Marguerite Duras: Le Shaga (1968)

Le Shaga is another of Marguerite Duras's rare humorous writings, and again it's distinctly Beckettian, reducing language here to absurdity. She was especially interested in idées reçues. Here we have three people in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, where overnight B has started speaking a foreign language: Shaga, which is not a real language but one spoken by her alone. Neither A (also a woman) nor H (a man) can understand her, but A begins to find meanings increasingly quickly, interpreting them for H. There is much repetition, much laughter, even singing and dancing, and we realise how 'catching' the use of language is, how easy it is to adopt phrases and mannerisms in a kind of sympathy with it.

Some parts of the play I found particularly amusing. For instance, B shows interest in H's jerrycan with holes in. H says: 'As soon as you put petrol in it it leaves it. [...] and the jerrycan goes back to what it was before, you see, it's not worth the trouble of putting petrol in...because it doesn't remain. [...]. You put petrol in and it's not worth the trouble, so....' A repeats, 'it's not worth the trouble of putting any in..' (Duras italicises the cliché.) Adding to the craziness, H  adds a nonsense story of a woman who lived in a house with holes in who couldn't live in it until people came to put bars to the holes to stop her falling out of it.

Duras called her play 'a transgression'. Yes, although the most transgressive thing I found about it was how very close the inane, repetitive, and – it has to be said – crazy language used here by the insane is to the casual, meaningless, inconsequential language used by people we wouldn't hesitate to call, er, 'normal', well-balanced people: those we come across and talk to every day. Frightening: so in effect we're laughing at ourselves, at how stupid, or crazy, we are?

My Marguerite Duras posts:
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Marguerite Duras: La Pute de la côte normande
Marguerite Duras: L'Homme assis dans le couloir
Marguerite Duras: Agatha
Marguerite Duras: Emily L.
Marguerite Duras: Les Yeux bleus cheveux noirs
Marguerite Duras: L'Amant | The Lover
Marguerite Duras: Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein
Marguerite Duras: L'Amante anglaise
Laure Adler: Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Duras: Cimetière du Montparnasse
Marguerite Duras: Un barrage contre le Pacifique
Marguerite Duras: L'Après-midi de Monsieur Andesmas
Marguerite Duras: Les Petits Chevaux de Tarquinia
Marguerite Duras: Le Marin de Gibraltar | The Sailor from Gibraltar
Marguerite Duras: La Douleur | The War: A Memoir
Yann Andréa: Cet amour-là
Marguerite Duras and Xavière Gauthier: Les Parleuses
Marguerite Duras: Savannah Bay
Marguerite Duras: Détruire, dit-elle | Destroy, She Said
Marguerite Duras: L'Amour
Marguerite Duras: Dix heures et demie du soir en été
Marguerite Duras: Le Square | The Square
Marguerite Duras: Les Impudents
Marguerite Duras: Le Shaga
Marguerite Duras: Oui, peut-être
Marguerite Duras: Des journées entières dans les arbres
Marguerite Duras: Suzanna Andler
Marguerite Duras: Le Vice-Consul | The Vice Consul
Marguerite Duras: Moderato cantabile
Marguerite Duras: La Vie matérielle
Marguerite Duras: La Vie tranquille
Marguerite Duras: La Pluie d'été