Cheri-Bibi: The Stage Play

by Gaston Leroux

  CHERI-BIBI

  A drama in 9 scenes by

  Alevy and Marcel Nadaud

  from the novel by Gaston Leroux

  translated and adapted by

  Frank J. Morlock

  A Black Coat Press Book

  Gaston Leroux the Magician

  In March of 1921, Alexandre Millerand, President of the French Republic, went to Marseilles for a state dinner. On leaving the train, Millerand and each of his companions, as well as the Mayor of Marseilles and other city officials, inexplicably found in their pockets a playing card: the seven of clubs.

  Despite questioning and a thorough police investigation, the mystery remained unsolved until the following week. At that time, a Parisian newspaper announced the publication of the latest adventure novel of Gaston Leroux: The Seven of Clubs! It had all been a clever publicity ploy. This utilization of reality to enhance fantasy was an artifice typical of Leroux, a former journalist.

  The author of The Phantom of the Opera, his best known book, was born in Paris in 1868, in a bourgeois family. Leroux was an excellent student, collecting all class honors, including swimming. One of his teachers is reputed to have told him that he would become either a writer or an attorney. He chose both. In 1890, he joined the Paris Bar as an Avocat-Stagiaire (attorney-in-training) while, at the same time, publishing poetry and short stories in various magazines.

  Three years later, Leroux left the legal profession to work for the newspaper Le Matin. Because of his background, he was assigned to cover criminal matters. In the course of his work, he attended five state executions. The sight of the guillotine in action was one that was not easily forgotten. This experience was later useful in his fiction writing, which often featured passionate crime, courtroom drama and their sometimes frightful conclusions.

  In 1896, Leroux was among the six reporters who accompanied President Felix Faure to Russia. Over the next few years, Leroux began to expand his field of coverage. He wrote about the Dreyfus Affair, French politics and his travels. In 1901, he published a first collection of his articles, Sur Mon Chemin (On My Path).

  His first novel, La Double Vie de Theophraste Longuet (The Double Life of Theophraste Longuet), appeared in Le Matin in 1903. In it, Theophraste Longuet, a meek, mild-mannered bourgeois literally relives the life of Cartouche, the famous 18th century French bandit, and dies his horrible death–Cartouche was quartered.

  La Double Vie reflected Leroux’s fascination for the occult, and his knowledge of the criminal mind. It also exhibited his penchant for a certain grand-guignol. In it, a butcher’s head is served in the same manner as a lamb’s. Fantasy is also very much present since Theophraste encounters in the catacombs a civilization of twenty-fingered men speaking a 14th century French dialect.

  In a stunt that has been imitated since, Leroux involved his readers in a treasure hunt. Clues had been planted in the novel, that would eventually enable someone to collect 25,000 francs.

  For the next two years, Leroux became Le Matin’s correspondent in Russia. Aware of the cruelty and incompetence of the Tsarist regime, he was among the first to forecast the Russian Revolution. Throughout 1905, he covered tragic happenings, including such famous events as the Potemkin Revolt and the “Red Week” in Moscow.

  In 1906, he returned to France where he wrote Le ystère de la Chambre Jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room). This launched his career as a writer. The book introduced the character of Joseph Rouletabille, a young enterprising journalist, whose powers of deduction rivaled those of Sherlock Holmes.

  Rouletabille is, in France, one of the most famous detectives in popular fiction. In fact, his name has become a synonym for a spirit of cleverness and deduction. Rouletabille, along with two other French pulp heroes, Arsène Lupin and Fantômas, has inspired many film-makers. There were at least five movie adaptations of The Mystery of the Yellow Room between 1913 and 1965.

  The Mystery of the Yellow Room is full of gothic atmosphere and, despite the rational explanation provided at the end, leaves many questions unanswered. Because of this, and of the book’s success, Leroux wrote a sequel the following year, Le Parfum de la Dame en Noir (The Scent of the Lady in Black).1

  The Rouletabille series continued until Leroux’s death in 1927. Afterwards, two more Rouletabille novels were written by Noré Brunel. The Rouletabille novels contain a good share of fantasy elements, even though they are usually explained away by the hero in the end. Their supernatural apparitions, ghosts and magic are only the trappings of premeditated murder. However, it was in his other works that Leroux’s talent for the macabre truly blossomed.

