The Drama of Fallen France: Reading la Comedie sans Tickets

1. A Queer Premiere: Jean Cocteau’s The Typewriter

1 A Queer Premiere: Jean Cocteau’s The Typewriter Introduction Late in April 1941, toward the close of the first Parisian theatre season following the Defeat, Jean Cocteau’s La Machine à écrire (The Typewriter) opened, then closed, then reopened at the Théâtre Hébertot. Written in the style of a detective drama, the play starred the actor generally known—at least in the entertainment world at the time—as Cocteau’s sometime lover and perpetual companion, Jean Marais, as identical twin brothers. The reviews are curiously reticent about what exactly occurred at the Hébertot, and historians and critics offer sometimes contradictory pieces of a puzzle that, even when carefully put together, forms an incomplete picture. The fragments are, however, intriguing. Merrill Rosenberg describes how, on the evening of April 29, 1941, the dress rehearsal (répétition génerale), sponsored “as a gala” by the daily Paris-Soir and attended by various “dignitaries ,” caused in the Hébertot’s auditorium a demonstration by members of the Parti Populaire Français (PPF). This disruption prompted Vichy’s ambassador to Paris, Fernand de Brinon, to order the withdrawal of the production (“Vichy’s Theatrical Venture” 136). Francis Steegmuller describes the disorder that greeted the Typewriter premiere and the revival of Les Parents Terribles (at the Gymnase later that year): “stink bombs exploded in the theatres, and hoodlums filled the aisles and climbed onto the stage, shouting obscenities at Cocteau and Marais as a couple” (442).1 Patrick Marsh too notes that these plays “were seriously disrupted by violent scenes fomented by fascist sympathizers and members of the Parti Populaire Français” (“Le Théâtre 1 2 THE DRAMA OF FALLEN FRANCE Français . . .” 231) and adds with regard to The Typewriter that “violent protests succeeded in the withdrawal of the piece from the bill” (232).2 Several accounts, though, entirely omit the riot and describe instead other significant aspects. Neal Oxenhandler never mentions disturbances by the PPF and/or hoodlums (in this case, one does not exclude the other) but indicates that the play “immediately after the dress rehearsal, . . . was banned” and that this ban “was the signal for the beginning of those attacks against Cocteau and Jean Marais, which reached their climax with the revival of Les Parents Terribles” (216). Similarly, Serge Added, in Le Théâtre dans les années Vichy, tells how on April 29, 1941, a commissioner acting on instructions from the police prefect banned the performances. The day after, the same, under instructions from the same, suspended the previous ban. In the mean time, the Propaganda Abteilung intervened to make the prefect go back on his original decision in the name of artistic freedom! Fernand de Brinon, the [Vichy] French government’s ambassador to Paris, was at the origin of the ban. (43)3 Jean Marais, who was on stage in one of his two roles much of the time, recalls the affair differently. Not only does he fail to report an uproar in the auditorium, but he suggests that the April 29 ban came from the Germans. When Jacques Hébertot, owner of the theatre, approached the Nazis, he was told that once he had paid all the required fees, the play could run. Two days later, after some stage business, including an epileptic fit by one of the Marais twins in Act II, and some dialogue in Act III, were cut, the play reopened (134). Several reviewers remarked that the seizure was offensive, but Roger Sardou in Les Nouveaux Temps mentions that it “greatly affected certain spectators and caused, in the house, several different commotions.”4 This much seems clear: After its dress rehearsal, The Typewriter was closed on April 29, probably by the Paris police, who were presumably acting on behalf of the Germans. Although Brinon may have instigated it, Ingrid Galster suggests that Suzanne Abetz, French wife of German ambassador Otto Abetz (who was apparently far more liberal than she), called for the ban (222)5 ; Brinon was in fact present at the opening, but so was Mme Abetz; thus, the impetus behind the suppression may have come from both, either separately or together.6 In any case, the Germans reversed the interdiction a few days later and allowed the police to save face with the excuse that certain fees had to be paid. The censors—either Vichy’s or the Germans’ or both— insisted that specific passages be omitted before the reopening. There was probably some protest by...