If you want a clear plot, conventional heroes and villains, or an evening free of disturbing material, ‘Les Enfants Terribles’ at East Village Basement is not the play for you.
The production contains antisemitic and homophobic language, suicide, and gun violence. But audiences willing to enter its unsettling world will find four gifted young actors exploring an extraordinary range of human emotions.
Photo Credit: Kent Meister
Jean Cocteau’s 1929 novella Les Enfants Terribles follows siblings Elisabeth and Paul as they isolate themselves from the world while growing up. Playwright, filmmaker, and Brick Theater founder Michael Gardner has adapted the novella for the stage and directed this production. He sharply defines characters who combine childish selfishness and naïveté with manipulation, deceit, suicide, and encounters with prostitutes. At the center is the siblings’ game: each tries to provoke the other, and victory belongs to whoever gets the last word and elicits frustration. That contest governs the play.
Maysle Jane—an actor, singer, poet, and burlesque performer—portrays Elisabeth as the force controlling everyone around her through sex and deception. Determined to win the game and preserve her incestuous bond with Paul, Elisabeth becomes both its chief strategist and its most dangerous player. Jane makes the role distinctly her own.
Rutger Scott portrays Paul, who periodically escapes the game by visiting prostitutes and later falls in love with Agatha. Elisabeth, determined to keep him for herself, manipulates Agatha and Gerard to pull Paul back into the siblings’ private world. Scott makes Paul’s conflict convincing.
Agatha, an orphan who moves in with Paul and Elisabeth, is quickly drawn into their game. Caroline “Lina” DeFazio moves fluidly among roles: one moment she is a column in a movie theater; the next, she interviews Elisabeth for a salesclerk position. As Agatha, DeFazio makes Elisabeth’s manipulation palpable while clearly conveying her love for Paul and her reluctance to marry Gerard.
Victor Gao portrays Gerard as a man sexually manipulated by both Elisabeth and Paul. While waiting for his uncle to die, Gerard joins their game and becomes another captive of their enclosed world. Gao presents him as a man trapped in selfish adolescence.
Death, school, work, and marriage all threaten the group’s isolation, yet each interruption collapses and returns them to the game. The cycle ends only when Paul and Elisabeth die by suicide.
Photo Credit: Travis Emery Hackett
Over 100 uninterrupted minutes, Les Enfants Terribles asks its cast to sustain a demanding, volatile world—and gives all four actors ample room to display their range. The production includes graphic dialogue, depictions of sexual acts, homophobic, antisemitic, and misogynistic language, references to rape and gun violence, and negative cultural portrayals. These elements derive from Cocteau’s novella rather than the values of Gardner or the cast. Gardner’s adaptation does not soften the source material; instead, it confronts its ugliness while placing the performers’ precision and commitment at the center. The result is a disturbing but compelling showcase for four talented actors.
