The Satin Slipper by Paul Claudel

First published:Le Soulier de satin: Ou, Le Pire n’est pas toujours sûr, 1928-1929 (English translation, 1931)

First produced: 1943, at the Comédie-Francaise, Paris

Type of plot: Problem play

Time of work: Near the end of the sixteenth century

Locale: Spain, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Africa, Central America, South America, and the Balearic Islands

Principal Characters:

• Don Rodrigo, a Spanish nobleman who loves Doña Prouheze
• Doña Prouheze, a Spanish noblewoman
• Don Pelagio, a Spanish judge, Prouheze’s first husband
• Camillo, Prouheze’s second husband
• The Guardian Angel, who watches over Prouheze
• Doña Musica, Prouheze’s sister
• Doña Sevenswords, the daughter of Prouheze and Camillo
• Doña Honoria, Rodrigo’s mother
• A Jesuit Priest, Rodrigo’s brother
• Daibutsu, a Japanese painter who works for Rodrigo

The Play

The Satin Slipper contains fifty-two scenes, divided into four separate days. As the first day begins, a dying Jesuit priest prays that his brother Rodrigo will someday accept God. In the next scene, Pelagio asks his friend Balthazar to accompany Prouheze to the African city of Mogador, where Pelagio and Prouheze will represent the interests of the king of Spain. Pelagio plans to leave for Mogador after his wife’s departure from Spain. His arranged marriage with the younger Prouheze has made neither of them truly happy. Camillo, a disreputable character who also loves Prouheze, will direct the Spanish soldiers in Mogador. Although she wishes to be faithful to her marriage vows, Prouheze clearly loves Rodrigo and not Pelagio or Camillo. As she prepares to leave for Africa, she takes off her satin slipper and places it on a statue of the Virgin Mary, whose protection she seeks. The king of Spain appoints Rodrigo his Viceroy for the West Indies and Panama. Rodrigo, however, does not wish to accept this position. In a vain attempt to escape from Spain, he is badly wounded; Prouheze herself barely escapes abduction and death at the hands of brigands. Paul Claudel then introduces the first of many supernatural elements in this play: Prouheze’s Guardian Angel assures her that Rodrigo still lives and will someday see her again.

As the second day begins, Doña Honoria fears for the life of her son Rodrigo. Both she and Pelagio realize that Rodrigo and Prouheze love each other deeply. Honoria convinces Pelagio, however, that he should not travel to Africa with his wife. Honoria argues that the harsh life in Mogador will contribute to Prouheze’s spiritual growth, and she affirms that it will be necessary to separate Prouheze from Rodrigo in order to save the souls of these two lovers. Prouheze leaves for Mogador, whence she will never return. After his physical recovery, Rodrigo travels to Mogador on an official mission for the king of Spain. In the fortress of Mogador, Camillo hands Rodrigo a note in which Prouheze has written the four words “I stay, you go.” Respecting Prouheze’s wishes, Rodrigo sails for the New World. In the final scene of the second day, the Moon, a symbolic character, explains the rationale for Prouheze’s decision. According to the Moon, Prouheze reasoned thus: “There is for ever someone from God’s side forbidding him [Rodrigo] my bodily presence because he would have loved it too well. Ah, I want to give him much more!” She has sacrificed sexual pleasure so that Rodrigo can attain salvation.

Ten years pass between the actions of the second and third days. Rodrigo has become a ruthlessly efficient colonial administrator who exploits the native communities of the New World in order to enrich the king of Spain. In Mogador, Camillo has physically and emotionally abused Prouheze, who had married him after Pelagio’s death. Prouheze has a dream in which her Guardian Angel reveals to her that she will soon die. This end to her physical suffering will result in her own salvation and in the spiritual conversion of Rodrigo. Near the end of the third day, Rodrigo returns to Mogador. The dying Prouheze speaks to the unbelieving Rodrigo of the extraordinary spiritual joy she has experienced in Mogador. As the third day ends, Prouheze, dressed entirely in black, is carried onto a funeral barge. Her death changes Rodrigo’s view of the world.

The action of the fourth day takes place at sea near the Balearic Islands. Most of the characters in the fourth day do not understand Rodrigo’s metamorphosis. Once an amoral colonial administrator, Rodrigo now distributes large religious pictures painted by his Japanese servant Daibutsu. Rodrigo proclaims openly his commitment to Roman Catholicism. He learns that Doña Sevenswords, the daughter of Prouheze and Camillo, wishes to undertake a crusade against Mogador in order to avenge her mother’s death; Rodrigo, however, is no longer interested in war.

