Crommelynck, Fernand

▪ Belgian dramatist

born Nov. 19, 1886, Paris, France

died March 17, 1970, Saint-Germaine-en-Laye

      Belgian playwright known for farces in which commonplace weaknesses are developed into monumental obsessions.

      Crommelynck, who was the child of a French mother and a Belgian father, came from a family connected with the theatre and was himself trained as an actor. After some early successes in Belgium, including such plays as Nous n'irons plus au bois (1906; “We'll Not Go to the Woods Anymore”), Crommelynck won international honours with his play Le Cocu magnifique (The Magnificent Cuckold). First produced in Paris in 1920, it was revived many times. It is one of the few French-language plays from this period to have retained its appeal. The play is a penetrating study of sexual jealousy, although Crommelynck called it a farce. The play's protagonist is a young man whose incapacity to calm his suspicions about his wife's fidelity eventually drives her to resolve his uncertainty by betraying him.

      Of his later plays, Tripes d'or (1925; “Golden Guts”) is the most striking. Crommelynck again combined farce and deep seriousness in reinterpreting one of the classic themes of French drama—avarice. In the play the miser (Hermides) can never bring himself to pay proper attention to the girl he says he loves, and, though she is often on Hermides's mind, she does not actually appear on the stage. In Une Femme qu'a le coeur trop petit (1934; “A Woman Whose Heart is Too Small”) Crommelynck depicts a perfect wife whose obsessive virtuousness and efficiency wither all love. With Chaud et froid (1934; “Hot and Cold”), Crommelynck returned to the theme of marital constancy. He also published a Shakespearean adaptation, Le Chevalier de la lune (1957; “Knight of the Moon”), based on the character of Sir John Falstaff (Falstaff, Sir John).

* * *