Revisiting ‘The Sea’: Bond's English Comedy in Toulouse

Abstract

Edward Bond's The Sea was first presented at the Royal Court Theatre under William Gaskill's direction in 1973, and later confirmed as a modern classic in its revival in 1991 at the National Theatre– where it was claimed that it could only have been written by an Englishman. But, as La Mer, it was chosen to open the Thėâtre de la Citė in Toulouse, where Bond scholar and editor Ian Stuart saw Jacques Rosner's production in October, and here reports on the resultant meeting between an English comedy and ‘French serenity’.