The window across the courtyard by Jean-Pierre Martinez
The window across the courtyard is a contemporary comedy by Jean-Pierre Martinez for 1 man and 1 woman.
An aging novelist on the brink of suicide is visited by a young woman who claims to have lost her cat. A visit that will change his life…
Translation by the author
Original title in French : La Fenêtre d’en face
Cast: 1 man / 1 woman
Download the playscript for free
Any performance requires prior authorization and the payment of performance rights.
A play written in August 2021
A play created in Saint Maixent l’Ecole, Salle des fêtes, 11 June 2022
Translation in Spanish : La Ventana de enfrente, translation by the author
Translation in Portuguese : A janela da frente, translation by the author
Translation in German : Das Fenster gegenüber, translation by the author
Translation in Czech : Okno Odnaproti, translation by Jaromír Janeček
The window across the courtyard, the song
English version
French version
Spanish version
Brazilian version
Lyrics and music: Jean-Pierre Martinez
These songs may be used, without obligation, as part of a stage production, upon simple request to the author and without any additional fees.
The audio file is available upon request, subject to prior authorization from the author for the use of the play’s text.
Coming to Terms with the Past and Passing It On in Order to Rejoin the World
The Window Opposite places Alexander’s solitude within the enclosed space of his apartment, which has become the material extension of his withdrawal from the world. Madison’s arrival brings into confrontation not so much two generations as two different ways of inhabiting time: one seems oriented toward the future, while the other remains trapped in regret. Yet beneath the irony, misunderstandings and cultural contrasts lies a shared anxiety about absence, filiation and the need to give meaning to one’s own story.
The two-hander’s dramaturgy subtly traces the movement from mistrust to complicity, and then from conversation to revelation. Within this stripped-down setting, emotion arises from listening, from silences, and from what each character delays revealing to the other. The window thus becomes a boundary, a mirror and a passage: looking across forces Alexander to look again at his own life. Transmission, however, does not flow in only one direction; each gives the other the possibility of coming to terms with what binds them to the past and of imagining that a story may still continue.