  Because he was a journalist, Gaston Leroux wrote his novels as if they were fact. He often gave the exact dates of the events that he was narrating, and sometimes drew maps of the places involved (as in The Mystery of the Yellow Room). Several items reported by Leroux in his Russian articles found their way, almost word for word, in Rouletabille and the Tsar. Ballmeyer, Rouletabille’s father, and the villain in The Scent of the Lady in Black, was based on the real-life international criminal Allmeyer, whose exploits were reported in Le Figaro the same year.

  A characteristic of journalistic style is to place an emphasis on the sensational. That trait was particularly apparent in Leroux’s fiction. Both his subjects and his techniques of narration were larger-than-life. One of Leroux’s trademarks, for example, was the use of small, italicized phrases, such as:

  “The dwarf saluted Mr. Baptiste with one of his left hands.”

  “Did the Gypsies steal you from your parents?” “No. It was my parents who stole me from the Gypsies!”

  “That which he did not understand was that they replaced the brain of a madman with that of a murderer!”

  “It is not because you cut a woman in pieces and put her in our stove that you have killed her!”

  “Why is it that an honest clock strikes midnight at a quarter past two?”

  With these italicized poems in prose, Leroux transformed reality into something truly bizarre. Their frequent usage added a poetic atmosphere to his work. They also were a perfect instrument to bring out the fantasy and horror of his themes.

  Leroux wrote thirty- three novels during his career. Most of them today are considered classics in the genre. The Phantom of the Opera (1910) 2 presents the truly unforgettable character of Erik. Artist and Magician, Erik lives in the fantastic world that exists beneath the Paris Opera, which he built in part. Because of its larger-than-life characters and its completely surrealistic decor, the book has made a profound impression on all who have read it. The Phantom of the Opera has had many film incarnations. The first, and perhaps the best, was in 1925, with Lon Chaney, Sr. in the role of Erik.

  Leroux’s style carries such conviction that it is hard to believe that he is not reporting real events. As late as 1972, an English woman wrote to the heirs of Leroux to let them know that she intended to discover the secret hiding place where Erik had left his final opera, Don Juan Triumphant.

  In La Poupée Sanglante (The Bleeding Puppet) and La Machine à Assassiner (The Killing Machine) (both 1923), Leroux introduced the character of Gabriel, a humanoid robot. When the protagonist, Benedict Masson, wrongly accused of the murders of several young girls, is guillotined, Gabriel’s inventor arranges to have Benedict’s brain transplanted into Gabriel’s body. Thus, Benedict can return to unmask and destroy the true killer, a vampire nobleman.

  Le Fauteuil Hanté (The Haunted Chair) (1910) features a mad scientist who uses ultrasound and ultraviolet light to kill three academicians who discovered his secret. It is his demented son that he has imprisoned, and not himself, who is the real genius and inventor.

  The mysteries of Mayerling and the secrets of the
Gypsies are the subjects of two novels, La Reine du Sabbat (The Queen of the Sabbath) (1910) and Rouletabille and the Gypsies (1922). In both, Gaston Leroux showed that World War I was caused in part by feuding clans of Gypsies. The strange cultural traditions of the Romani are explored in such detail by Leroux that it is almost possible to believe that he was one of them.

  Among the other themes explored by Leroux are undersea battles in La Bataille Invisible (The Invisible Battle) (1917), an underground king of the Parisian Underworld in Le Roi Mystère (King Mystery) (1908), dedicated to his “master,” Alexandre Dumas, and an intelligent primate who is the missing link between ape and man in Balaoo (1911).

