Consideration of ["Caligula and Three Other Plays"] by Albert Camus provokes a paradox. They are important without being good. Only one of them, it seems to me, really demands a stage production. This is "Caligula"—a play which marks a date in the French theatre. The significance of this play is related to Camus's position in literature today. Though he writes with both grace and a moving accent, his main contribution resides in his message. His work is a series of parables. He is a moralist: a man who seeks to extract a line of meaning and a principle of conduct from the turbulent contradictions of our times. His aim is to distill hope from the heart of despair….

Camus' work for the theatre, which begins with the somber fatalism of "The Misunderstanding" (1943) [also published as "Cross Purposes"], proceeds in "Caligula" (1945) to the dramatization of the flaw in...