Orpheus by Jean Cocteau

First produced:Orphée, 1926; first published, 1927 (English translation, 1933)

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Tragicomedy

Time of plot: Early twentieth century

Locale: Thrace, Greece

Principal characters

• Orpheus, a poet
• Eurydice, his wife
• Heurtebise, their guardian angel, a glazier in appearance
• Algaonice, leader of the Bacchantes
• Death, an elegantly dressed woman
• The Commissioner of Police, a bumbling bureaucrat

The Story:

Seated across from his wife, Eurydice, in their villa in Thrace, the poet Orpheus concentrates on the tapping of a white horse that is housed in a niche in the center of the room. Orpheus believes that the horse’s tapping will indicate the next letter in an inspired message. Eventually, the horse taps out “hell” and, finally, “hello” (in the original French, mer becomes merci). Orpheus has submitted a previous message, “Orpheus hunts Eurydice’s lost life,” to the Thracian poetry competition. Eurydice’s complaints of neglect, compounded by her doubts regarding these messages, begin to provoke Orpheus. In response to her warnings regarding the jealousy of the Bacchantes, a cult of women to whom Eurydice used to belong, Orpheus accuses her of disloyalty. He goes on to insist that Eurydice break a windowpane each day so that the glazier, Heurtebise, will come to their villa. To deny his jealousy, he breaks a pane himself and summons Heurtebise.

Upon Heurtebise’s entrance, Orpheus departs for town to prepare for the poetry competition. In exchange for some poison-laced sugar from the Bacchante leader, Algaonice, Eurydice hands Heurtebise an incriminating letter she has had in her possession. Heurtebise also gives Eurydice an envelope from Algaonice in which to place the letter to eliminate any trace of Eurydice’s involvement. Shrinking from giving the poison to the horse herself, Eurydice convinces Heurtebise to do the deed. Heurtebise, however, interrupted by Orpheus’s reappearance, stands on a chair at the window, pretending to take measurements. Orpheus has returned because he forgot to take his birth certificate with him for the competition. To retrieve the document from the top of the bookcase, Orpheus grabs the chair on which Heurtebise stands, and after the chair is pulled from beneath him, Heurtebise remains suspended in the air. Orpheus, oblivious to this fact, retrieves the certificate and leaves. Eurydice, however, demands an explanation from Heurtebise, who refuses to acknowledge that anything unusual has happened. Eurydice hastily seals Algaonice’s envelope with her tongue in order to give the letter to Heurtebise before dismissing him. She remarks on its peculiar taste and then, calling Heurtebise back, reveals that she is dying; the envelope had been poisoned. She sends Heurtebise after Orpheus.

Death then enters through a mirror, followed by two attendants dressed in surgeons’ uniforms. Death herself wears an evening dress and cloak, which she exchanges for a white tunic. Before beginning her “operation” on Eurydice, Death orders the horse to take the sugar Heurtebise has tossed on the table, and the horse disappears. An elaborate procedure to obtain Eurydice’s soul begins. It involves calculations, measurements, mechanical devices, and a watch supplied by an audience member. Following a drumroll, a dove attached to a thread emerges from Eurydice’s room; once the thread is cut, the dove—Eurydice’s soul—flies off. Death and her attendants leave the way they came. Death, however, has forgotten her gloves.

Orpheus and Heurtebise enter to find Eurydice dead. Heurtebise counsels Orpheus to put on Death’s gloves and return them to her for a reward. Heurtebise leads Orpheus to the mirror, revealing it to be the door through which Death has traveled. Orpheus sinks into the mirror, Eurydice’s name on his lips. A postman comes to deliver a letter, which Heurtebise instructs him to slip under the door. The scene repeats, implying the arbitrariness of time. Orpheus reappears through the mirror, Eurydice behind him. As explained by Orpheus, he and Death have made a pact that Eurydice can remain with him as long as he never looks at her. Their initial bliss at reunion degenerates into bickering. Having avoided looking at Eurydice several times, Orpheus, careless in his anger, loses his balance and finds himself gazing at her. She disappears.

