THEATER, A LIFE DRAMA & A NIGHT-TIME COMIC TRAGEDY

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Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
This is a book and it counts 257 pages on the computer and more than 112,000
words. There are some short reviews, some longer reviews and some quite developed
articles. They all have been published in a way or another. They represent a rather small
part of all I have written on theater, drama, and non-musical stage productions. They go
back some twenty years and the whole period I spent up north in France and the hundreds
of reviews of plays and other stage productions up there from 1976 to 1995 have not been
collected. That older period is entirely in French. And at the time these reviews were
published in the daily paper Liberté in Lille, plus amplified on several radio stations, mainly
Radio Quinquin and Canal Sambre. I was going to a show something like five times a
week, fifty-two weeks a year, an average count with some heavy periods and festivals. And
I should take into account the operas, the ballets, the films and the concerts I also went to.
I have not included either all the
articles I have published in Théâtres
du Monde, though you will find some
mention of the most recent ones.
These articles are all in French and
available from the journal in Avignon.
In the following pages you will
find some sections in English and
some others (the larger part) in
French. I apologize for those who do
not capture both languages, but do not
ask Google or Reverso to translate
please. My language does not fit the
ready-made one-size-for-all fit-them-
all dialect if not patois of Google or
Reverso. There is in no way a
translating machine that can translate
my language properly. So you’d better
learn English or French. That would
be easier for everyone. And I can provide you with some didactic products I have authored
for you to learn some English, though that authorship is not without a price, and yet then
you would be my guinea pigs since I would check the value of these didactic products by
looking at your own productions, mistakes and gems alike.
But this is another story.
So enjoy these notes, pages and I would advise you to download the whole thing
and to enjoy it ten pages at a time.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ut Of The Fringe, Contemporary Latina/Latino, Theatre And Performance, Cala
Svich & Maria Teresa Marrero, Editors, New York, NY, 2000
Luis Alfaro – Straight As A Line – 2000
Migdalia Cruz – Fur, A Play In Nineteen Scenes – 1995
Coco Fusco & Nao Bustamante – Stuff – 1996
Migdalia Cruz – Fur, A Play In Nineteen Scenes – 1995
Nilo Cruz – Night Train To Bolina – 1994
Naomi Iizuka – Skin, An Adaptation Of Büchner’s Woyzeck – 1995
Oliver Mayer – Ragged Time – 1994
Pedro R. Monge-Rafuls – Trash, A Monologue – 1995
Cherrie Moraga – The Hungry Woman, A Mexican Medea – 1995
Monica Palacios – Greetings From A Queer Senorita – 1995
Caridad Svich – Alchemy Of Desire:Dead-Man4s Blues, A Play With Songs – 1994
héâtre Et Téléologie Cathartique Ou Let’s Cut Off Our Noses To Spite God’s Face
(Part One)
I./ Les Bases De Notre Civilisation Judéo-Chrétienne : La Construction De La
Teleologie Judeo-Chretienne.
a. La Genèse
b- Caïn et Abel
c- Abraham et Isaac
d- David et Goliath
e- Daniel
f- Les quatre évangiles
g- L’Apocalypse
II./ Les Temps Anciens : Le Triomphe De La Teleologie Catholique
1. Ludus Danielis
2. Autres œuvres du Moyen Âge
III./ Les Temps Baroques : Époque De La Contradiction Christique Et
Du Doute
1. Alessandro Scarlatti : Il martirio di Santa Cecilia, la lettre de la téléologie
du martyre.
2. Johann Sebastian Bach, Les quatre Passions, ou la lettre embellie
3. Georg Friedrich Haendel, entre biblicité et nature, l’Aufklärung en marche
héâtre Et Téléologie Cathartique Ou Let’s Cut Off Our Noses To Spite God’s Face
(Part Two)
IV./ La Révélation De Faust : Dieu En Train De Mourir
V./ La Mort De Dieu : Gustav Mahler Et Igor Stravinsky (Avec Jean Cocteau En
Complice)
VI./ Dieu Est Mort, Le Monde Aussi : Vers Une Téléologie Virtuelle
1- The Time Machine
2- Back To the Future I – II – III
3- Terminator I – II – III
4- Good Bye Lenin
5- La Passion du Christ, retour des religions ?
Conclusion
anay Geiogamah Et La Renaissance Indienne Dans Le Théâtre Et Pour Toujours,
Du Temps Historique Au Temps Spirituel
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I./ « Body Indian » (1972)
II./ Foghorn (1973)
III./ 49 (1975)
Conclusion
Addendum 1 - Hanay Geiogamah – New Native American Drama –Three plays – Body
Indian (1972) – Foghorn (1973) – 49 (1975)
Addendum 2 - Walt Disney – Johnny Depp – The Lone Ranger – 2013
Addendum 3 - Coming Up Productions - Theater 130 - 49 by Hanay Geiogamah – Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ywhLtmOG5E
Foghorn Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URxpEW-AsKs
Théâtre De Ma Vie
opat – Les Grandes Signatures Du Théâtre Volume 2 – 2011
Roland Topor 1 Jean-Michel Ribes – Batailles – 2008
Françoise Sagan – Château En Suède – Annick Blancheteau – 2009 (1960)
Marivaux – La Seconde Surprise De L’amour – Luc Bondy – 2008
Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt – Le Lilbertin – Bernard Murat - 2007
Roland Dubillard (1923-2011)– Les Diablogues – Anne Bourgeois – 2009
opat – Les Grandes Signatures Du Théâtre – 2010
Georges Feydeau – La Puce À L’oreille – Bernard Murat – 2006
Henrik Ibsen – Hedda Gabler – Roman Polanski – 2004
Fedor Dostoievski – Crime Et Chätiment – Robert Hossein - 2001
Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt – L’évangile Selon Pilate – Christophe Lidon - 2006
ean-Marie Besset, Plus Sexuel Que Moi Tu Meurs Brûlé En Place De Grève,
Bouffé Par Le Sida, Castré Pour La Bonne Cause
Austin Pendleton – Jean-Marie Besset – Oncle Paul – Théâtre Du Rond Point –
2005
Jean-Marie Besset – Rue De Babylone – Théâtre Du Petit Montparnasse – 2006
Jean-Marie Besset – Les Grecs – Théâtre Du Petit Montparnasse – 2006
Jean-Marie Besset – Ce Qui Arrive Et Ce Qu’on Attend – Petit Montparnasse –
2010
Jean-Marie Besset – Le Banquet D’auteuil – Vingtième Théâtre – 2015
Jean-Marie Besset assigne Aurélie Filippetti devant le Conseil d'Etat
acques Coulardeau at Théâtres du Monde 2016 (56), , Théâtres du Monde 2016 –
Voltaire
https://www.academia.edu/24441489/Th%C3%A9%C3%A2tres_du_Monde_2016_-
_Voltaire
a Comédie Française Est Un Mythe, Mais Hélas ! J’ai Ici Un Choix Inégal !
Comédie Française – Corneille – Horace – 1973-2009
Alfred De/Musset – Lorenzaccio – Comédie Française – 1977-2010
Henri De Montherland – Le Cardinal D’espagne – Comédie Française – Ina – 1964-
2010
Crébillon Fils – La Nuit Et Le Moment – Comédie Française – 1979-2010
Jean-François Regnard – Le Légataire Universel – Comédie Française – 1975-
2009
Édouard Bourdet – Les Temps Difficiles – Comédie Française – 1966-2008
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acques Coulardeau &VoltaireAtAcademia.Edu(44)Le Comique De Voltaire EstSouvent
Mélodramatique Et Larmoyant
https://www.academia.edu/19832298/Comique_de_Voltaire_m%C3%A9lodramatique_et_l
armoyant
Théâtre Complet De M. De Voltaire, Conforme À La Dernière Édition, Rome
Septième – Facsimilé Par Ulan Press, https://www.academia.edu/s/e1791e691e
Voltaire – L’indiscret – 1725 […]
Voltaire – L’enfant Prodigue – 1736 […]
Voltaire – La Prude - 1747 […]
Voltaire – La Femme Qui A Raison – 1949 […]
Voltaire – Nanine – 1749 […]
Isaac Newton And Judaism […]
acques Coulardeau at theatresdumonde.com (32) Théâtres du Monde N°25 –
2015
http://www.theatresdumonde.com De L’amour Au Théâtre
Strutting On The Stage Of Art And Life
https://www.academia.edu/22857824/STRUTTING_ON_THE_STAGE_OF_ART_AND_LIF
E
Jacques COULARDEAU - Le Défi De La Christianisation D'un Mythe Oral Celte:
Tristan Et Yseult P 33
NOTES DE LECTURE
Jacques COULARDEAU - James V. Hatch & Ted Shine, Eds. Black Theater USA.
Plays By African Americans. The Recent Period 1935-Today P. 357
édée Rencontre Jacques Coulardeau @Academia.Edu (24) From True Lover’s
Knot To Hangman’s Knot, Medea Battling With History Ou Des Lacs D’amour
Aux Nœuds Coulants, Médée Aux Prises Avec L’histoire
https://www.academia.edu/1404412/FROM_TRUE_LOVER_S_KNOT_TO_HANGM
AN_S_KNOT_MEDEA_BATTLING_WITH_HISTORY_ou_DES_LACS_D_AMOUR_
AUX_N%C5%92UDS_COULANTS_M%C3%89D%C3%89E_AUX_PRISES_AVEC
_L_HISTOIRE
édée – Medea – All Reviews
https://www.academia.edu/1404411/MEDEE-Notes_de_lecture_visionnement_etc
ingt-Huit/Twenty-Eight Reviews
1- Seneque – Medee
2- Pasolini – Medee Page 3
3- Pier Paolo Pasolini – Medee – Texte
4- Euripide – Médée – Isabelle Huppert – Jacques Lassalle
5- Christa Wolf – Medea – English Translation
6- Christa Wolf – Medee
7- Jean Anouilh –Medee
8- Corneille – Medee
9- Max Rouquette – Medee
10- Euripides – Medea
11- Liz Lochhead – Medea – After Euripides
12- Seneca – Medea Page 18
13- Isabelle Stengers – Souviens Toi Que Je Suis Medee
14- Laurent Gaudé – Médée Kali
15- Ludmila Ulitskaya – Medea And Her Children
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16- Steven Weisenburger – Modern Medea, A Family Story Of Slavery And Child-
Murder Fromthe Old South
17- Pascal Dusapin – Heiner Müller – Philippe Herreweghe – Medeamaterial –
1990-1991/1992/1993
18- Marc-Antoine Charpentier – Medee – Thomas Corneille – 1693
19- Luigi Cherubini – Maria Callas – Medea – 1953
20- Cherubini – Medea – Teatro Regio Torino – 2008
21- Franz Grillparzer – Medea 1822
22- Aribert Reimann – Medea – After Franz Grillparzer
23- Aribert Reimann – Medea – After Franz Grillparzer – Dvd – Wiener Staatsoper
24 – Giovanni Simone Mayr – Medea In Corinto 1813 – Cds – Saint Gallen – David
Stern
25- Giovanni Simone Mayr – Medea In Corinto 1813 – Dvd – Bayerische
Staatsoper – Ivor Bolton
26- Angelin Preljocaj – Le Songe De Medee
27- J.S. Morgane – Interpreting Medea
28- Revaz Gabichvadze – Georgiy Aleksidze – Tbilissi National Theater – Medea
e Théâtre Est Le Miroir De Nos Angoisses - Jacques Coulardeau At
Academia.Edu (15)
Théâtre Et Téléologie Cathartique, Let’s Cut Off Our Noses To Spite God’s Face
(Part One), Dr Jacques Coulardeau
https://www.academia.edu/1486212/TH%C3%89%C3%82TRE_ET_T%C3%89L%C
3%89OLOGIE_CATHARTIQUE_ou_LET_S_CUT_OFF_OUR_NOSES_TO_SPITE
_GOD_S_FACE_PART_ONE_
Théâtre Et Téléologie Cathartique, Let’s Cut Off Our Noses To Spite God’s Face
(Part Two) Dr Jacques Coulardeau
https://www.academia.edu/1486225/TH%C3%89%C3%82TRE_ET_T%C3%89L%C
3%89OLOGIE_CATHARTIQUE_ou_LET_S_CUT_OFF_OUR_NOSES_TO_SPITE
_GOD_S_FACE_PART_TWO_
acques Coulardeau At Academia.Edu (27) Out Of The Fringe, Contemporary
Latina/Latino, Theatre And Performance, Carida Svich & Maria Teresa Marrero,
Editors, New York, Ny, 2000
https://www.academia.edu/11582951/Chicano_a_drama_can_we_end_the_Post_C
olonial_Traumatic_Stress_Syndrome
eading Notes And Reviews
1- LUIS ALFARO – STRAIGHT AS A LINE - 2000
2- COCO FUSCO & NAO BUSTAMANTE – STUFF – 1996
3- MIGDALIA CRUZ – FUR, A PLAY IN NINETEEN SCENES – 1995
4- NILO CRUZ – NIGHT TRAIN TO BOLINA – 1994
5- NAOMI IIZUKA – SKIN, AN ADAPTATION OF BÜCHNER’S WOYZECK –
1995
6- OLIVER MAYER – RAGGED TIME – 1994
7- PEDRO R. MONGE-RAFULS – TRASH, A MONOLOGUE – 1995
8- CHERRIE MORAGA – THE HUNGRY WOMAN, A MEXICAN MEDEA – 1995
9- MONICA PALACIOS – GREETINGS FROM A QUEER SENORITA – 1995
10- CARIDAD SVICH – ALCHEMY OF DESIRE:DEAD-MAN4S BLUES, A PLAY
WITH SONGS – 1994
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osé Valverde at Amazon (23) What’ve You Done, Harry? Qu’as-Tu Fait, Harry ? A
Bilingual Edition In Our Founding Past
José VALVERDE, translation Jacques COULARDEAU
Acteur en pleine performance
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OUT OF THE FRINGE
CONTEMPORARY LATINA/LATINO
THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
Cala SVICH & Maria Teresa MARRERO, Editors
NEW YORK, NY, 2000
READING NOTES AND REVIEWS
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
This collection of ten plays is one of the strangest collections I know. Most
authors are women. The theme of Chicana women is central and lesbianism is
shown as some kind of escape from the Post Colonial Traumatic Stress Syndrome
of Chicano men and Chicana women.
Among these plays there is a rewriting of Medea’s myth from this lesbian
point of view that is phenomenal in many ways and particularly in the fact that
Medea is making herself a lesbian to protect and save her motherhood that leads
her to killing her own son not to lose him to his father and hence lose her
motherhood, not seeing that she kills her motherhood at the same time, which
becomes final in the end when the dead son brings poison to his own
institutionalized mother and thus terminates her like some kind of vermin. Out of
love . . . for sure!
At the same time the consciousness of that Post Colonial Traumatic Stress
Syndrome is not clearly captured which leads to mourning the dead Chicano
soldiers in the American imperialistic wars without denouncing these wars per se.
I just wonder if these authors have not integrated themselves too much into
American society and particularly American universities that are dealing with Indian
or Chicano or Lesbian studies as some kind of attractive gimmicks to have more
students. Note the gay theme is nearly totally absent from this collection and yet
when mentioned like in the first play of the collection it does not concern Chicanos
per se, even if the main part of this first play happens in Las Vegas which is not
exactly Chicano or Indian.
Enjoy the reading of the reviews as some kind of introduction to that Chicano
and Chicana drama which is anyway essential in American culture today, and not
only, far from it, the United States.
Olliergues, France, March 22, 2015

