The Bald Soprano

La Cantatrice Chauve, translated to The Bald Soprano in English, is a 1950 absurdist play by Eugène Ionesco and a seminal work of the Theatre of the Absurd movement. Ionesco was famously inspired to write the play while learning English from an Assimil language primer, in which cliché English characters having artificial conversations and reciting basic facts of life soon began to take on absurd philosophical meaning for the playwright. The Bald Soprano was Ionesco’s first play and would become one of his best-known works. He called this play an “anti-play” for the way it rejected traditional theatrical conventions, and a “tragedy of language” for the way language disintegrates into empty platitudes and non-sequitur conversations incapable of conveying meaning as the play moves toward its climax.

This guide refers to Donald M. Allen’s English translation, published in The Bald Soprano and Other Plays (Grove Press, 1958). The version is translated from the French text published in Eugène Ionesco: Théâtre, Volume 1 (Librairie Gallimard, 1954). Allen’s translation does not include any scene divisions, so this guide uses page numbers to divide key beats in the play. As an anti-play, The Bald Soprano resists theatrical conventions such as a central protagonist, characters with distinct personalities, or meaningful plot progression toward a satisfying denouement.

Plot Summary

The Bald Soprano begins in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, an English couple characterized as English stereotypes, enjoying a quiet evening by the fire. The spouses each sit in their own English armchair and busy themselves with quaint activities: Mr. Smith smokes a pipe and reads the newspaper, while Mrs. Smith darns socks. It is nine o’clock, according to the 17 strokes of the Smiths’ English clock.

Mrs. Smith begins telling Mr. Smith all about the dinner the couple just ate, recounting facts about the meal, the qualities and ages of their three children, and the Smiths’ comfortable life in suburban London. Both characters are impervious to the fact that Mr. Smith should already know these basic facts. Mr. Smith clicks his tongue and silently reads the newspaper while Mrs. Smith babbles away. However, when the couple begins discussing the fate of Bobby Watson, whose death was recently published in the newspaper, the dialogue starts to take a turn toward the absurd as the couple banter back and forth; facts and reality become tenuous through a variety of conflicting observations, remembrances, and anxieties. For example, the Smiths argue about attending Bobby Watson’s funeral a couple years ago and whether he died three or four years ago. His wife, Bobby Watson, is now a widow with no children to care for her, though the Smiths fret about who might take care of Mrs. Bobby Watson’s children, who are all named Bobby Watson, now Mr. Bobby Watson is dead. Mrs. Bobby Watson is soon to marry Mr. Bobby Watson—should they get a gift? No, they don’t need to since Mr. Bobby Watson is dead. This conversation concludes by discussing the numerous Bobby Watsons, all married to Bobby Watsons, with relatives named Bobby Watson.

Mary, the maid, enters and interrupts the conversation to announce that the Smiths have visitors. The Smiths’ good friends, the Martins, have come for dinner—though they are astonishingly late. The Smiths are starving at this point, having not eaten all day. They rush to change clothes and get ready for their visitors, while Mary lets the Martins into the house.

Now in the house and waiting for the Smiths to appear, the Martins realize they don’t know how they know each other. Mr. and Mrs. Martin talk through all the ways they might know each other. It might be that they both moved to London just recently from Manchester, having taken the same train and sat in seats across from each other. It might be that they live in the same apartment and share the same bed. Or it might be that they both have a two-year-old daughter named Alice. With all these strange coincidences, the Martins decide they must be married, and fall into a blissful sleep in an armchair. Mary, the maid, otherwise known as Sherlock Holmes, quietly enters the stage to tell the audience the Martins are not, however, who they think they are. Despite these coincidences, they are not spouses, though Mary doesn’t want to point this out to them and throw the group into any further confusion. She exits.

The Smiths finally appear, wearing the same clothes as before, and set to socializing with the Martins. Conversation is awkward and full of embarrassed silences as the Martins struggle to get comfortable in the Smiths’ presence. All is saved, however, when the doorbell mysteriously starts ringing. The bell rings multiple times and Mrs. Smith repeatedly checks the door and finds no one there, prompting an argument between the four friends over whether a ringing doorbell means someone is at the door or not. Mr. Smith, who believes a ringing doorbell does indicate someone is at the door, finally checks the door and finds the Fire Chief. The Fire Chief helps settle the argument once and for all.

The Fire Chief, visiting on official business and looking for fires to extinguish, instead finds himself entertaining the group with moral fables. Mary the maid tries to join in on the fun and reveals that she and the Fire Chief were once lovers. However, such bold behavior from the maid causes the Smiths to push Mary offstage. Realizing the time (although the Smiths’ clock is incapable of telling the time), the Fire Chief dashes away to put out a fire.

In his absence, language completely collapses and the Martins and Smiths engage in an increasingly hostile screaming match, launching cliché statements, platitudes, and nonsense at each other at increasing volume until everything descends into chaos. Then, the play begins all over again, except with the Martins playing the roles previously played by the Smiths. This continues until the curtain falls.