Who would have thought that Les Parents Terribles, Jean Cocteau's deliciously black comedy about an overcrowded, deceit-ridden, venomous, pill-popping, incestuous bourgeoisie household, stems from the playwright's naturalistic period? Of course, when you're an opium-addicted, avant-garde provocateur such as Cocteau, even a naturalistic period gets pretty darn absurd. Considering that Cocteau is the author who gleefully rewrote the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to include a love triangle with a poetry-composing horse, the campy, claustrophobic world of Les Parents Terribles seems comfortingly familiar. It refashions boulevard farce to include a good splash of depravity and malice. Picture a Noel Coward comedy on quaaludes and you'll have a pretty good idea of what the drama is about.
Director Sara Kaplan, DC '96, has certainly assembled a game cast. The material often requires the actors to perform verbal and emotional gymnastics routines. It's an exhausting task, and this occasionally shows, but they succeed in realizing much of Cocteau's humor and verve.
Les Parents Terribles details the conflicts that arise when Michael, an earnest young dilettante (Zeke Farrow, BK '96), falls in love with Madeleine, a poor but honest bookbinder (Noelle Teagno, TC '98), and wants to move out of the flat he shares with his histrionic mother, Yvonne (Leslie Blatteau, CC '97), his boyish father, George (Peter Morris, ES '97), and his elegant Aunt Leonie (Betsy Fast, SM '96). Inconveniently, Madeleine seems to have been a former mistress of George's, Yvonne has no interest in loosening the mother/son bond, and Leonie looks for any opportunity to gum up her Coco Chanel-brand of spite. Highjinks ensue.
The plot contains so many theatrical conventions and conceits that it is, in some ways, a send-up of its very genre. Consequently, Les Parents Terribles works best when it revels in the self-conciousness of its own theatricality. Blatteau and Farrow work this angle particularly well. Blatteau's pharmaceutical-happy Yvonne struts around her boudoir with a slinky imperiousness, every bit the grand dame in the dressing gown. And Farrow plays Michael's fecklessness and sexuality to the hilt.
While both of these performances are over the top, that's exactly what Cocteau's script requires. It entreats the actors to commit to the feverish satire of the text and emote for all they're worth. It's in these moments, when they're almost playing caricature, that they reveal the emotional honesty and fragility of their characters. The audience can see at once the base character and all the masks that character puts on to survive in his or her maze of interpersonal relationships. When Blatteau and Farrow succeed at revealing their multi-layered selves, the effect is absolutely enthralling.
Morris and Fast achieve this end to a lesser extent when trading dialogue, but each shines whenever he or she has a monologue or lengthy bit of text to rip into. When Leo begins to direct the other characters, Fast pulls out the stops and shows her fangs. And Morris delivers a fascinating speech about his role in the piece with vigor and style. George says to Madeleine, "I'm the hero of a comedy, my part makes them laugh...the farce to end all farces! We're classical figures, you and I! Aren't you proud of yourself?"
Though Madeleine doesn't answer George's question, Teagno ought to be proud of herself. Cocteau denies Madeleine the insanity of the other characters; she usually acts as the straight woman of the piece. Teagno fleshes out her role nicely, and Kaplan has made some bold general choices in her direction (the use of level work for example). Kaplan's greatest strength may lie in her gorgeous eye for detail. George's surreptitious stuffing of a tray of nuts into his pocket, or Leonie's equally sly stuffing of a tissue which George has used into her bosom, are comic gems.
Other gems include the impeccable production staff which Kaplan and her producer have assembled. Alex de Looz's, SM '97, set is an absolute triumph. He achieves the low-rent rococo and the spare with equal success; you'll positively drool. And Kellen Hertz's, SM '97, costumes, particularly a three-foot hat and fur-lined dress for Yvonne, are worth salivating over as well. Miriam Crowe's, CC '96, lighting design produces some difficult effects-back-lighting which falls in oblique rays and the use of actual lamps-with deceptive ease. Another successful choice on Kaplan's part was her commissioning of Merritt Lear, TC '97, to compose and direct original music for the scene changes and the occasional dramatic entrance. Lear and her band (guitar, violin, accordion, and tambourine) provide jangly, gypsy-esque accompaniment.
Taken as a whole, it's not a perfect production. Cocteau requires an investment of energy which proves difficult to maintain consistently. Nevertheless, Kaplan and her cohorts have fashioned a rollicking evening of farcical theater. And they occasionally pull away the layers of camp and conceit to reveal the fragile vulnerability of the piece which lies beneath.
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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