  To impress his readers, Leroux often used elements of horror, such as dismemberment and graphic depictions of various tortures. In Les Mohicans de Babel (1926), he describes the Torture of the 10,000 Pieces:

  “In clipped phrases, he announced what he was about to do. I heard him say: ‘I first remove the muscles from the anterior face of the left arm.’ Ah! It was well done! The flesh came off with the scalpel, just like a ribbon! ‘Second, ditto with the right arm!’ This ditto seemed more horrible to me than the most horrible of screams...”

  The sight of the torture is followed by an even more terrifying spectacle. The hero beholds the corpses of the victims, “their mouths open, huge, like in theatrical masks,” in a secret graveyard underneath the Seine.

  Leroux’s journalistic talents did not stop at these visual horrors. He knew, as perhaps no one else in his day, how to draw on reality to enhance his fiction. Through the clever inclusion of footnotes, or verifiable facts (i.e. events reported in the papers), he created the illusion of reality.

  The Phantom of the Opera, The Queen of the Sabbath and several Rouletabille stories, contained names or occurrences that truly existed. The Opera’s chandelier really did crash. The Queen of the Sabbath really did exist. With Leroux, you are never sure where reality stops and fantasy begins.

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier

  CHERI-BIBI

  Characters

  Jean Mascart a.k.a. Chéri-Bibi

  Cécile Bourrelier a.k.a. Cécily

  in order of appearance:

  La Ficelle (Stringer)

  Marquis du Touchais

  Marquise du Touchais

  Maxime du Touchais, their son

  Monsieur Bourrelier, Cécily’s father

  Reine

  George de Pont-Marie, Maxime’s friend

  Jacqueline Mascart, Chéri-Bibi’s sister, later Sister Mary of the Angels

  Sergeant, later Inspector, Costaud (Slugger) of the Dieppe police force

  Captain Barrachon of the Bayard

  Lieutenant de Vilène of the Bayard

  Chief Guard Pascaud of the Bayard

  Gueule-de-Bois (Woodface), a convict

  Petit-Bon-Dieu (Baby Jesus), a convict

  Le Rouquin (Red Hair), a convict

  Le Kanak, a convict, indigenous of New Caledonia, and a former surgeon

  The Countess, le Kanak’s girl-friend

  Baron Proskoff

  Nadja de Valrieu

  Carmen de Fontainebleau

  Petit Bernard

  Sonia, Baroness Proskoff

  Toinette, a dancing girl

  and a variety of:

  Servants

  Police Officers

  Peasants

  Convicts

  Guards

  Sailors

  Waiters, Maître D’s

  Dancers of both sexes

  The action takes place in 1913.

  The authors recommend that the actor playing Maxime du Touchais should have approximately the same weight and build as Chéri-Bibi.

  SCENE I

  THE MAN WITH THE GREY HAT

  This is a prologue that takes place eight years prior to the rest of the play.

  We are at the Chateau du Touchais, at Puys, near Dieppe, on a nice summer evening. On one side, we see the facade of the Chateau with a park at the rear; a stairway connects a terrace with some garden furniture to the park, and two French doors give access from the terrace to the interior of the Chateau. A window located just above ground on the terrace belongs to the kitchen, which is in the basement.

  AT RISE, a servant comes down the stairway from the terrace. He goes to the kitchen window and calls:

  SERVANT: La Ficelle! 3

  LA FICELLE: (inside) Here!

  SERVANT: Pass me some coffee. It’ll save me from going down into the kitchen.

  LA FICELLE: Coffee! Right away! There it is!

  (The servant leans down and picks up a tray with a coffee service.)

  SERVANT: Thanks, muck snipe!

  LA FICELLE: Hey! Try showing some respect, flunkey!

  (The servant places the coffee on a table in the garden. Meanwhile, the Marquis and Marquise du Touchais, their son, Maxime, followed by Monsieur Bourrelier and his daughter, Cécily, come out of the French doors and walk down from the terrace to the garden.)

  BOURRELIER: Marquis, I don’t know how to thank you for such wonderful hospitality!

