Pot Bouille - A Play in Five Acts (Paperback)

In POT BOUILLE, the well-known French novelist Emile Zola and dramatist William Busnach combine their talents to unmask the hypocrisy that hides behind the facade of a respectable and fashionable Parisian apartment house. The Josserands are struggling to make ends meet, and at the same time to marry off their two daughters to prosperous businessmen. At the heart of this broken family is a weak husband and domineering, spendthrift wife, who between them create two willful children who are doomed to unhappy lives. The sly and adulterous Berthe seduces a shop owner into marriage, and Hortense eventually runs off with the man she loves--knowing he'll never marry her. The result is an unflattering portrayal of a corrupt, immoral society at the heart of French life in the late nineteenth century. Based on one of the great novels of modern literature