The Screens (1964), The Balcony's exploration of explosive political issues appears to contradict its author's calls for a "non-historical, mythical stage." They interpret The Balcony as an examination of "how revolutions are appropriated through mass-media manipulation." Taking their cue from Genet's note on the play from 1960, they conclude that Genet felt that "conventional political theatre too often indulges the spectator by depicting the revolution as having already happened. Instead of encouraging the audience to change the world, it acts as a safety valve, and thus works to support the status quo." His is a form of political theatre that is "neither didactic nor based on realism"; instead, it fuses the metaphysical or sacred and the political and constitutes the most successful articulation to date of "post-modernist performance and Brechtian critical theatre." It "shows us that performance is not divorced from reality," they suggest, but rather that it is "productive of reality." Adaptations In November 1961, Genet met the American film director Joseph Strick, with whom he agreed to a cinematic adaption of the play. The film version of The Balcony was released in 1963, directed by Strick. It starred Shelley Winters, Peter Falk, Lee Grant and Leonard Nimoy. The film garnered nominations for George J. Folsey for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and for Ben Maddow for a Writers Guild of America Award. Robert DiDomenica composed an operatic version of the play in 1972, though it did not receive its première until Sarah Caldwell of the Opera Company of Boston produced it in 1990. Having seen the New York production of the play in 1960, DiDomenica based his libretto on Bernard Frechtman's revised translation of 1966, though he did not acquire the rights to do so until shortly before Genet's death, in 1986. A reviewer for The New York Times found the production "a wonderfully intelligent construct, overlaid with a lyrical and dramatic sensibility that makes searing emotional contact at many crucial points." Mignon Dunn played Irma and Susan Larson played Carmen. In 2001/02, the Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös created an opera based on the French version of the play. It was staged for the first time at the Festival d'Aix en Provence on 5 July 2002. It was produced again in 2014 at the Théâtre de l'Athénée, in Paris by the orchestra le balcon. Notes Sources Atkinson, Brooks. 1960. "Work by Genet Opens at Circle in Square."