The king of Spain concludes mistakenly that the Spanish armada has defeated the British navy. Against the advice of his counselors, he proposes to name Rodrigo Viceroy of England. Rodrigo is willing to accept this appointment only if the king agrees to free the Americas from Spanish colonial domination. Rodrigo no longer believes that Europeans have any right to impose their will on the inhabitants of the New World. After he leaves the king’s presence, Rodrigo is arrested on the charge of treason. Sold into slavery, he is bought by an elderly nun who plans to use him as a servant in her convent. Like Prouheze, Rodrigo will end his days in the service of God.

Dramatic Devices

Although the original version of The Satin Slipper is generally considered to be Paul Claudel’s most profound play, this very lengthy version has never been staged, for a very practical reason: A complete performance of the 1928-1929 version of The Satin Slipper would require two very long evenings. Only Claudel himself believed that its full dramatic power could be effectively communicated to theatergoers under such conditions. Fortunately, the eminent French actor Jean-Louis Barrault proposed in 1942 a solution that satisfied both Claudel and the directors of the Comédie-Française. Barrault assisted Claudel in revising The Satin Slipper. The stage version is approximately half as long as the original version. The most significant change proposed by Barrault was to reduce the eleven scenes in the fourth day into a two-scene epilogue. Music by the eminent French composer Arthur Honegger added to the solemnity of this religious drama. Since its initial run of more than fifty performances during the 1943-1944 theatrical season at the Comédie-Française, the Barrault-Claudel version of The Satin Slipper has been performed frequently both in France and in many other countries.

The stage version of The Satin Slipper downplays the epic and historical sweep of the original version and transforms Claudel’s play into a fairly intimate drama that conveys to spectators the growing influence of spiritual and moral values on Rodrigo and Prouheze. Through creative uses of recurring musical themes for each key character, muted lighting for the appearances onstage of Saint James, Prouheze’s Guardian Angel, and the Moon, and set designs that draw attention to the eternal flow of the oceans during Rodrigo’s and Prouheze’s voyages of self-discovery, the 1943 version of The Satin Slipper suggests quite subtly but effectively how spiritual values become meaningful to the lovers. The artificiality and social injustices in both Spain and its many colonies serve only to alienate Rodrigo and Prouheze from their compatriots who accept the existing unjust social order. When one recalls that The Satin Slipper was revised and first performed in occupied Paris, the moral and political implications of this powerful spiritual play become rather clear to sensitive spectators and readers. One can readily imagine why Parisian theatergoers responded so favorably to the early performances of The Satin Slipper.

Critical Context

From 1890, when Tête d’or (English translation, 1919) was published, until his death in 1955, Paul Claudel remained a very active writer. His plays and lyric poems are still held in the highest esteem. Although he was born and died in France, Claudel spent most of his adult life in other countries. Between 1893 and 1935, he was a member of the French diplomatic corps. Thus, he wrote his lyric and dramatic masterpieces far from his native land. He integrated diverse cultural traditions into his own spiritual and aesthetic perception of the human condition. The very history of the composition, publication, and performance of The Satin Slipper suggests the importance of cultural diversity for Claudel. It was during his service as the French ambassador to Japan that he completed The Satin Slipper, which was first published while he was the French ambassador to the United States. The play was first performed eight years after his retirement from the diplomatic corps.

Critics were somewhat reserved in their praise of the play’s original version. Claudel was quite displeased when several influential French Catholic writers, including François Mauriac and Gabriel Marcel, suggested that The Satin Slipper would interest only Roman Catholics. Claudel rejected such restrictive interpretations of his dramatic masterpieces. In his 1964 book on critical reactions to The Satin Slipper, Pierre Brunel noted that many of the most enthusiastic admirers of this play have been non-Catholics and even nonbelievers. Although The Satin Slipper clearly contains overt references to the Catholic traditions Claudel knew so well, it is nevertheless a work of universal significance. Sensitive readers and spectators from diverse cultures can appreciate the psychological depth and keen moral insights in this dramatic exploration of the meaning of love, personal growth, and self-sacrifice.

Sources for Further Study

Caranfi, Angelo. Claudel: Beauty and Grace. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1989.

Chiari, Joseph. The Poetic Drama of Paul Claudel. New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons, 1954.

Fowlie, Wallace. Claudel. London: Bowes and Bowes, 1957.

Freilich, Joan. Paul Claudel’s “Le Soulier de satin”: A Stylistic, Structuralist, and Psychoanalytic Interpretation. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 1973.

Ince, W. N. “The Unity of Claudel’s Le Soulier de satin.” Symposium 22 (1968): 35-53.

Killiam, Marie-Therese. The Art Criticism of Paul Claudel. New York: Lang, 1990.

Paliyenko, Adrianna M. Mis-Reading the Creative Impulse: The Poetic Subject in Rimbaud and Claudel, Restaged. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997.

Waters, Harold A. Paul Claudel. New York: Twayne, 1970.

Wood, Michael. “The Theme of the Prison in Le Soulier de satin.” French Studies 22 (1968): 225-238.