DONNAY

donnay, charles maurice (1859- ), french dramatist, was born of middle-class parents in paris in 1859. he made his serious debut as a dramatist on the little stage of the chat noir with _phryne_ (1891), a series of greek scenes. _lysistrata_, a four-act comedy, was produced at the grand theatre in 1892 with mme rejane in the title part. later plays were _folle entreprise_ (1894); _pension de famille_ (1894); _complices_ (1895), in collaboration with m. groselande; _amants_ (1895), produced at the renaissance theatre with mme jeanne granier as claudine rozeray; _la douloureuse_ (1897); _l'affranchie_ (1898); _georgette lemeunier_ (1898); _le torrent_ (1899), at the comedie francaise; _education de prince_ (1900); _la clairiere_ (1900), and _oiseaux de passage_ (1904), in collaboration with l. descaves; _la bascule_ (1901); _l'autre danger_, at the comedie francaise (1902); _le retour de jerusalem_ (1903); _l'escalade_ (1904); and _paraitre_ (1906). with _amants_ he won a great success, and the play was hailed by jules lemaitre as the _berenice_ of contemporary french drama. very advanced ideas on the relations between the sexes dominate the whole series of plays, and the witty dialogue is written with an apparent carelessness that approximates very closely to the language of every day.