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OUT OF THE FRINGE
CONTEMPORARY LATINA/LATINO
THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
Carida SVICH & Maria Teresa MARRERO, Editors
NEW YORK, NY, 2000
LUIS ALFARO – STRAIGHT AS A LINE - 2000
The play is about the death of an AIDS patient. Paulie is alone facing his mother that has
no name. But does she need one? She is the generic prostitute got pregnant on a fifteen minute
trick with nothing but a customer that will never be identified in spite of what the mother may say.
The son has grown homosexual vastly encouraged to do so by his mother who seems to
like the idea of him being a drag queen. She, a prostitute, could not imagine her son to be a
customer of hers, hence a heterosexual man. As a homosexual he is no longer a man for her in her
own mind. He got promiscuous and of course got AIDS.
He is growing morbid as the disease advances and he is trying various methods to commit
suicide, supported by his mother to do so. It starts with his intention to jump in front of a through
train in the New York Subway while being connected to his mother on the telephone, sharing the
experience. But he fails.
Then he gets locked up in his mother’s Las Vegas circle and circus. There his suicide
becomes a lifelong enterprise, as long as his life will last. The only link he has with the outside
world is a gay telephone chat. The mother is purely invasive and controlling. The telephone is
virtual communication hence a virtual relation with someone who remains virtual, with a world that
is phantasmagoric, fantasized, hence fully unreal.
Paulie stops taking his drugs in order to die. It is then when death is near that the mother
discovers motherhood in the promised and unannounced solitude this death will bring her. The
mother’s love is coming too late. Is it for a man or is it for a pet that she is going to lose? Her
knowing that love comes too late too. Her knowing that love came too late is too late too in its own
way. This mother’s love is a typical black humor trick played by fate on the mother.
Paulie bites the mother to force her to tell the truth. So she tells him about the father who
remains anonymous and only identified as a customer. Paulie brings up then the concept of
destiny. His fate was written on the wall in a way. Was it a curse? What is from God? He tells about
his own profession: a nude male burlesque in a go go house. Now he is reduced to an intravenous
catheter to survive he feels castrated, raped by this penetrating dripping lifeline. Life has played
this second black humor trick, but this time on him.