  MARQUIS: Isn’t it quite natural, my dear Monsieur Bourrelier, that, since you surprised us by visiting us in the afternoon with your lovely daughter, that we would insist on keeping you for dinner?

  BOURRELIER: I apologize for forcing you to have dinner so early, Marquis, but it is absolutely necessary that I get back to Dieppe this very evening. I have an important meeting with one of my agents. I’m actually a bit taken up with my own affairs at the moment.

  MARQUIS: My dear chap, that’s what it means to be the largest ship-owner in the region.

  CÉCILY: (passing the coffee with Maxime’s assistance) One lump or two?

  MARQUISE: Two please, my little Cécily. It becomes you nicely to play the young lady of the house.

  MARQUIS: Isn’t she every day?

  BOURRELIER: (to Maxime) And what are you doing at the moment, young man? Any hobbies?

  MAXIME: During the day, I play golf, cricket and tennis; in the evening, cards and tango.

  BOURRELIER: That’s frightening! I see why you seem a bit tired. Wouldn’t you prefer to spend your time in more profitable ways?

  MAXIME: For the moment, things are going very well the way they are.

  MARQUIS: My son is joking. He’s not taking enough credit for the sheer amount of work that he does and which sometimes weighs too heavily on him.

  MARQUISE: (to Cécily) My dear child, would you come and walk with me in the park now that the heat has died down?

  CÉCILY: Very willingly, Madame!

  MARQUISE: (to Maxime) Maxime, give me your arm.

  (The Marquise leaves by the rear accompanied by Maxime and Cécily. The Marquis and Bourrelier have liqueurs and cigars.)

  MARQUIS: Well, my dear friend, can you now give me your answer to my proposal?

  BOURRELIER: What proposal would that be, my dear Marquis?

  MARQUIS: You know very well: the marriage of our two children.

  BOURRELIER: Ah yes. I’ve thought about it for a long while. My first concern, of course, is to guarantee my daughter’s happiness.

  MARQUIS: Maxime is ready to assume a very respectable position in society. He is, after all, the heir to a great name.

  BOURRELIER: But you are ruined, my dear Marquis.

  MARQUIS: Let’s not exaggerate. Our fortune may not be what it once was, but we’re still quite comfortable.

  BOURRELIER: Let’s be honest, shall we? You have gambled away your wife’s fortune on unlucky speculations. Your lands are mortgaged to the hilt, and so is your chateau, from its cellar to its attic. All because of your mismanagement and taste for excessive spending. In short, you have reduced your wife’s fortune to nothing.

  MARQUIS: You’re hard on me, Monsieur Bourrelier.

  BOURRELIER: I’m a businessman, first and foremost, and I do not trouble myself with vain sentimentality. Besides, it’s not your lack of money that makes me uneasy. My Cécily will have enough for two. Having
worked hard all my life to elevate myself, it won’t displease me–far from it!–to have my daughter join the Aristocracy. But your son doesn’t possess the qualities that would make him a good husband. He is lazy, a gambler, debauched–his reputation is terrible.

  MARQUIS: You mustn’t say such things. People like to spread gossip; high society can be so nasty. Indeed, I’ve heard it said that you, yourself, have engaged into some illicit affair with your daughter’s tutor–Jacqueline Mascart...

  (Bourrelier barely represses a guilty gesture.)

  MARQUIS: No need to tell you that I don’t believe a word of it. So I beg you to extend the same courtesy to my son. I see only good coming out from the merging of our families. The Touchais coat-of-arms emblazoned on the flag of your ships would give them a certain allure. What do you think?

  BOURRELIER: It’s very tempting, I concede.

  MARQUIS: Maxime can be a bit frivolous, overly generous perhaps...

  BOURRELIER: Well, I suppose that’s a sign of good breeding...

  MARQUIS: ...But he has a great deal of heart and will make your daughter very happy. Do we have a deal?

  BOURRELIER: In principle, yes, but I still have to talk to Cécily about it.

  (At this moment, Cécily enters from the rear, heading toward the terrace.)