SOURCE: Vlasopolos, Anca. “The Perils of Authorship in Le voyageur sans bagage.” Modern Drama 29, no. 4 (December 1986): 601-12.

In the following essay, Vlasopolos explores the reasons for the relative obscurity of Traveler without Luggage.

Despite its respectable history in performance, Anouilh's Le voyageur sans bagage has received little critical attention.¹ Regarded as Anouilh's first mature play, Le voyageur sans bagage is seen as heralding the existential themes of Anouilh's greater theater.² Perhaps critical neglect of the play has had to do with the historical position of this between-wars drama. Focused on the restless specter of the First World War, the 1937 Voyageur sans bagage appeared too late, too close to the outbreak of the Second World War, to be relevant in an immediate political sense. Anouilh's later productions, particularly Antigone, were a more satisfactory response to the overwhelming turmoil of Europe. Yet in a film like Renoir's La grande illusion...