TIlE UNKNOWN ROLE OF MADAME
IN GENET'S LES BONNES
BRIAN GORDON KENNELLY

THE text of Jean Genet's Les Bonnes that is taught and perfonned most regularly is the shorter of the two versions I of the play published side by side by Jean-Jacques Pauvert in 1954. It is considered the third and fmal acting script used in the first production of the play. Material from the earlier versions aCthe play, unused by Louis Jouvet who first directed it at the Theitre de ('Atbenee in Paris in 1947, went unperfonned and is, some fifty years after the premiere of Les Bonnes, essentially unknown. The rust version of the play dates from 1943 and includes the roles of the milkman Mario and Monsieur in addition to those ofthe sister-maids Claire, Solange, and their mistress, Madame. It is jealously guarded by a private collector. 2 The longer version ofthe play published by Pauvert is considered the second acting script used during rehearsals for ]ouvet's production.
I The seeood version was performed al the lMilfe de Ia HachetU: in 1954.
l Actress Monique Mtlinand, who played Solange in JouvC!'s production of Us Bonnes, confirms this in an interview with Alain Ollivier. After he tells her "Je erais qu'il 't avail trois versions: un premier manuscrit dont Ie proprittaire ne veut pas qu'U soit mis i la disposition de quiconque, et dans ce premier manuscrit, on pouvait lire Ie rille de Monsieur et celui du laitier Mario," Mtlinand responds: "Oui, je m'en souviens t~s bien. Je sais que c'esl certainement Jouvet qui a convaincu Genet de supprimer Ie r6le de Monsieur
et celui du laitier, Mario," ("Les Premi~res 'Bonnes'" 61) However, in his "Jean Genet's Mentor: Jean Cocteau," Gene Plunka notes that the first version included eight characters instead offive. (54)
244
ROMANCE NOTES
Housed at the BibliothCque de I'Arsenal in Paris, the Jouvet typescripts
of the play shed light on how Genet's Ill'St performed drama evolved during rehearsals and especially on how Genet earlier conceived of the ending to his play. Catalogued with the caU number UMS 22, there are seven available for consultation, the eighth being only a recent acquisition.} They include: lIle second version of the play, which is aCUlally
the fll'St version received by Iouvet (typeScript one); the second·last version of the play (typescript two); the first "Releve de la mise en scene" of Marthe Herlin (typeScript three); a version incorporating those changes noted in typescripts two and three (typescript four); the second "Releve de 1a mise en scene" of Marthe Herlin (typescript four bis); the "livre de conduite" of the stage manager Rene Besson (typescript five); the text of the prompter Suzanne Pougaud (typescript six); and the last uncorrected text prepared for the staging of Les Bonnes (unnumbered). These typescripts -in particular typescripts two and three -contain material
not published by Pauvert and thus represent two different unpublished
and unperformed stages of the play. 4
In his From Writer to Reader: Studies in Editorial Method, Philip GaskeU points ow that any work of literature intended to be communicated
primarily by spoken performance rather than by a written text characteristically goes through three textual stages. (245) The first might be called the "scnpt," or the written version of what was originally
intended to be "said." The second could be considered the "performance
text," or what was actually said in one or more performances. The third, one could call the "reading text," or the version subsequently
J Claire Saint-Uon refers to tile original five in "Us Bonnes de Jean Genet; QueUe versiOll faut-iljouetr' A description of tile eightll typeSCript can be found in the Revue de la Bib/kl/hlque NtJrionale (49): 63. For more on Jouvet's production of tile play, see: Bettina Liebowitz Knapp's Louts Jouvet: Man o/the Theatre (New York Columbia University
Press, 1957); Alain Ollivier's MLes Premi~res 'Bonnes': Entretiens d'Alain Ollivier
avec Monique Mclinand et Yvette Etievant" (AlternorilJU thidlrales 43): 60-66; Richard C. and Suzanne A. Webb's Jean Genet and His Crirics: An An/Wlated Bibliography.
/943-/980 (Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1982); and Edmund While's Genel: A Biography (New York Knopf, 1993).
