dramaturge notes for The Lesson
Art Collier

If The Bald Soprano is a play that can't start, then The Lesson is one that can't stop.  
Once the pupil is admitted, her fate is determined, the outcome is certain.  While the 
world of the earlier play is random, chaotic and illogical, the vision of The Lesson is 
rigid, imprisoning, moving with a fierce inexorable logic to its murderous conclusion. 

And yet, this murderous play is funny.  The tension between the humor of the dialogue 
and the relentless overpowering of the pupil by the professor fuels the play – it is the 
paradox at the center of its disturbing artfulness.  So the laughs are uneasy; we smile with 
a sense of foreboding as the professor goes on and on about the intricacies of neo-
Spanish.  What he says makes us laugh – what he is doing is not funny.

He is objectifying the pupil, literally turning her into an object.  As we watch, the life is 
drained out of her.  The professor is the murderer, but the play suggests that he is not 
alone – the maid is his accomplice.  When the play concludes and we find out that the 
pupil is the fortieth victim, the maid's role suddenly comes into focus.  She and the 
professor are involved in a sado-masochistic relationship, which uses the pupils as a 
vehicle to sustain itself.  They are vampires, using the life-force of the unsuspecting 
pupils to keep their relationship alive.

The maid's entrances are conveniently timed (scripted?) just before the mathematics and 
philology lessons are about to begin.  (Does she listen behind the door?)  She helps to 
clean up and carry out the body.  She instructs the professor to put the knife back where it 
belongs, where they both know it will be for the next lesson.  The pupils are just objects; 
the real relationship in the play is between the professor and the maid, who know their 
roles and play them with gusto.

These well-rehearsed roles introduce another dimension of the play's meaning.  The 
professor and the maid have done this many times before and they plan to continue.  The 
pupils are interchangeable – they are the rotating audience for this well-studied 
performance.  Thus the pupil and the audience in the theater are in similar positions, 
naïve witnesses and victims of this murderous couple.  The play seems to be a metaphor 
for the theater itself, expressing Ionesco's reservations about the ethics of his art.  While 
The Bald Soprano argues that a play cannot be performed, The Lesson makes the case 
that it should not be.

Each phase of the ritual is introduced by the reappearance of the maid.  As the professor 
gains power over the pupil, the maid also becomes more powerful and assertive.

1.	introduction of the victim
2.	mathematics lesson
3.	linguistics lecture 
4.	preparation for the murder
5.	disposal of the body and preparation for the next victim