Decadence is a caustic, provocative play that haunts the audience, cornering them and often forcing them to laugh to keep from crying.
Its protagonists, two couples made up of three aristocrats and a hustler who aspires to profit from their weaknesses, are classist and racist, frivolous and heartless; they are hypocritical, banal and selfish; they act like predators; they have neither principles nor limits, though they fear that the wretches they despise will join in and attack them; their humour is sarcasm, their irony is rage; they are grotesque but dangerous and, first of all, they are unhappy, empty though they lack nothing, and neither their luxuries nor their lust fill them: no one is bitter about a twelfth, except them. And when it comes to avenging an infidelity, they do not rule out either fleecing the betrayer or committing a crime...