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The mother wants to get him into some kind of fencing game to force him to fight the
disease. She is pathetic. She is kicking him. She is symbolically raping him, which will only be at
least the second time. And he submits to this symbolical rape from his own mother. Black humor
again for a third time on both of them. When the mother finally wants to love Paulie, she can only
rape him, which is utterly castrating.
His final death dementia is a vision of himself at Victoria Station, London, buying a ticket for
two. That’s no longer black humor but some deep morbid humor. The second seat is for his mother
who he would like to take along in his final trip.
He dies of course. His mother thanks him – though a little bit late – for her motherhood. She
goes back to Las Vegas, the oasis in the desert, the totally artificial world in which she can survive.
A dead end in a way.
COCO FUSCO & NAO BUSTAMANTE – STUFF – 1996
This play is introduced by an essay that presents cannibalism as the central metaphor of
colonialism and later of the final revenge of the decolonized, if they are really decolonized since
they reproduce in their minds and life the very world of colonization. They really look more like Post
Colonial Traumatic Stress Syndrome victims. In the authors’ own words:
“Latin American literature is full of references to cannibalism – as the European
colonial’s fear of the indigenous “other” as a cannibal, as a trope for Europe and
America’s ravaging of Latin America’s resources and, finally, as a symbolic revenge
of the colonized who feed off the colonial. If food here serves as a metaphor for sex,
then eating represents consumption in its crudest form.” (45)
This play is an extremely complicated play and yet so simple. Southern women, food, sex
plus Spanish and we have the main avenging characters.
There is nevertheless a lot more heritage in that extravaganza.
1- The Goddess and her three lovers, the Wind, Water and Fire, is a rewriting of the triple
goddess in her triple enslavement to her three promiscuous lovers. The Goddess is a whore in a
way, but a triple whore.
2- The Goddess wants a human lover and she makes it out of food. We can understand
that human lover might be white due to his fate. Anyway that lover is nothing but food for the body

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if not for the mind. In a way he is food for the mind but he reduces the mind to a cannibal digestive
system from mouth to anus and transit in-between the two.
3- Then the priestess destroys the lover in an orgy of destruction and cannibalism as if this
ritualistic creation of a human lover could only lead to frenzy and annihilation. It reveals a totally
unethical heritage here. This heritage is perverted by the desire to get even with what was lost,
what was imposed, what was rejected, what was derisively recreated.
4- The acme of this fake and totally traumatic liberation from colonialism and the colonial
mind is in the quick lesson of Spanish. It goes as follows in its translation (mostly personal):
“Do you want to dance?
“Yes, you’re really great!
“Do you want to go to my place?
“We must know each other better.
“What’s your name?
“I’m called Lola. Where are you from?
“I’m Nigel from England.
“It is getting late. I must go home.
“Can I take you there?
“Yes, OK!
“Now, get on the bed!
“OK!
“Get on your knees!
“Well, you see, you are slightly big.
“Let’s try another way.
“I like that. You’re driving me wild.
“Get some rope.
“Don’t tie me up, please.
“You are going to be punished.
“You are an animal.
“Cool it down.
“I am very angry.
“I lost control and I am sorry.
“You’re using me.
“It’s not true, I am looking for love.
“I am looking for financial support.
“We could live together in my country.
“I want to know you a little bit better.”
That’s a very clearly oriented conversation towards nothing but taking the woman, at least
for the man or the tourist, sole satisfaction of this male character in his touristic perambulation. The
Spanish lesson is supposed to make it easier.

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Women are nothing but there to satisfy the desires, and impulses of male tourists. Women
at best pervert their alienation into a subjugating weapon.
We must also note the heritage is vaguely Indian but it has been transformed into some
entertainment, some purely lascivious attraction, a fun-fair ride in a way. The Indian heritage has
been totally distorted into what may attract the libidinous impulses of American men.
MIGDALIA CRUZ – FUR, A PLAY IN NINETEEN SCENES – 1995
The duplication of Michael and Nena, the main characters, into Dream Michael and Dream
Nena enables the author to reveal their hatred and to make Dream Michael kill Dream Nena, which
Michael does not do with the real Nena who dies but in a different way:
“(Dream Michael, isolated in a pool of light, speaks to Citrona. He stands over a
smoldering pile of pink rags that was once Dream Nena.)
DREAM MICHAEL [in Spanish translated as follows] (I killed her. Now we can be
together forever. She didn’t deserve you. I know you wanted me. It was in your
eyes . . . you didn’t have to say a word . . .)”
The story itself is not that meaningful. Michael has two females under his control. Citrona, a
wild animal he wants to turn into his spouse, and Nena who is the trapper he needs to take care of
Citrona who is a wild animal after all, and all that it means.
Michael is in love with Citrona, the very hairy animal she is, Nena is in love with Michael
and Citrona is in love with Nena. Citrona finally gets permission from Michael to court Nina and
Nina accepts to play the game if Michael accepts to marry her. But it all goes wrong. Citrona kills
and eats Nena. So Michael is going to be able to get Citrona. But the end of the play is Michael’s
scream from off stage where he had followed Citrona. We can imagine the cannibalistic ending and
since Citrona represents the wild women of the colonized Indian nations, she is depicted as hairy
and cannibalistic. That sounds simple-minded, primitive. A cannibalistic “ménage à trois.”
But the play is a metaphor. There are two types of women.
1. Hairless and servile women who love men;
2. Hirsute and beastlike cannibal women that eat all they love and what’s more prefer women
for love. Men are only perishable libidinous objects that do not really deserve love. We
mean of course the colonizers, the hairless civilized white men

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Michael uses both types and in spite of Nena who loves him, he loves the animal, the
beast. The animal female was made such by her own mother, and her own mother sold her to
Michael. The mother is thus seen as the real monster that procreates a monster she sells as soon
as she can for a profit. We have to understand the text may speak of Citrona’s mother generically,
meaning all mothers. This discourse against mothers seems to be present in many Chicano/a
plays.
Women are just objects, instruments, desirable objects or useful slaves. It is transmitted
from mother to daughter and it becomes a curse.
There is no hope with men because they are just dirty pigs who only want a wild encounter
with the wild animals they keep in cages. Men like boys will be men just like boys.
But the wild animal woman has the last word, or the last tooth bite. She kills Nina with a
letter opener from her very own mother given to her by Michael (premeditating the end). And then
she kills Michael and she eats him after having eaten Nina.
There is no hope for humanity, but unluckily quite a future even though hopeless, since the
women men want end up eating them up, hence getting rid of them. Is this a metaphor of a future
without men? Maybe though it sounds then all the more hopeless and vain since soon there will be
no men to help make more men who are the delicatessen luxury of these women.
This cannibalistic theme is remarkable in many of these plays, associated to women and
even mothers. The point is to know whether it is a parable of the desired liberation of women, or if
it is a parable of the longed for liberation of the colonized from the colonizers and colonization. As
such then women would be the agent of that liberation and their cannibalism would be the very
realization, materialization of the Post Colonial Trauma Stress Syndrome all the colonized are the
victims of.
NILO CRUZ – NIGHT TRAIN TO BOLINA – 1994
The train is only in the background. The main characters are two kids, Mateo and Clara
who are living in a region where a drought is so severe that everyone is supposed to give
something to feed the pig, their last chance not to starve, and even so. Foolishly Mateo has
suggested he could feed his own penis to the pig. He has to go because a promise has to be held
pr escaped.
The two kids finally jump on a freight train that takes them to a city where they can try to
survive on the steps of a church. Escape thanks to a mechanical bridge. But the real question is
why, since there is a train, the outside “world” does not help this particular region or country. The
drought victims are abandoned to die.
The children’s escape becomes picaresque then.
From the church steps they are retrieved by some priest and taken to a nearby monastery
or hospice. There the boy has his hand taken care of that had been bitten by the pig (a symbolical
fulfillment of the promise to give his penis to the pig), and the girl can integrate the team of the
hospice, washing and eventually cooking.
But we discover the reason why everyone has to do something. Most religious personnel
has disappeared because of the guerilla warfare going on around this hospice and that guerilla
warfare is the result of the drought, of the abandonment of the famine-stricken people, though the
guerilla warfare might just as well be the cause of the abandonment.

