LENORMAND, HENRI-RENE ), French dramatist, was born on May 3, 1882, in Paris, and was educated at the Lycee Jansen de Sailly, afterwards graduating at thq Sor bonne. His first important play, Les Possedees, was produced in 1909 at the Theatre des Arts; but for his first success he had to wait until, ten years later, Georges Pitoeff staged at his theatre in Geneva Le Temps est un Songe (1919) and Les Rates (1920). These plays were subsequently transferred to Paris and well re ceived. They were followed by Le Simoun, produced by Firmin Gemier and Gaston Baty at the Comedie Montaigne (1920), and by Le Mangeur de Reyes, produced by Pitoeff first in Geneva and afterwards in Paris (1922). The author by this time held a leading position among the younger dramatic authors of France, and in 1925 became the President of the Thedtre des Jeunes Auteurs. Gemier, director of the Odeon, revived Le Simoun in 1922, and produced in succession La Dent Rouge (1922) and L'Homme et ses Fantomes (1924). His later plays include A l'Ombre du Mal (1924), Le Lache (1925), L'Amour Magicien (1926) and Mixture (1927). Le Temps est un Songe is the first
of the plays included in the complete edition of his dramatic works (Georges Cres et Cie.), and that play may be regarded as the beginning of his career as a dramatist of international repute.
Lenormand's plays have since been produced throughout the world and translated into many languages. The fundamental inspiration of the dramatist is the conflict of positive good with an equally positive and creative principle of evil, combined with an equally vivid sense of destiny as determined by motives, latent and often unconfessed, in the minds of his protagonists. Le Mangeur de Reyes should be read, not as the analysis of a Freudian complex but as a modern replica of the tragedy of Oedipus Rex. In the modern tragedy, however, the fate of the characters is determined by a revelation of motives existing sub consciously in their minds. (J. PA.)