• Typescript 3 is a carbon copy of typeScript 2, but the annotated cllanges made in one were not always duplicated in tile other. Where in typescript 2 (the original, there is nothing marked, for e:tample, in lypeScript 3 (the carbon copy) tneff: is an annotation in ink by Genet on the back of page 48 62. Moreover, in typescript 2 (the original) there is again nothing marked, where in typescript 3 (the carbon copy) lbere is an annotatiOli in pencil on the back of an unnumbered page that is stuck belwttn pages ~ 71 and 5ft 72.
THE UNKNOWN ROLE OF MADAME IN GENET'S LES BONNES 245
published by the author or the author's publisher as a record of what might have or what should have been said.' Of the unpublished sequences
of the Iouvet typescripts of Les Bonnes, or the "scripts" of the play -the written version of what was originally intended to be said -, a sequence at the end of the third typescript ofthe play in which Madame returns (UIUloticed by Solange and Claire?) to witness theirlher demise and that shows how the play once ended has to-date been ignored by critics. Just as her two maids role-play in her absence without her knowledge (they think), in one of these sequences (unknown to Claire and Solange) Madame appears to take on a role herself: as gatekeeper to the crowds, as witness, and guarantor of their/her suicide/murder. "Que personne n'approche d'elles," she warns the crowds that she imagines are gathering to witness the climax to Solange and Claire's ritual ofhatred,
"Restez. Ie vous redirai taus les details." (footnote on back of page 59 73) Because of cuts made during rehearsals, these details remained, as they still do today, untold, "unsaid," as Madame's final role -like those of Monsieur and Mario -was eliminated from the play. 6 It is our intention to give Madame her say at last.
Marcel Oddon has carefully detailed in his "Essai d'analyse de l'a:uVTC dramatique" how in the published versions of Les Bonn~, the second person singular and plural personal pronouns ''tu'' and "vous" measure the confusion of roles, indeed of the identities of Solange and Claire -where their identity is in large part determined by role. One of the values of the Jouve( rypescripts of the play is that they further
, As swrunarized by T. H. Howard-Hill in his "Playwrights' Intentions and the Editing
of Plays" and published in the fourth volume of Text. Transactions of/he Societyjor Textual Scholarship (New York: AMS Press, 1988): 274.
6 How much was Genet influenced by Jouvet? While to consider the question of whether Les Bonnes -as we know the play -was more Jouvet's than Genet's play is beyond
the scope of this article (note), it is certainly a relevant question worth further consideration.
Actress Yvette Eli~vant, who played Claire in Jouvet's production notes that Genet (then unknown as a dramatist) was at the same time most happy to have his play produced by the famous director but also found much of what Jouvet made of the play or
turned the play into _ disagreeable. She tells Ollivier: ;'[Genetl avait ~rit une piece en trois actts entin, je crois que c'ttait trois actts. en tOut cas, quelque chose de vraiment tout. fait different [....] je crois qu'i1 n'etail pas content II n'avait pas vu ~a comme ~a [.•.•Jje cfois qu'il n'etail pas content et en OIemc lemps. c'etail complique. En memc temps, il etait aussi fascine par Jouvel. EI puis Jouvet avail une aUloritt fonnidablc ...alors il etait persuade. Mais je n'ai jamais cu Ie sentiment d'ur, vrai accord. non jamais." ("Les Premieres 'Bonnes'" 66)
246
ROMANCE NOTES
demonstrate the absolute interchangeability of Solange and Claire and thus amply justify what is to be Madame's confusion of her two maids. On page 5%-66 of the third typescript, for example. second person singular
personal pronouns become second person plural pronouns, at the same time that "Claire" becomes "Madame":
CuJRJ;: Je sui! malade.•.
Sou.NGE: On te vous lOignera 1i.lJas.
Q..m£: Je lUis malade...je...je vais mourir (~lle xrrrbk avo;' tU:s nausm).
Sol.ANGE (flU J'approche d. awe comptWion): Vraimeot? 'fi::r-es. Vous ftcs tres mal?
Qaite Madame fIte vous etes vraiment nts mal? CuIRE.: Je sui.s au bord.. SoLANOE: Pas ici, €hire, reriens • toi retcnez-vous. {E/le fa s()utientj Pas ici, je I' VOUI en
prie. liens Ven~ hppclie-lOi Appuye:z-voussur moi. U. Marchc doucement [....]