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We can then wonder what is better, the drought or the guerilla warfare. But that’s when the
story takes a bad turn. A nun, Sister Nora, is investigating the children to know if they are pure.
Sister Nora has a vindictive desire to kill soldiers or guerillas. But she more or less imagines things
from the drawings the two kids have produced.
“Look at the shape of the tongues. The sexual form of the hearts. You know these
hearts lead me to believe that this child was sexually active with her friend. We have
to be careful with them. We should keep them apart.”
For some moralistic totally speculative consideration the nun comes to an even worse evil
than what her perverted heart and mind sees in simple drawings: to keep two ten-eleven year old
kids apart because they might eventually maybe have had some sexual contact that cannot be
much due to the age of the two children concerned. That world is sick in their mind in two ways: to
ban anything sexual because sex is evil, dirty, gross, disgusting or whatever (at least to nuns who
supposedly have never had any dirty thought about it, let alone practice); to imagine anything
looking like has to do with the real thing it looks like as if a resemblance was proof, evidence. Both
are the results of traumas. The first trauma is definitely sexual. The second is a logical trauma very
common in many educated people because it is easy to say blue is blue and what looks like blue
must be blue. It might be close to acceptability when dealing with a color, though there might be a
lot of dissension and disagreement on same shades of blue, but it is absurd when dealing with
things slightly more complex like “boys will be boys,” “girls will be girls” and “all that flies is
butterflies.”
The play ends with two dreams, two myths. Another young girl, Talita, living in the hospice
is going to be saved because an American mother is going to come and get her away from here.
It’s a myth, an escape, no solution, just survival.
Mateo and Clara, though kept apart, manage to come together with a game. They play
dead and as such get in touch with some dead people and by doing it simultaneously they can
meet in that dead no man’s land. It shows how cruel the world is but also how imagination can
repair that cruelty, even if it is not a real solution but only an illusion, a mirage. Survival is often fed
by and with illusions.
Survival in a morbid world torn apart by warfare, abductions, torture, executions, rape and
many other evils is like a daily miracle, our daily mental bread, in other words an impossible event
if we count on it to come all by itself, on the wings of the night. Real escape then is in invisibility but
it is nothing but an illusion, a mental illusion. Yet the play brings up another questioning. It is written
by a Chicano. A Chicano is torn between the recollection of an evil warped distorted hellish past left
the Chicano behind and the dream that was his over there, and has never been fulfilled, of being
able to reach happiness in the USA. There is no American mother to claim you to some paradise,

15
be it only because you will forever be torn between that recollection and the dream you had then,
two evil hellish elements that drown you in some Post Colonial Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
To be decolonized, or in fact “decolonialized” in your mind, you have to get over this PCTSS
and that cannot be achieved by escaping it geographically because there is no escape from it
which is in your mind. You have to learn to deal with it and to domesticate it into an asset. Sister
Nora is certainly not the solution who is haunted by the violence around her and the perverted
ideas she projects onto any child appearing in her vicinity. Good morning “Deo gracias in excelsis!”
NAOMI IIZUKA – SKIN, AN ADAPTATION OF BÜCHNER’S WOYZECK – 1995
We have here an absolutely disorganized world and yet that disorganization seems to be
structured.
Jones, the main character, seems to be confronted to a hectic messy world. He wants to
love but he is haunted by a past of humiliation and a present of alienation. The two police scenes
are typical of both provocation and humiliation from the police side when Jones is just not able to
react and is doing nothing, wrong or right, anyway.
His girl friend Mary, the well named though cursed, is totally cut off from any attachment.
“I am dreaming of men. They fall out of the sky. They fall and they crash into
buildings and some of them get caught in the trees. Some of them hit the ground
and break into a lot of little pieces and I pick up all the pieces I see and I take them
home with me and I sew the pieces all together anyway into this thing.”
And she reconstructs these men but she cannot satisfy her desire. Her friend Lisa is not
better even if maybe less destructured but yet she is only confronted to direct sexual solicitation:
“He says he’ll give me ten bucks if he can put his hand on my thigh. . .
MAN: I want to put my hand on your thigh. I’ll give you five bucks. . . I would like to
put my hand on your thigh. I’ll give you ten bucks.”
At least she does not have any contact even if it were only monetary because anyway it
does not work, among other reasons because she refuses that contact.
A Navy Man is the main contender who is trying to get Mary. But he is not looking for love.
He is only interested in taking Mary and he is rejected, even when he tries to present a doll to
Mary’s daughter. Because Mary has a daughter and this daughter is maybe the crucible or the key
to the situation.

16
Mary’s daughter wants a story, a bedtime story but Jones is unable to provide one and the
only story she will get will come from her mother Mary, but then it is not a real bedtime story,
except if the objective were to create in her frigidity and give her a nightmare.
“MARY: Walk by the Spirit, and do not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the desires of
the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for
these are opposed to each other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh
are plain: fornication, impurity, anger, strife – and I warn you, as I warned you
before, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faith:
against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh
with its affections and desires.”
Love then is impossible just as much as life is impossible.
“MAN: Jesus, look at this guy. This guy is drunk. . . What is a man? He eats. He
drinks. He fucks. He shits. He dies. Man is what he is and then he dies. God made it
so. If I was a junkie, I would shoot up. If I was a pimp, I would pimp. If I was a killer, I
would kill. If I was a drunk, I would drink. Man is what he is and then he rots in the
ground. This is how it is for us. The world is a shithole. All is folly.”
And the world is only a reverberating echo in the ears of Mary’s girl. The world is a dream
based on the echo of a reverberation.
And if Mary has a lot of imagination about what she would do with Jones:
“I’ll unzip your pants and pull them off, and I’ll hold your dick in my hand, and I’ll rub
my thumb up and down the bottom of your dick from the base to the tip, where the
vein is, I will rub, and I will take the tip between my fingers, and I’ll move my fingers
back and forth until it’s hard and growing, and then I’ll lick it until it’s wet and shining,
and I will make circles with my tongue, I will do this, all around the tip and where it
curves in and then out again, my tongue will find that place, and I will trace the vein
the length that it goes, and then I’ll take it, all of it, in my mouth, and pull it back and
in and gently, I will do this, gently press it against my teeth so that it catches a little,
that is what I will do.”

17
The point is that she does not do it with and to Jones because she is distracted by some
Navy Man and she runs away with him into the crowd.
And this Mary gets merged with the Virgin Mary in scene 18:
“(Jones dances with the Virgin Mary. She is all long hair and through her hair all
through her hair there are so many flowers, they fall over everything they cover
everything they bloom so many you can’t count them. The Virgin is electric. Her lips
are electric. Her hands burn. Lisa tells the little girl the story . . . Jones falls. He is
electrified. The Virgin Mary disappears.)”
The story told by Lisa is about a woman only designated as “she” who is the queen of the
ocean and she is merged to the Holy Virgin and the Virgin electric. Jones’ love then is some kind of
electrocution but it has no future. Right after this very symbolical love electrocution he falls into
trouble with the police for the second time.
This lack of structure, this deconstructed world, this temptation Mary represents and yet the
frustration she brings, the castration she is morally and physically, all that leads to a dramatic end,
and actually can’t lead to anything else.
“(Jones stabs Mary again and again, and then he runs away.)”
He runs way into the night to reappear in a bar where Lisa and a man see the blood on his
hands. He runs away again and he gives us his state of mind, his desire to get rid of his skin:
“I wanted to
I wanted to peel off my skin.
I wanted to peel off my skin, and fold it up, and put it in a box.
I wanted to disappear.
(Jones goes into the night.)”
Because it is all a question of skin, love might be possible if the skin were taken off.
The conclusion comes with Mary’s girl speaking of her mother. There is little love in all that,
apart from big strong hands to touch and to take, and apart from eyes that are half closed. All the
rest is lost in time, at least a hundred years ago, and lost among strangers all around. No father, no
authority, no perspective.
“MARY’S GIRL:
My mom’s hands are big and white.
My mom’s hands are big and strong.

18
And when she picks me up
All the sound all the light
My mom
This was a hundred years ago
And all around her are strangers. The ocean. The sky. All there is all there ever was.
And she’s looking out at me. And her eyes are half-closed like she’s looking at the
sun.”
The alienated world of superficial epidermis is thus transmitted from mother to daughter
forever and ever.
This is the direct image of the genocide of Indians. Nothing survives in that mess. All the
men have been taken away. The only one left is corrugated in his mind and the transient ones are
just interested in carnal consumption and eventually, accidently even, make some children to
continue the cursed fate of that genocide, since these men are Navy men or cops or just plain
strangers visiting this world that is a brothel. Who can ignore Post Genocide Traumatic Stress
Syndrome?
AMAZON VERSION
We have here an absolutely disorganized world and yet that disorganization seems to be
structured.
Jones, the main character, seems to be confronted to a hectic messy world. He wants to
love but he is haunted by a past of humiliation and a present of alienation. The two police scenes
are typical of both provocation and humiliation from the police side when Jones is just not able to
react and is doing nothing, wrong or right, anyway.

