Deathwatch

Deathwatch , Jean Genet’s earliest play, was first performed in Paris in 1949. Short and intensely powerful, it is an excellent introduction to his later dramatic work - The Maids, The Balcony and The Blacks. The French text, published by Gallimard, was extensively altered by Genet in the course of rehearsal; and Bernard Frechtman’s translation is of the final acting version, which supercedes the original published text.