Similarly, on page 9 of the first typescript, the words of Claire become those of Solange and then those of Claire again. Likewise, Solange's words become Claire's and then those of Solange again:
C1.AJRE (irolIiqw): [...] Sans moi, sans rna lettre de dmonciation tu n'aurais pas tl ce
spec:tae:le: I'amant avec Ies menottt:s et Madame en lannes. €l:1dItE &eu.!~E C1AlRE: Elle peut ell mourir. Ce malin elk De tenai! plus debout. Sot:H:!,.,e €t:>cM; 8oL.AHc;E: Tam rIDeux. Qu'elle en claquel Et que j'btrite, i 11 rl.D! Nt
plus remettfe les pieds dans cet1C mansarde sordidt, entre c:es imbkiles. entre eene
cuisiniere et ce valet de chambre. CbIlR£ sel:Jld46E CLAIRE; Moije I'aimais notre mansarde. 8eUdf6£ ClAIM! SoLANG£: Ne t'attendris pas sur elle. Et surtout pour me contredire. Moi
qui Ia hais.je La voU telk qu'e1k: est, sordide et Due. DepouiU6e. Mais quoi, nous sommes des pouilleuses.
And in the fourth typescript, on pages 31 and 32, Solange's words become
Claire's words:
Cu.DtE. I.e prdCnal! Ne fais pas eene tete [.•.•J (En rilJnl. SoJan~ f~rm~ /Q f~niln). L'assassitW CSI uoe ebose._inCDatrable!
sebd16E: ChanlOOS!
CUll£: Nous I'etnponerons dans un bois. ~Et sous les sapins, au clair de lune. CU1RE: Nous la decouperons en morceauJI. 56t:1rl«tE: Nous ehanterons! [....J
mE UNKNOWN ROLE OF MADAME IN GENET'S USBONNES 247
Besides the changes of pronouns and names that are clearly evident in the typescripts and that show how Claire and Solange were, in Genet's mind at least, interchangeable while he was still writing the play, the combination of a second person singular pronoun with a second person plwal verb that Genet uses in the definitive published version ofhis play (or what we will call the "dysfunctional" verb fonn of this version) 7 un· derlines Madame's confusion of ber two maids. Because such a combination
is twice rehearsed in the Jouvet typescripts, it also merits attention.
Madame's "Et vous ne disiez rien! Une voiture. Solange, vite, vite, une voiture. Mais depechez-toi. (Le lapsus est suppose.) Cours, voyons. (Elle pousse Solange hon de /a chambre)" from the definitive published version oftbe play (165) is echoed in an unpublished sequence from the typescripts where Solange is playing Claire and where Claire is playing Madame. This sequence, changed in the definitive edition ofthe play to
SouNoE: Madame me comprend , merveille. Madame me devine.
CLAw: Tu seDS approchcr I'instant oil tu ne scras plus la bonne. Tu vas te venger. Tu
t'appretcs? Tu aigui5cs tts ongles? La baine te rtveille? Clsire n'oublie pas. Claire, tu
m'koutes? Mais Claire, tu ne m'ecoutes pas? (143-4)
contains another dysfunctional verb fonn, "tu aiguisez," on page 7bis of the second typeScript:
SotANoE; Madame me comprend' merveille. Madame me devine. CLAntE: ...m'approctler l'insWit oli ccsscnl d'ttre une bonne tu dcvicns Ia vengeance elle-tneme. Tu l'appr!tes? Tu aiguiscz tts ongles. La haine te reveille? [...JI
Likewise, a sequence published in the definitive edition of Les Bonnes as
Sou.NGE: Jc vous koute.
Cu.1R£, die II/uk: C'est gricc , moi que tu cs, et tu me IWJUcs! Tu DC pew: savoir
eommc il est pemble d'ftrc Madame, Claire, d'eue Ie plilcxte' vos simagries! 11 me
suffiI1.il de si peu el tu n'cxistcrais plus. Mais je suis boMe, mais je suis belle et je te
~fie. Mon d&espoird'amante m'embelli! encore! (144)
, Here, we refer to the defmilive version published in his complete worts, for sll dysfunctional
verb forms have been CUi from both veBions of the play published in the PauVCT!
edition ofUs &nncs.