19
His girl friend Mary, the well named though cursed, is totally cut off from any attachment.
“I am dreaming of men. They fall out of the sky. They fall and they crash into
buildings and some of them get caught in the trees. Some of them hit the ground
and break into a lot of little pieces and I pick up all the pieces I see and I take them
home with me and I sew the pieces all together anyway into this thing.”
And she reconstructs these men but she cannot satisfy her desire. Her friend Lisa is not
better even if maybe less destructured but yet she is only confronted to direct sexual solicitation:
“He says he’ll give me ten bucks if he can put his hand on my thigh. . .
MAN: I want to put my hand on your thigh. I’ll give you five bucks. . . I would like to
put my hand on your thigh. I’ll give you ten bucks.”
At least she does not have any contact even if it were only monetary because anyway it
does not work, among other reasons because she refuses that contact.
A Navy Man is the main contender who is trying to get Mary. But he is not looking for love.
He is only interested in taking Mary and he is rejected, even when he tries to present a doll to
Mary’s daughter. Because Mary has a daughter and this daughter is maybe the crucible or the key
to the situation.
Mary’s daughter wants a story, a bedtime story but Jones is unable to provide one and the
only story she will get will come from her mother Mary, but then it is not a real bedtime story,
except if the objective were to create in her frigidity and give her a nightmare.
“MARY: Walk by the Spirit, and do not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the desires of
the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for
these are opposed to each other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh
are plain: fornication, impurity, anger, strife – and I warn you, as I warned you
before, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faith:
against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh
with its affections and desires.”
Love then is impossible just as much as life is impossible.
“MAN: Jesus, look at this guy. This guy is drunk. . . What is a man? He eats. He
drinks. He fucks. He s***s. He dies. Man is what he is and then he dies. God made
it so. If I was a junkie, I would shoot up. If I was a pimp, I would pimp. If I was a
killer, I would kill. If I was a drunk, I would drink. Man is what he is and then he rots
in the ground. This is how it is for us. The world is a s***hole. All is folly.”

20
And the world is only a reverberating echo in the ears of Mary’s girl. The world is a dream
based on the echo of a reverberation.
And if Mary has a lot of imagination about what she would do with Jones:
“I’ll unzip your pants [then come 153 words to describe a fellatio.]
The point is that she does not do it with and to Jones because she is distracted by some
Navy Man and she runs away with him into the crowd.
And this Mary gets merged with the Virgin Mary in scene 18:
“(Jones dances with the Virgin Mary. She is all long hair and through her hair all
through her hair there are so many flowers, they fall over everything they cover
everything they bloom so many you can’t count them. The Virgin is electric. Her lips
are electric. Her hands burn. Lisa tells the little girl the story . . . Jones falls. He is
electrified. The Virgin Mary disappears.)”
The story told by Lisa is about a woman only designated as “she” who is the queen of the
ocean and she is merged to the Holy Virgin and the Virgin electric. Jones’ love then is some kind of
electrocution but it has no future. Right after this very symbolical love electrocution he falls into
trouble with the police for the second time.
This lack of structure, this deconstructed world, this temptation Mary represents and yet the
frustration she brings, the castration she is morally and physically, all that leads to a dramatic end,
and actually can’t lead to anything else.
“(Jones stabs Mary again and again, and then he runs away.)”
He runs way into the night to reappear in a bar where Lisa and a man see the blood on his
hands. He runs away again and he gives us his state of mind, his desire to get rid of his skin:
“I wanted to
I wanted to peel off my skin.
I wanted to peel off my skin, and fold it up, and put it in a box.
I wanted to disappear.
(Jones goes into the night.)”
Because it is all a question of skin, love might be possible if the skin were taken off.

21
The conclusion comes with Mary’s girl speaking of her mother. There is little love in all that,
apart from big strong hands to touch and to take, and apart from eyes that are half closed. All the
rest is lost in time, at least a hundred years ago, and lost among strangers all around. No father, no
authority, no perspective.
“MARY’S GIRL:
My mom’s hands are big and white.
My mom’s hands are big and strong.
And when she picks me up
All the sound all the light
My mom
This was a hundred years ago
And all around her are strangers. The ocean. The sky. All there is all there ever was.
And she’s looking out at me. And her eyes are half-closed like she’s looking at the
sun.”
The alienated world of superficial epidermis is thus transmitted from mother to daughter
forever and ever.
This is the direct image of the genocide of Indians. Nothing survives in that mess. All the
men have been taken away. The only one left is corrugated in his mind and the transient ones are
just interested in carnal consumption and eventually, accidently even, make some children to
continue the cursed fate of that genocide, since these men are Navy men or cops or just plain
strangers visiting this world that is a brothel. Who can ignore Post Genocide Traumatic Stress
Syndrome?
OLIVER MAYER – RAGGED TIME – 1994
The play is cut in two acts and the two acts have different things to say.
The first act is a strange vision of Charleston after the Civil War and Reconstruction. The
world is divided in all and many shades of black and one shade of white. It creates an ambient
generalized and constant racial vision and by racial we have to understand racist. This vision is
both surprising and probably realistic. You always find something under you, lower than you,
smaller than you. The price for a prostitute is typical:
“dollar for a colored, dollar fifty for a white girl. But a Jewess was a bargain, only a
dollar twenty-five.”

22
And that brings the Jews into the picture because of Abe, a Jew from up North arriving here
to sell Hearst’s papers. In this first act he clearly states his religion and his admiration for America
that is the country of liberty and everyone should understand it, feel and be free. He is actually
going to Cuba to fight in the press-made war there to liberate the Cubans from the Spaniards.
In front of him we have a black prostitute Freda who tries to look as yellow as possible. She
has a son Ignacio she actually sells to Gary, one of the two blind black street singers. Ross, blind
from birth, was the mentor of Gary, blinded because he looked too much at white girls. Ignacio
plays the piano. He is attracted by Gary who buys him from Freda to be his lead boy, but he
mistreats him though the boy learns from Gary both music and singing.
Before leaving with Ignacio Gary sings a little to get some money since he spent all his
stash to buy the boy. Ignacio joins in heartily. The gospel on Daniel is surprising, Daniel the prophet
who can read what God writes on walls. Ignacio is quite a rich improvement for Gary and his taking
part in that gospel brings in a lot of money. But Daniel is thrown into the lion’s den in this version
and we could imagine Ignacio is thrown into his own lion’s den, the lions being the people around
him, his master and his audience. Ross who would like to use him carnally, the way he used Gary
when Gary was his lead boy, is one lion. Gary who wants to use the boy as a slave to make money
and bring him some comfort is a second lion. Freda, his mother who sold him, is a third lion. And
we must not forget White Shadow who speaks for all whites. Ignacio is Mexican but very white. So
Gary being black, and since he is not aware of this fact because he is blind, is bound to run into a
problem worded as follows by White Shadow:
“This new generation ain’t worth shucks. They don’t know their history. They just
don’t know here they come from. And they sure as heck fire don’t know where
they’re headed.”
The second act sees some changes some time later.
Ignacio is used by both Ross and Gary, at least musically, though the carnal desires of
Ross are not specified as satisfied by the boy. Gary is not leaning that way. Abe is back from Cuba
and he uses Freda’s services at first as a prostitute but the relations shifts to something more
personal.
The two funnies or vaudevillians from the comics section of Hearst’s press who were
marginal in the first act are going to play an essential role in this second act.

23
Abe discovers Ignacio is the slave of the musicians and he wants to free him with Freda
though he does not know she sold him. Abe “can see the writing on the wall” but he does not see
the monetary exchange that took place between Freda and Gary. So they both go after Ignacio
together anyway.
But they can’t find him because the two vaudevillians have taken him into the world of
comics by making him climb up into a tree like Jack climbed up the beanstalk. The two
vaudevillians are called Yellow and Sanctimonious. They start dressing Ignacio like a cartoon
character, a Mexican boy, and they try to teach him some music but he cannot get to the happy
tune they want. He can only play blues or black music, the ragtime.
They also teach him a few useful things about his life and his lot:
“YELLOW: The lovely lady who sold you in the first place.
SANCTIMONIOUS: Without even offering you a percentage.”
That’s market economy and free enterprise that refuses slavery and considers every
transaction should bring a profit to the people concerned.
They also try to teach him about music but they have a very strict vision of things:
“SANCTINMONIOUS: Music is a whipping post! We freed you from all that! And
what do you do? You sit there and stare at us with the shackle in your hand!
YELLOW: It’s enough to give me the blues.
SANCTINONIOUS: And what do you do? You play the uke!
YELLOW: Really give me the blues.
SANCTIMONIOUS: Americans are happy! They like to laugh! They like a joke! Even
if it happens to be on them! They don’t want blues! They want action! Thrills!”
But Ignacio starts crying and playing some sad bluesy music on the ukulele. And an answer
finally comes from him:
“SANCTOMONIOUS: What are you trying to be?
(Ignacio stops playing, wipes his eyes, smiles.)
IGNACIO: Free, I guess.”’
Which is just what the comics cannot understand.
But under the tree the people are becoming sour and bitter. Abe finally understand what
Freda has done. And the discussion on slavery is revealing for black people.

