The flavor and charm arising from the work of Henri Rousseau, the Customs, have not ceased to move us. This play, written in 1899, offers a particular dimension of his imaginative universe in perfect harmony with the captivating lyricism of his paintings.

Henri Rousseau, called the Customs, the legendary painter ingenuista held by Cubists, Dadaists and Surrealists, was also author of some plays. In 1899 he wrote Revenge of a Russian orphan, drama in five acts and 19 pictures whose action takes place in Russia in 1855. As Tristan Tzara says in the preface that accompanies this edition, the plays of Rousseau clarify his pictorial conception valorizing the problems of space and time, which gave a strong personal solution with a unique accuracy and freshness, and in them also an anticipation of the film for its particular vision of movement and space. Curious alliance of fantasy and common sense, the works of Rousseau involuntary edify how wonderful that is surprisingly natural and powerful lyrical world of Customs.