I Within this same typeseripl Claire (playing "Madame")'s words are changed by hand 10: '"Tu scns approcher I'instant 00 ru nc seru plus la bonne. Tu vas te ."enger. Tu I'apprelcs? Tu aigui5C'Z tes onglcs? La hainc te reveille?""
248
ROMANCE N01CS
retains the dysfunctional form of the verb "narguer'" on page 8 of the se<:ond l}'peScript
Sot.ANoe:: Je vous 6c:oute.
CAIU: (dU 1nJrle); Tn aisles grAce i moL 0Iacun de roes gestcs t'aceomplit. Je pone la
respoosa.bilitt de 100 aistmce. Et tu me nargue:z.. Claire, si ll.I pouvais S&vtlir comme
c'est pCnib1e d'etre Madame (....)'
By cutting these two dysfunctional verb forms from the play, Genet must have felt that he could draw attention in the definitive published version of Les Bonnes to the one moment when the "real" Madame cou· pIes a second person singular pronoun with a second person plural verb. Had he retained the additional two dysfunctional verb forms, he would have reduced the dramatic impact of Madame's "depechez-toi." Moreover,
because neither the transitional verb "aiguiser" nor "narguer" are reflexive, to have "normalized'" their verb form was to rely only on the verb meaning «to hurry up" to dramatize how Madame, in her haste to rejoin Monsieur at the Bilboquet, gets ahead ofherself and fuses her two maids as one before the gardena] is consumed.
Ifchanges ofpronouns and names sbcMt the interchangeability ofthe two maids for Genet and changes in verb form anticipate the fusion of the t'lNO maids by Madame, in all versions of the play (including the published vcrs;oo5) Claire (P1aym8 "Claire")', promise to SoIMge (playing
"Solangej that"Ce soit, Madame assistera anotre confusion" (156) remains unchanged As a result. it leaves a fundamental and to-dale overlooked question UIlttSOlved in the play: when or where in the play does this <x:cur?
'There is certainly little doubt that Madame confuses or interchanges her two domestics_ Besides the dysfunctional U.dep&hez·toi" to Solange that we have noted, she slips, for example, from a second person singular
to a second person plural pronoun when she donates a dress to Claire. "Ma belle (<Fascinatiom~", she says. "La plus belle. Pauvre belle. C'est Lanvin qui I'avait dessinee pour moi. Speeialement. Tiens! Je vous la donne. Je I'en fais cadeau, Claire!" Her seemingly out-of-place "vous" is confumed when Claire reacts by asking: "Madame me 1a
• Like the previously cited JeqlolenCe. hol.'ever. it al~ undcTgon a handwnllcn change by Genet. Claire's words thus shorten to: ~EIII me narguc7.. ClaIre. 51 IU p<lU"aIS savoircommec'e$I pblible d'M Madame (...r
TIlE UNKNOWN ROLE OF MADAME IN GENET'S US BONNES 249
donne vraiment?" (163, emphasis added) Furthermore, when Madame leaves the room, Claire bitterly remarks: "Madame DOUS a vetues comme des princesses. Madame a soigne Claire ou Solange, car Madame nous confondait toujours" (167).
But if Madame has confused her two maids in the past and continues to do so, is she ever present to witness the role-playing, or confusion, of her two maids -a confusion in which she herselfis indicted?
By the end of the final tirade by "Solange," when Solange and Claire become -or "lose" themselves as -the singular ''mademoiselle Solange Lemercier," "Ia fenune Lemercier," "Ia Lemercier," "la fameuse criminelle"
(175), Madame has, one assumes, long since left in a taxi to rejoin
the recently liberated Monsieur at the Bilboquet and thus cannot possibly witness this so-called confusion of her two maids. During the tirade of "Solange," just as after it when the gardenal is consumed, Madame is surely at the Bilboquet plotting with Monsieur over how best to punish or avenge her maids. as she will have learned from him of their role in the handwritten denunciation ofhim to the police.