24
“GARY: See, I had to find a way to live. And knowing no difference, I lived like a
slave. And I put that in the music. And I gave that music to the boy. I made him my
slave. And you all would do the same if you could.
FREDA: Us? Wake up! Slave days over!
ROSS: Young lady, my folks was slaves. Your folks was slaves. All our folks was
slaves. That’s something we got in common. Then, by god, how’s it come to pass
that we become the slavers now?
ABE: Slavers?
FREDA: I ain’t no slaver!
GARY: You just sell the meat.
FREADA: You bought it.
GARY: Indeed I did.
ABE (chastened): Guess, I did too.”
This passage is ambiguous because the slave who is discussed here is the boy, but at the
same time “meat” can mean the boy but it also means the prostitute. Hence Freda speaks of the
boy but Abe seems to understand the woman.
And then they all come to realize they are phonies.
During that time Ignacio little by little realizes he wants to remain human.
“My mama . . . My papa . . . They come across, from Mexico . . . They came . . . For
me. They came for me. They tried . . . They tried to give me . . . They tried to give
me . . . This one chance . . . Let me be free . . . I have a mother! A father! I have a
history! People! Even if they’re not here. Even if they never come back. I have them.
I have them here. (Pounds his heart)
He decides to go down, but he remains hidden till Abe and Freda go. But they go after
White Shadow is killed by them when he airs some racist declaration:
“What’s really going on here? Blind men, whores, Jews, n*****s? Talk about a
motley crew. . . Slavery won’t die. . . Maybe you call it something different now. But
a rose by any other name smells just as much to high heaven.”
Then Ross goes in his turn. Ignacio comes out of the shadow and goes back to Gary and
they sing together.

25
“I will do my last singing.
“I will take my last journey.
“I will do my last travelling.
“I will do my last travelling in this land, child.”
And Yellow will have the last word:
“Another sucker bites the dust.”
And that is both luminous and sad. In fact these black people who transposed their slavery
trauma into their music have some kind of resilience to the resurgence of racism and they can kill
the representative of that ideology.
But it is by remaining within the ragtime tradition that they free themselves, not by going
deculturated as Hearst would like it to be, and I did say “it” because for Hearst human beings are
just pawns in a geopolitical landscape.
At the same time they seem to reproduce the old relations between them as if nothing had
changed, but the author seems to imply something has changed at the end and Gary might
become a good master, and Ignacio a free slave.
PEDRO R. MONGE-RAFULS – TRASH, A MONOLOGUE – 1995
A sad and small monologue.
Jesus/Jose/ Joe is not clear at all about his objectives in life. He is constantly dreaming as if
life was impossible for him.
He is dreaming in Cuba when he wants to marry and have twelve children. The first
opportunity to leave the island comes and he leaves alone without his future wife.
He is dreaming a life of freedom and success in the USA and only goes from one dead end
to another blind alley. No jobs because no education since he did not finish it in Cuba. No
education in the USA because no money to pay for it and to live on. Social services are chains on
the legs. And he has to accept to be a hustler to make money to survive. He is black and has
plenty of stuff to sell as for that. Luckily he sticks to no drug and no stealing.

26
He finally dreams to go back to Florida where a friend who arrived with him has made it
properly and could give him a job. But the night before leaving he is waiting for a bus in Brooklyn to
go home when a white man approaches him. For some hustling of course with a promise of
money. And it ends badly. That’s what happens when you have a gun and shouldn’t.
And there is our dear surprise. Jesus/Jose/Joe is in prison, the convicted murderer of a
well-known and appreciated priest, bound to die after his death row crossing of the Rubicon. A
Rubicon of death. Not to Rome and the Empire but down to six feet under in a cheap casket, if any.
Dreams lead to nightmares when you don’t have the stamina to work them out in real life.
CHERRIE MORAGA – THE HUNGRY WOMAN, A MEXICAN MEDEA – 1995
This is a rewriting and expansion of the myth of Medea in a “post-modern” and “post-
colonial” situation in America, where the South has become Aztlan due to a Mexican revolution that
pays lip service to the old Aztec gods with Jason having an important position there; where the
white society up North has cleansed itself entirely of any ethnic penetration; and where an in-
between bumper zone is the survival locale of those who fit pn neither side, like for instance
Medea, and whose capital is Phoenix.
Medea has been exiled by Jason with her son Adolfo/Chac-Mool from Aztlan. She tries to
go back to the Indian traditions of the Aztecs.
The music is Pre-Columbian. The chorus of four women represents Cihuatateo, four warrior
women who have died in childbirth. They embody the four directions and four colors of Aztec
tradition: East and red, North and black, West and white, South and blue. They play most parts
except Medea, Luna, Chac Mool and Mama Sal. All characters are held by female actresses
except Chac-Mool who is the only male on stage.
Medea is living the life of a lesbian with her lover Luna though she protests she is not a
lesbian. She is a complicated woman, the mother of a son, only one – though she wanted a
daughter to take care of her in old age and to spite her husband Jason already that long ago if not
from the very start – and that son is getting of age – thirteen – to answer the call from his father to
go back to Aztlan.
The fact that all characters but one are females shows an essential point in Medea’s vision.
She sees the world as purely feminine and woman as a pure mother, and a mother is only satisfied
when she is the mother of a daughter. We are definitely inside Medea’s total schizophrenia
dressed up as an Aztec myth. The key is given by Cihuatateo East who tells us the creation myth,
Aztec style.

27
“ Creation myth. In the place where the spirits live, there was once a woman who
cried constantly for food. She had mouths everywhere. In her wrists, elbows,
ankles, knees. . . And every mouth was hungry y bien, gritona. Bueno, to comfort la
pubre, the spirits flew down and began to make grass and flowers from the dirt
brown of her skin. From her greñas, they made forests. From those ojos negros,
pools and springs. And from the slopes of her shoulders and senos, they made
mountains y valles. At last she will be satisfied, they thought. Pero just like before,
her mouths were everywhere, biting and moaning. . . opening and snapping shut.
They would never be filled. Sometimes por la noche, when the wind blows, you can
hear her crying for food.”
The whole world was thus created from a hungry woman who was dismantled by the spirits,
each part of her body becoming one element in the landscape and her mouth which was
everywhere in her body found itself everywhere in the world.
Note the spirits being hostile to that woman – though you can always say they tried to
satisfy her – you may understand these spirits were males, though there is no real indication of the
fact and the only goddess mentioned in the play is Coatlicue, the goddess represented by the
moon, the full moon. She is the goddess of all mothers who died in childbirth. We find that Medea’s
lesbian lover, Luna, is only the representation of this goddess.
Medea’s problem is that she is a woman only in her motherhood. So she cannot accept her
son departing to join his father in Aztlan where Jason is to marry a teenage local Apache girl who is
barren. She gives him a territory but he needs his son to have a descent.
Medea cannot refuse that departure but she can help her son on his departing night to have
some good sleep. She puts him to sleep forever just not to be reduced to nothing by being
deprived of her son and consequently of her motherhood.
The lesbian debate is a false debate since Luna is the goddess Coatlicue and lesbianism
makes Luna barren to motherhood, hence dependent on Medea’s love.

28
She accuses Coatlicue of treason then and she starts ranting and raving after her crime
about how the male god of war who is the son of her mother Coatlicue and thus her brother
beheaded her when she was still a child.
This story is a way to explain her devotion to la Luna, her real goddess, and Medea closes
the tale by killing herself in a dream of her own where she is served the poison by Chac-Mool who
is dead as we know. And Medea’s formula is absolutely frightening when she serves the poison to
Chac Mool: “Sleep the innocent sleep of the children.”
She dies when giving birth to herself and to do that she had to kill her son who then could
kill her in the psychiatric hospital where she had been institutionalized, a metaphor of her total
escape from the human world. Hence her son coming as a ghost to deliver the poison to her is the
symbolical suicide her own crime is necessarily going to bring to her. She will not be negated in her
motherhood but she will be negated in her own life.
This becomes a whole metaphor of Chicana women who are nothing outside motherhood,
who are goddesses when dying in childbirth, who have to deny men to remain mothers, hence to
turn to lesbianism and eventually kill their own sons to save their schizophrenic vision, because
these women are schizophrenic.
If there is any future to Chicano culture, to the resurrection of Aztec culture, it will have to
come through a vast slaying of fathers and sons in the name of mothers.
That cleansing can come with sleep and not by shedding blood, but men will have to be
transmiuted, but that is a vicious circle because then the sons thus transmuted will put their
mothers to sleep the same way. The only solution is the end of humanity. If that is not
schizophrenic what is?
And the hungry woman will forever reign in the world. If that is not a Post Genocide
Traumatic Stress Syndrome what is?

29
Coatlicue Medea Jasonestrangement
Chac-Mool
Barren
Apache
Luna
Her being a
mother is her
only defining
feature Only exists in
her motherhood
Lesbian lover.
Sexual
compensation that
did not endanger
her motherhood to
Chac-Mool with a
potential second
grade motherhood
Willing to go
back to his
father This second wife
endangers Medea’s
motherhood because
it takes away Chac
Mool who is willing
to go
affiliation
The absolute central schizophrenia of this Medea
MONICA PALACIOS – GREETINGS FROM A QUEER SENORITA – 1995
A lesbian play is always surprising in a way or another, but in this case it is funny. Besides
telling us how she discovered and developed her lesbianism, the author looks for all kinds of small
funny episodes with boys, men and women.
Yet the most striking element is how she turns simple straight male-dominated songs or
phrases into female dominated and lesbian lexical items.
She discovered when she was ten what she called Male Sexual Power and she wants to
have that power as a woman. She enumerates the characteristics of this Male Sexual Power and
she turns it into Female Sexual Power except that it is not based in men and oriented to women
but based in and oriented to women only. This means that this Male Sexual Power should be
specified as female-oriented, because you can have the same Male Sexual Power but male-
oriented and then it is gay Male Sexual Power. In her case she cultivates a Female-oriented
Female Sexual Power as opposed to the straight male-oriented Female Sexual Power. In other
words it is highly indicative of a high level of female, gay and lesbian depreciation if you plainly
speak of Male Sexual Power because it implies that sexual power can only exist in males running
after females. In fact that is pure machismo.