Orpheus insists that his look was deliberate, Eurydice having stifled his artistry. He spies the delivered letter and holds it up to the mirror to read it, as it is written backward. The letter warns Orpheus that his entry in the competition has been denounced by Algaonice as an offense. The initial letters of the sentence he submitted spell out “O Hell!” The jury considers the entry a hoax. A mob, led by the Bacchantes, is on its way for revenge. Orpheus acknowledges that the horse, as Eurydice feared, tricked him. He walks out onto the balcony to meet his fate. Following clamoring and drums, something flies through the window: Orpheus’s head. It calls out to Eurydice, who comes through the mirror to take Orpheus’s invisible body by the hand. Together, they sink into the mirror.

A knock on the door is heard, followed by a voice demanding entrance. Before opening the door, Heurtebise places Orpheus’s head on a pedestal. The Commissioner of Police enters, with a scrivener. The Commissioner announces a reversal in public opinion in Orpheus’s favor. An eclipse of the sun that day has been interpreted as a sign of anger at Orpheus’s humiliation, the poet being a priest of the sun god. The Commissioner has been sent to investigate Orpheus’s murder and also to obtain a bust of Orpheus for a celebration in his honor. Orpheus’s head begins to speak to distract the Commissioner from Heurtebise, now the prime suspect. Heurtebise flees into the mirror. In response to the Commissioner’s questions, the head gives Jean Cocteau’s place of birth, name, and current address. Having noticed Heurtebise’s absence, the Commissioner and scrivener exit in search of him, rushing back later for the “bust.”

Orpheus, Eurydice, and Heurtebise—revealed to be the couple’s guardian angel—appear together in Paradise. They smile and leisurely prepare to take lunch, prayed over by Orpheus.

Bibliography

Centre Georges Pompidou. Cocteau. Paris: Author, 2003. Retrospective catalog compiled by the Centre Pompidou and the Montreal Museum to accompany an exhibit of Cocteau’s work. Presents, in addition to reproductions of the artworks, seventeen essays on Cocteau’s life and work, including discussions of the Cocteau image, Orphic self-portraits, and Cocteau and Dadaism.

Crowson, Lydia. The Esthetic of Jean Cocteau. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1978. Scholarly work devotes chapters to Cocteau’s milieu, the nature of the real, and the roles of myth, consciousness, and power. The clarity of Crowson’s writing belies an elusive thesis: On a certain level, Orpheus reflects Cocteau’s personal conflicts regarding sex and gender.

Fowlie, Wallace. Jean Cocteau: The History of a Poet’s Age. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966. General study defines Cocteau’s originality by comparing him with other French writers and film directors of his lifetime. A distinctive element of this work is an epilogue describing a meeting between Fowlie and Cocteau shortly before the latter’s death.

Freeman, E. Introduction to Orphée/Jean Cocteau. 1976. New ed. London: Bristol Classical Press, 1992. Introduction to both the play and the film adaptation, along with notes on the play, offers a wealth of background information as well as details about the production. Presents an investigation of the work’s mythological matrix that broadens the reader’s understanding of the work. Includes many quotations from the play in the original French.

González, Pedro Blas. “Subjectivity and Philosophical Reflection in Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus Trilogy.” In Fragments: Essays in Subjectivity, Individuality, and Autonomy. New York: Algora, 2005. Focuses on Cocteau’s three Orpheus films, but provides analysis of the themes of subjectivity and the nature of the self that pertains also to the stage play.

Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz. Jean Cocteau. Updated ed. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Thorough study pursues both psychological and literary views of Cocteau’s work, with chapters following a chronological approach. Knapp acknowledges the paradoxes that inform her understanding of Cocteau and then attempts to analyze those paradoxes.

Oxenhandler, Neal. Scandal and Parade: The Theatre of Jean Cocteau. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1957. First American study of Cocteau focuses on his work in the theater, taking a philosophical approach. Argues that Cocteau’s inability to “engage” in the world around him was a kind of tragedy for the modern age.

Williams, James S. Jean Cocteau. London: Reaktion Books, 2008. Biography chronicles the development of Cocteau’s aesthetic and his work as a novelist, poet, dramatist, filmmaker, and designer. Concludes that Cocteau’s oeuvre is characterized by a continual self-questioning.