INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
in 1930, written two years earlier
It is set in Paris, where a still-quite-young woman is on the phone with her lover of the last five years
He is to marry another woman the next day, which causes her to despair
The monologue triggers the woman's crippling depression.Cocteau's experiments with the human voice peaked with this play
The story involves one woman on stage speaking on the telephone with her (invisible and inaudible) departing lover
in communication.Cocteau acknowledged in the introduction to the script that the play was motivated, in part, by complaints from his
actresses that his works were too writer/director-dominated and gave the players little opportunity to show off their full range of
with her departing lover.Reviews varied at the time and since but whatever the critique, the play represents Cocteau's state of mind and
feelings towards his actors at the time: on the one hand, he wanted to spoil and please them; on the other, he was fed up with their diva
There has also been a long line of interpreters, including Simone Signoret, Ingrid Bergman, and Liv Ullmann (in the play) and Julia Migenes,
Denise Duval, Renata Scotto, Anja Silja, and Felicity Lott (in the opera).Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist,
designer, film director, visual artist, and critic
He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th century and hugely influential on the surrealist and Dadaist movements, among
in the theatrical world of the Grands Theaters, the Boulevards, and beyond during the Parisian epoque he both lived through and helped