30
The funniest element is how she imitates straight men she does not like in putting female
sexual terms everywhere the way obsessed males put their male sexual words everywhere like the
F*** word or the C*** word with phrases like C*** F***ing attached to anything you can imagine and
dangling there like a lexical dongle.
Actually the conclusion with the medley of songs she calls a lullaby of Vagina is kind of
surprising with Vagina attached to every single imaginable element from San Francisco – indeed –
to cathedral – really? You must be joking.
Just like gay literature or drama lesbian literature and drama seems to be slightly overdone,
forced. These elements should become some day normal, part of normal life, that is to say
anecdotic and not remarkable. Love has many shades, as we all know, of many colors, like a
famous rainbow flag, and plain sexual intercourse is often a tremendous reduction of that love to a
narrow palette of one or two shades of one single color.
But one element is a lot more important than this sexual orientation. We are dealing with a
Chicana woman. For an ex-colonized people to get over their Post Colonial Traumatic Stress
Symbols they need two distance-building steps. In the case of Chicanos, who are the descendants
of mostly exterminated Indian people or deculturized Indian survivors or Indian women surviving
under duress genetically integrated into the main white or black colonizing people (free men or
slaves), the first step is to get into exile inside Mexico and go back to Indian pockets of life or
outside Mexico and become Chicanos or Chicanas in the USA. The second step is to set the
female sex as the dominant visionary mind, which by the way goes back to old Indian/Aztec
mythologies. In this present play the author reaches a third step in lesbian sexual orientation.
But in this play, as opposed to others, the lesbian dimension is essentially a way to move
away from one of the symptoms of the Post Colonial Traumatic Stress Syndrome, the macho male
chauvinistic domination so common among Latinos.
But it is no solution to this machismo or male chauvinism that has to be eradicated from the
males themselves, with forceps if necessary, or like wisdom teeth. Under anesthesia? I guess so.
CARIDAD SVICH – ALCHEMY OF DESIRE:DEAD-MAN4S BLUES, A PLAY WITH SONGS –
1994
It is difficult to decide if we are dealing with old Indian beliefs in ghosts or if we are dealing
with modern superstitions fed my modern wars and American imperialism. It is nevertheless a pure
feminine vision.

31
It starts with Jamie, the dead husband of Simone. He was killed in the war. We can
understand it is the Gulf War. Simone is the youngest woman: three other women are scaled along
age-wise from forty to sixty. The oldest is said to be a seer. There is also a young teenage girl.
Here the stake is to actually let go of Jamie, his ghost. It is important to do so and the
house has to be cleaned to finalize the procedure. But Simone does not do it. Hence Jamie is here
haunting the world. The four other women will do it but it will be too late for Simone.
Simone follows Jamie’s ghost and she is burning his clothing to let go of him but she cannot
because he is in her memory. Her desire is attached to the recollections she has of him and she
cannot get rid of these recollections. So she follows Jamie and gets onto an empty train with him.
When she realizes she cannot see people on the train she knows – or at least we know – they are
beyond life, she knows she has passed on the other side.
This play is strange because it associates women’s desires seen as different from love
though intricately intertwined with it. It shows how women cannot get rid of the past and how they
remember that past and keep it alive even when it is dead. Tradition is a curse of memory. Change
is impossible and moving on is plainly out of grasp.
What is important is that this curse is only the fate of people in touch with the dead, and we
are dealing here with man-made death, the dead soldiers who died in an imperialistic war. Note we
do not consider the dead people, soldiers or civilians who were killed by the imperialistic army.
Love for the survivors on the imperialistic side brings a full haunting dependence on the memory
and recollection of the dead.
Though the play does not specify how Simone passes onto the other side, it states she
does, no matter how. The songs that accompany this play are spiritual ritualistic songs that enable
the passage to the other side by calling for the attention of spirits. We thus no longer have a play
but a full ritual of the dead, their invocation, their communication with us and their dispatching
themselves (or our dispatching them) on the road to the land of spirits which is rather an immense
ocean to which they have to go, reviving thus the maritime origin of humanity in so many
civilizations that it may be universal as if humanity descended from some species of fish, at least of
some water spirits.
The Indian roots are present for sure but also not clear. The belief in ghosts is more
Mexican than Indian, though the belief in spirits is universal. The belief in the original and final sea
is more Indian than Mexican and the only water spirit in the Christian tradition is a monster,
Leviathan. Thus the spiritual atmosphere is definitely not western at all. The feminine precedence
in it is also not western. We have here some older pre-Columbian heritage.

32
Note in terms of Post Colonial Traumatic Stress Syndrome we have in this play the exile of
Chicanos, and the n the sexual distance by seeing the world through the eyes of women. Note
though there is no third distance in the sexual orientation of these women who define themselves
within heterosexual love and desire. In fact it is a very pessimistic vision with one woman, the wife
of dead Jamie, vanishing into death in the name of haunting and enslaving love, whereas all the
other women are fulfilling a custom that is highly inefficient since Jamie really goes away when he
is accompanied by his wife.
Then we can wonder what the discourse on war may be. Is it the denunciation of the curse
it imposes on surviving women? Is it the denunciation of the useless death of soldiers and the
useless suffering of surviving wives and women? And we can wonder why this vision is limited to
one side of the war and on that side to Latinos, or Chicanos, without actually speaking of the fact
that blacks and Chicanos/Latinos are vastly over-represented among enlisted GIs and also among
the victims on the front of such imperialistic wars.
In other words I find the play moving but one-sided. War is a crime against humanity, not
against the surviving spouses of dead soldiers, be they men or women, gay, lesbian or straight,
Indian or white Americans. Note the absence of any allusion to black GIs so disproportionately
represented among the US armed forces and military casualties.

34
THÉÂTRE ET TÉLÉOLOGIE CATHARTIQUE
ou
LET’S CUT OFF OUR NOSES TO SPITE GOD’S FACE
(PART ONE)
C’est un long voyage au cœur des arts de la scène que nous allons faire à travers
dix siècles d’histoire.
Tous nos arts poussent leurs racines dans un héritage judéo-chrétien fort ancien,
sans parler de la mythologie grecque. L’histoire des dix derniers siècles d’arts
dramatiques est marquée par un long parcours progressif d’une acceptation de la
téléologie judéo-chrétienne à sa négation absolue au profit d’une téléologie « humaniste »
dont la forme ultime est le scientisme naturaliste ou social de Darwin et Marx (et surtout de
leurs continuateurs). Depuis une dizaine d’années, sans que jamais la téléologie judéo-
chrétienne ne disparaisse complètement, on voit les téléologies scientistes atteindre
l’extrême fin de leur développement et laisser la voie à la recherche et l’expression de
téléologies plus ou moins imaginaires qui retrouvent les téléologies anciennes ou
récupèrent les modèles de celles-ci. Malraux, qui avait vécu la montée progressive des
téléologies scientistes, avait bien senti le vide que celles-ci créaient et le manque que les
hommes allaient tôt ou tard ressentir. C’est tout le sens de sa déclaration sibylline que le
21ème siècle sera le siècle des religions. Disons d’emblée que l’homme (dès le 19ème siècle
au moins), face à la montée des scientismes, a imaginé la science fiction qui permettait de
pousser ces scientismes jusqu’à l’absurde. C’est là le sens de H.G. Wells et de Jules
Verne. Plus tard ce monde de la science fiction se peuple d’êtres venus d’ailleurs et réduit
ainsi le monde humain à un pion sur un échiquier. Cet imaginaire de la science fiction, de
l’horreur ou du fantastique, de Fritz Lang à Stephen King (et bien d’autres encore) a
entretenu pendant tout ce temps une téléologie non scientiste, non scientifique même, non
objective le plus souvent, répondant ainsi au besoin de téléologie non contrôlable et non
rationnelle de l’homme. Nous vivons aujourd’hui les prémisses du siècle des religions.
Nous allons ainsi parcourir environ vingt-cinq siècles d’histoire humaine
occidentale. Nous partirons des bases judéo-chrétiennes de la Bible, Ancien et Nouveau
Testament, pour planter le décor. Puis nous passerons au théâtre (même si certains
considèrent que la Bible est une mise en scène, sans jeu de mot sur ce dernier item
lexical). Le Moyen Âge nous offrira des illustrations de la première phase d’une référence
biblique triomphante. Puis les temps baroques nous montreront comment une
distanciation progressivement se construit avec une référence à la nature et à la
psychologie des personnages. Ensuite nous regarderons de prêt le révélateur « FAUST »
de Marlowe à Gounod. Nous y verrons Dieu en train de mourir avant même la notice
nécrologique de Hegel écrite en lettres d’or à la cheminée de la philosophie, sans parler
de celle de Marx gravée dans le marbre de la stèle funéraire et mortifère de la lutte des
classes comme explication finale et absolue du monde. Puis nous suivrons cette mort de
Dieu chez le Juif (et cela est capital) Gustav Mahler et le Slave Igor Stravinsky (associé à
Jean Cocteau). Nous déboucherons alors sur l’ère du cinéma et sur un monde qui n’a plus
de Dieu, mais qui pourtant recherche une téléologie qu’il construit de toutes pièces, avec
parfois le vieux modèle de la Genèse au fond des yeux. Et ce cinéma est le livre sacré des
auditoires les plus larges qui sont formés, informés et même déformés ou conformés par