This is at least what the published versions of Les Bonnes lead US to assume. To fully undeT:Stand Claire (playing "Claire")'s promise that Madame will witness, or be present for the confusion that we have described,
we must tum to the third typescript of the play where Madame does indeed witness the confusion of her two maids with herself.
In this third typescript, after Solange's fInal tirade, in the final sequence
of role-playing between the two maids Madame reappears and thus shows how radically different an ending Genet had envisioned for his play. On page 59-71, after Claire (or Claire as "Madame") warns, "Solange, til me garderas en toi. Fais bien artentioo," Genet writes in blue ink: "(Madame apparaft d la porte par ou eJJe est sortie. EJJe reste immobile. Tres visible du public.)." On an unnwnbered page that is inserted between page -s:1-71 and page 5&-72 after Claire (still as "Madame") points out, "Nous sommes au bordo Solange, il y a une heure que les fenetres sont ouvertes et que les voisins sont attentifs. Nous ne pouvons plus reculer," again in blue ink Genet adds the stage direction: "(Madame fait Ie geste d'arreter une joule de gens qui voulaient assister au spectacle.)." With Madame's presence apparently unnoticed by her two maids, Solange then asks "Alors?", Claire reacts "Nous irons jusqu'i la fin", and Solange declares "lis vont venir..." At this point in the drama Gcnet crosses out in pencil Madame's imperative
ROMANCE NOTES
250
and noble: "Que personae n'approche. J'ai seule Ie droit d'etre presente. N'entrez pas" and replaces it with Madame's more reasoned "Que personne
n'approche. Moi-meme je m'avenrure trop pres_ N'cntrez pas. EUts ant encore besoin de beaucoup de solitude [....JPritz qu'elles reussissent"
On the back ofthe page that is inserted between page 'ST71 and ~72 of this same typeseript, Madame continues: "Elles m'arrachent d'elles-memes. Elles m'cxtirpent de leurs gestes. Elles s'tlevent. Je n'ai plus peur pour elles..." Finally, on page -59-73 before Claire (playing "Madame") authorizes her sister to continue, Genet footnotes: "MADAME
(entrant dans fa piece Ii recu/er): Que personne n'approche d'elles. Regardez-les de loin mais n'approchez pas [encore] d'elles. Restez ou valIS eles. Restez. Je VOllS reaiteF&i redirai tous les details. Priez ensemble!" 10
In this unperformed early version of the play. Solange (still playing "Claire"?) is wrong, then. in asswning that the real Madame is at this time celebrating Monsieur's release at the Bi/hoque! and in believing that Madame has been permitted to escape in a taxi. II Rather than celebrate
the liberation of Monsieur, as she is asswned to in the later versions
of the play, in this typeSCript version Madame plays the role of gatekeeper to the crowds, guarantor of the suicide of her maidls and the end oftheir ceremony ofhatred, In playing this role, she moreover takes on one final role: as spokesperson, witness, reporter -possibly even as manipulator -of the truth,
Her sudden return to witness the demise of her maids raises troubling
questions, however: Has she abandoned Monsieur at the Bilboquef!
Was her excitement at learning that he had telephoned during
her absence merely play-acting on ber part too, so that she could convince
ber maids that it was safe for them to continue their ritual to its
end for once and for all? Did she plan her return in order to witness it?
Or did she never really take the taxi to the Bilboquer at all? In her final
II The text of me footnote is on the back of page-9 73. Besides the sequences by Madame that we bave noted, 011 page-§9 73 after Claire', prompling of Solange {"Madame prendta SOil tilleulj, Genel pencils in the words of the "real~ Madame: "Ni pourmoi·meme."
II She has told Claire (playing "Madame" -but who tries to drop this role and be herself again): "Ne bougez pas! Que Madame m'eooute. Vous AVez permis qu'eHe s'e.cha~ Vous! Ah! quel dommage que je ne puisse lui dire toute ma baine! que je ne puJSSe lUI raconter 1000es nos grimaces. Mais, ooi si lache, si sotte, tu I'IS laissCc s'enfuir. En ee moment, elle sable Ie champagne!" (172)
THE UNKNOWN ROLE OF MADAME IN GENET'S LES BONNES 251
role as witness to a tragedy, does she really enjoy alone the spectacle of the true confusion of roles that goes beyond Claire (as "Madame") drinking the gardenal and killing herself, beyond Solange as surviving maid carrying her sister within her to prison, beyond her being the unsuspecting
dupe of her domestics to where they are the duped, the pawns, and Madame the true queen?
