The play centres on Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and poet from the 11th century. In the second half of the 19th century, his quatrains (Rubaiyat) sparked numerous debates: should their exalting of wine and drunkenness be understood in a literal or in a mystical sense? Just like Théophile Gautier, Maurice Bouchor refused to settle on either one of these readings—drunkenness is seen as a means to detach oneself from reality and to reach a state of ecstasy.

At the Petit-Théâtre des Marionnettes of the Galerie Vivienne, Le Songe de Khèyam was performed on the same night as Maurice Bouchor’s La Dévotion à saint André and Amédée Pigeon’s L’Amour dans les Enfers.

Khèyam has been thrown out of the inn where he got drunk. A Cruche (Pitcher) of wine then a Rose appear to him. A woman comes in, and he promises to love her; then a second woman – perfectly identical to the first – comes in, and he makes the same promise to her. The two women appear and disappear in turn and they both accuse him of being unfaithful. Then they tell him that he is seeing double because he is drunk. They leave him alone with the Cruche and the Rose.