On the Uses of the Fantastic in Modern Theatre

"Who are the monsters in Jean Cocteau's Infernal Machine? Eynat-Confino's absorbing study gives us all facets of this central theme of Cocteau's modern classic and the ways monstrosity relates to Cocteau's self image as homosexual and poet.
 

A must-read for readers interested in Cocteau, modern French theater, and gender and gay studies."

-John M. Cldm, Professor of Theater Studies and English, 

Duke University and author of Still Acting Gay: 
Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama and Something for 
the Boys: Musical Theater and Gay Culture

In this innovative reading, Irene Eynat-Confino offers an explanation for the higher effectiveness of the fantastic in theatre.
 

Taking Cocteau's masterpiece The Infernal Machine as a case study, she also reveals that when the fantastic is introduced within a realistic context, it encodes and conveys unconventional notions.
 

The book addresses such issues as identity, the Oedipus myth and Freud, homosexuality and homophobia, marginality, and the role of the artist in society.

Irene Eynat-Confino teaches in the Department of Theatre Studies, Tel-Aviv University. She is the author of Beyond the Mask: Gordon Craig,  Movement, and the Actor and the co-editor of Space and the Postmodern Stage and -Patronage, Spectacle, and the Stage.