Perhaps Genet felt that the questions raised by Madame's return at the end of the play were so numerous that they warranted his elimination of her final and seemingly ambiguous role from the play altogether. Whatever the reason, he seems to have overlooked Claire (playing "Claire'j's promise of Madame's return. A footnote that he added to the definitive version of Les Bonnes suggests that he might have been preoccupied
with the large number of cuts that he had already made. In this footnote he writes:
II est possible que la pi!ce panUsse rtduite a un squelene de pi!ce. En effet, tout y est trop vite dit, et trop explicite, je suggere donc que les metteurs en scene eventuels reJDplacent
les expressions trop precises, celles qui rendent 1a situation trop explicite par d'autres plus ambigues. Que les comediennes jouenL Excessivement. (158)
Future directors hoping to flesh out the version of Les Bonnes that Genet left us with before his death in 1986 might be wise not to replace Genet's words with their own but rather to add to Genet's words, or those he originally gave to Madame at the end of the play. Should they in such a way restore Madame's final role, they would revest this play so intensely
concerned with its own theatricality with all of its earlier ambiguity
and that, some twenty years after its first performance when preparing his play for publication in his complete works, Genet appears to have yearned for once more. After all, if Madame's retwn is anticipated,
as Claire (playing "Claire")'s promise would suggest, the two maids surely expect her to spy on them. By pretending not to notice her when she reappears at the doorway, they (as Madame thinks only she does) most surely push their own role-playing to its excessive limit. 12
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
'I An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1995 NEMLA conference in Bosion in the session entitled ''The Silence oflhe Text: the 'Unsaid.'"
252
ROMANCE NOTES
WORKS CrrED
"Les Acquisitions prtsentm par les COnserv1lteurs de La BibIioth~ue Nationale: De· panemenl des Arts et du Spectacle." Revue de Ja Blb/iQtMque Nalionale 47 (1993): 61-64. Gaskell, Philip. From Writer to Reader: Studies in Editoriol Method. Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1978.
Genet, Jean. Us Bonnes. Sceaux; Pauvert, 1954.
--.Les Bonnes. Fonds Jouvet. BibliothCqlie de 1'Arsena1. Paris.
--."us Bonnes." CEulres completes. Tome N. Paris: Gallimard. 1968. 137-76.
--. ''Comment jouer Les BOllnes." CEuvres completes. Tome IV. Paris: GaJIimard, 1968. 265-70. Howard-Hill, T. If. "Playwrights' Intentions and the Editing of Plays," Text: Transactions
ojrJre Societyfor Textual Sc1u:Jlarship. VoL 4. Ed D.C. Oreetham & W. Speed Hill. New York: AMS Press, 1988.269-78. Oddon, MarceL "Essai d'analyse de l'~uvre dramatique." Les Voles de /a crktion dra_ matil[ue. Tome IV. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975.111-42. Ollivic:r, Alain. ''Lcs Premieres 'Bonnes': Enlretiens d'Alain QUivia avec Monique M6linaod et Yvette Eti6vant." Alumwtiws Ihitirrales 43 (1993): 60-66. Plunka, Gene A. "Jean Genet's Mentor. Jean Coctcau." New England Tlzeatre JOUJ7lal4 (1993): 4U3. Saini-Leon. "w Bonnes de Jean Genet: QueUe version faul-iljouer?" Studies ill Foreign Language and Literature: The Proceedings ofthe 13rd MOUlltain Interstate Foreign Language Omference. Ed. Charles 1. Nelson. Richmond: Eas!em Kentucky University,
1976.513-16.
Webb, Riehard C. & Suzanne A. Jean Genet aNi His Crities: An AnllOUlted Bibliography,
1943-1980. Metuchen, N.J.: Tht Scarecrow Press, 1982. White. Edmund. Genet: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.