Shaw and Cocteau

The latest issue of The Shavian has a fascinating article by Michel Pharand about links between the dramatists Bernard Shaw and Jean Cocteau.

I know Cocteau primarily as the author of the play The Infernal Machine, which reworks the Oedipus myth. Back in the 1990s, his later play Les Parents Terribles became quite popular in a new translation by Jeremy Sams called Indiscretions.

However, as Pharand observes, Cocteau also designed costumes for a Broadway revival of Shaw's Candida in 1946. That play starred Katherine Cornell in the title role, but also included as Marchbanks the then-unknown actor Marlon Brando.

Brando ended up receiving a Theatre World Award for his performance, launching his stage career. Though he is now more famous as a film actor, his last performance on stage was in another Shaw play, Arms and the Man, in 1953.

Another connection the article notes between Cocteau and Shaw is that Cocteau translated into French the Jerome Kilty play Dear Liar, which I just saw at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The play explores through letters the complex relationship between Shaw and the actress Pat Campbell, who first brought to life the role of Eliza Doolittle on the British stage in the London premiere of Pygmalion.

Cocteau's French version of Dear Liar opened in 1960. The following year, Cocteau wrote a preface for a translation of Shaw and Campbell's letters. Pharand provides in the article a translation of this preface, which includes the line: "Like many famous vegetarians, Shaw ate humans."

Many thanks to Pharand, author of the indispensable book Bernard Shaw and the French, for an enlightening and amusing article!