In the basement of a bourgeois house, the cook has been stabbed. Who killed MarieJeanne? A commissioner investigates. she will scream before them! And as the performance progresses, the author refuses to show on stage the miserable fate of his characters. Under these conditions, can the commissioner solve the crime and the author complete his work? Piece within a piece, La Grotte exhibits theatrical machinery and mocks dramatic illusion. Defying the conventions of the genre, Anouilh reveals the torments of creation and representation.