Martine

Jean-Jacques Bernard was born in 1888, the son of leading French dramatist Tristan Bernard. Martine, his story of youth and romance in post-War France remains the best-known of all his plays. Bernard belonged to a group of artists called La Chimère, who attacked the prevailing melodramatic theatre (which they described as ‘an armchair between dinner and bedtime’) and pioneered drama that was domestic in action and naturalistic in style.John Fowles (1926-2005) was an English novelist. After reading French at Oxford University, he became a teacher before starting to write. His best-known works include The Collector (1963), The Magus (1966) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) which was later made into an Oscar-nominated film with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. He also completed two other translations for the National Theatre – Don Juan (1981) and Lorenzaccio (1983). He was named by The Times in 2008 as one of the 50 greatest post-War writers.

'A luminous minor masterpiece - Deeply moving.' The Sunday Times 'Extraordinarily effective and intensely moving.' Peter Hepple, The Stage 'Marvellously and movingly real - It's with good reason that Bernard has been compared to Chekhov. He's interested in suggestion and moral nuance, not in sensational event or the blacks and whites of melodrama. It's his aim to show very little, not how much, can destroy a person.' Benedict Nightingale, New Statesman 'A beautiful play - The rare and lasting quality of the play is that it succeeds in dramatising a cycle of commonplace events which most writers would have felt obliged to distort for theatrical effect.' Irving Wardle, The Times 'Nothing is said, but emotions throb beneath the lines. And you may catch the sound of a heart breaking.' Mail on Sunday 'Bernard shows himself to be a masterly theatrical ironist - a minor masterpiece - a timeless tragedy.' Michael Billington, Guardian