rear panel. A remarkably well-preserved copy: book with spine crown gently pushed, otherwise a fine copy in a very good or better dust jacket. Scarce in this condition.
8.5 x 10.75 hardcover book with 188 pages and many numerous contrast black and white illustrations. From the title page: “anti-play, followed by an unpublished scene. Translated by Donald M. Allen. Typographical interpretations by Massin and photographic interpretations by Henry Cohen. Based on the Nicolas Bataille production, with the collaboration of the actors of the Théatre de la Huchette.”
The French graphic designer Massin is considered the father of expressive typography. His graphic interpretations of dramatic works remain some of the most unique and influential examples of the potential for dynamic interaction between word and image. As a scholar, his in-depth survey of letterforms in Western cultures, Letter & Image, is a major contribution to the understanding of graphic arts and an essential reference for graphic designers. The work looks beyond the letter as a necessary accessory to the image and celebrates its rhythmic and plastic qualities. His manipulations of typography in the 1950s anticipated the elastic spatial possibilities of computer graphics. Massin's collaborations with writer Jean Cocteau and playwright Eugène Ionesco yielded a new "visualized literature." His master work for Gallimard’s 1964 edition of Ionesco's The Bald Soprano combines the pictorial economy of a comic book with the letter play of Surrealist poetry.
Massin’s ground-breaking typographic and visual treatment of "The Bald Soprano" ("La Cantatrice Chauve"), was first published in France by Gallimard in 1964. Massin's interpretation of Ionesco's absurdist play was ground-breaking: Using a playful collage of posterized black-and-white photographs of the actors in silhouette, surrounded by sprays and cascades of type in varying sizes and styles (without benefit of cartoonish effects like word balloons), he created a juxtaposition of type and image in book form that became a classic of expressive typography. The stark images from "The Bald Soprano" are instantly recognizable -- both the characters and their jumbled words.
Massin went to 20 different performances of "La Cantatrice Chauve" at the Théâtre de la Huchette in Paris. He even recorded the play so he could catch the inflections, intonations, and pauses of the actors as they spoke, and then transformed them into an interplay of photographs and type. Ionesco's play deals with breaking down clichés and thoughtless truisms into absurd caricature; it has been described as an anti-play. Massin's treatment on the page reflected that disjointedness and conveyed it graphically. He gave each character a different typeface, varying the size, angle, and placement to convey the nuances of the spoken dialogue.
Massin's version created with the blessings of Ionesco, sought to capture the dynamism of the theatre within the static confines of the book. Massin himself says that he "introduced the notion of stage time and space to the printed page."
The techniques he uses to create his expressive kind of typography have changed with changing technology; today he works with digital publishing tools like Photoshop and Illustrator. "The Bald Soprano" had to be created in painstaking physical paste-ups on boards; he didn't even have the advantage of phototype, which was not in common use yet in the early 1960s. One technique he used in order to freely change the shapes of letters, in the days before computer type, was to have them printed on condoms, which he then pinned down in stretched and distorted form and photographed.
From the copyright page: “La Cantatrice chauve was first produced at the Théatre des Noctambules, on May 11, 1950, by a company of young actors which included Paulette Frantz, Simone Mozet, Odette Barrois, Nicolas Bataille, Claude Mansard and Henry-Jacques Huet.