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 fol- lowing 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 re- views 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 “dig- nitaries,” caused in the Hébertot’s auditorium a demonstration by members of the Parti Populaire Français (PPF). This disruption prompted Vichy’s ambas- sador to Paris, Fernand de Brinon, to order the withdrawal of the production (“Vichy’s Theatrical Venture” 136). Francis Steegmuller describes the disor- der 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 sym- pathizers and members of the Parti Populaire Français” (“Le Théâtre 1 2 THE DRAMA OF FALLEN FRANCE Français .
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