35
ces images colorées et animées qu’on leur projette à longueur de journée, et de nuit, sur
toutes sortes d’écran.
Nous finirons ce voyage avec deux métaphores dramatiques. D’une part Good Bye
Lenin, la métaphore de la disparition de la téléologie communiste, marxiste ou stalinienne,
comme on veut. D’autre part La Passion du Christ de Mel Gibson, la métaphore du retour
en force du modèle téléologique christique. Or ce sont là deux films dont le succès
dépasse et de loin les auditoires directement concernés. Notre conclusion essaiera de
répondre à la question suivante : Pourquoi des dizaines de millions de femmes et
d’hommes de tout âge se précipitent-ils pour voir ces films alors qu’ils ne se définiraient en
rien comme communistes ou chrétiens ?
Je tiens à faire une dernière remarque avant de commencer. J’essaierai, dans toute
la mesure du possible, de ne pas reprendre des œuvres que j’ai déjà utilisées dans des
articles précédents, et à défaut de pouvoir remplir cette condition, je prendrai ces œuvres
déjà utilisées sous un angle et un éclairage j’espère totalement nouveaux. Ceci implique
que je risque fort de faire des raccourcis dans mon parcours, raccourcis qui ne peuvent
être compris et mis en perspective que dans la mesure où les analyses antérieures sont
prises en considération. Cet article est donc la poursuite d’un travail de recherche
fondamentale et globale sur la sémiologie dramatique et sur la catharsis portée par les
arts de la scène, plus généralement par l’imaginaire. Je renvoie donc mes lecteurs à ces
articles antérieurs.
I./ LES BASES DE NOTRE CIVILISATION JUDÉO-CHRÉTIENNE : LA CONSTRUCTION
DE LA TELEOLOGIE JUDEO-CHRETIENNE.
a. La Genèse
Ce livre de l’Ancien Testament pose une vision téléologique totale, avec en plus une
mise en scène et une mise en dialogue qui en font un archétype de la vision dramatique des
hommes, une vision qui ne pose pas le néant au début de la création, une création qui ne
se fait pas ex nihilo : « Au commencement, Dieu créa le ciel et la terre. Or la terre était vide
et vague, les ténèbres couvraient l’abîme et un vent de Dieu agitait la surface des eaux. »
(Genèse, 1:1) Cette notion de création ex nihilo n’apparaît que dans le deuxième livre des
Macchabées (7:28). La cosmogonie du premier chapitre est construite selon une hiérarchie
qui va du plus large ou général au plus petit et particulier, hiérarchie qui est inversée en ce
qui concerne la valeur des choses, la dignité des éléments créés : ciel, terre et lumière ;
firmament ; terre, mers, verdure, herbes, arbres ; soleil, lune, jour et nuit ; poissons et
oiseaux ; bestiaux, bestioles, bêtes sauvages, l’homme et la femme. Cette hiérarchie
montante pose un soubassement matériel ternaire : air, terre, eau, qui dicte la nature des
êtres vivants animés créés ensuite selon une hiérarchie anthropocentrique : poissons,
oiseaux, bestiaux, bestioles, bêtes sauvages, homme et femme. Remarquons d’emblée que
cette hiérarchie qui pose la femme comme postérieure à l’homme et on le sait comme faite
à partir d’un morceau de l’homme, pose cependant la femme comme l’élément ultime, donc
dominant, la couronne de la création, la cerise sur le gâteau, selon les valeurs que l’on peut
donner à cette touche finale. Mais page 41, note a, la Bible de Jérusalem va un peu plus
loin dans le positionnement second de la femme : « L’hébreu joue sur les mots ‘ishsha pour
« femme » et ‘ish pour « homme » », faisant du mot « femme » le dérivé du mot « homme ».
(Cela rappelle le Ragnarok de la mythologie nordique qui fait l’inverse : le mot pour
« homme » est dérivé du mot pour « femme », comme je l’ai montré dans mon étude pour
Duels en scène n°2, 2004 : la tradition biblique fait de la femme l’élément second.) On peut
alors se demander si le « péché originel » qui vient de la femme ultérieurement n’est pas le
crime suprême car il porte le renversement absolu de la hiérarchie de cette création. C’est

36
le sommet qui « trahit » et non pas un être qu’on pourrait considérer comme secondaire
dans cet ordre hiérarchique.
Mais tout le premier chapitre est écrit dans un style qui utilise trois discours distincts
en ce qui concerne le Créateur. D’abord un discours du récit en tant que tel, au passé simple
dans la Bible de Jérusalem, et c’est ce récit qui contient une fonction discursive de Dieu,
celle de nomination qui consiste à donner des noms aux choses, mais une nomination
généraliste. Dieu nomme les grands éléments de cette création. C’est l’homme qui recevra
la mission dans le deuxième chapitre (2:19) de nommer toutes les créatures du monde.
Cette fonction est donc limitée dans ce premier chapitre. Notons d’ailleurs que ce premier
chapitre ne parle que de Dieu, alors que le deuxième chapitre met en scène Yahvé Dieu.
Cet élément montre que les deux chapitres n’ont pas la même valeur dramatique (en plus
de ne pas relever de la même période historique d’écriture si on en croit la Bible de
Jérusalem du fait justement de ce nom de Dieu dans le deuxième chapitre, à partir du verset
4, deuxième chapitre qui donne un deuxième récit de la création). Ensuite un discours
illocutionnaire performatif au subjonctif en français : « Dieu dit : ‘Que la lumière soit’ »
renforcé par les suites systématiques en discours de récit qui entérine la réalisation de cette
illocution performative : « et la lumière fut. » (1:3). Ce discours disparaît complètement dans
le deuxième chapitre. Le troisième discours de ce premier chapitre est un ensemble d’ordre
direct qui n’apparaissent qu’au sixième jour et qui s’adressent dans un premier temps à Dieu
lui-même : « Faisons l’homme à notre image » (ce qui est peu différent du discours
précédent surtout qu’il est redoublé d’une suite dans ce discours illocutionnaire performatif),
puis à l’homme lui-même : « Soyez féconds, multipliez, emplissez la terre et soumettez-
là … » Ensuite cet ordre se transforme en un mode d’emploi de la création qui n’est donc
qu’une extension de l’ordre premier. Ainsi l’homme est posé comme créé par Dieu, dominé
par Dieu, commandé par Dieu. L’homme est posé dans un univers qui le dépasse de par le
créateur, de par ses dimensions, de par ses finalités, et pourtant un univers qu’il doit
soumettre et exploiter pour sa vie, et plus tard sa survie. L’homme est aussi dépassé par
cet univers parce que chaque élément dans l’univers a une fonction et une mission et que
l’homme n’est qu’un élément dans cet univers, même s’il a mission de soumettre l’univers
tout entier.
Ces trois discours sont un élément structurant fondamental pour la conscience
humaine : il s’agit de la première trinité de la Bible, la trinité discursive de ce premier chapitre.
Notons que cela va changer dans le deuxième chapitre qui n’a plus de discours
illocutionnaire performatif, mais seulement un récit au passé simple et un discours portant
des ordres, des instructions de Dieu, vers lui-même d’abord, puis vers l’homme. Mais ce
deuxième livre introduit un autre, et troisième discours, un discours explicatif, déductif qui
fait suite à un discours exclamatif de l’homme dans sa fonction de nomination, puisque c’est
lui qui donne nom à la femme. Ce discours explicatif est en plus anachronique en ce sens
qu’il ne se satisfait pas de décrire mais il projette une explication sur le présent de l’écriture
du texte : c’est là véritablement la première prémisse d’une téléologie à la fois matérielle et
d’une certaine façon éthique car impliquant une loi d’interdit qui vient de la nature de la
création, certes, mais qui est posée dans le présent d’écriture et fonde donc une loi de la
société de ce présent : « C’est pourquoi l’homme quitte son père et sa mère et s’attache à
sa femme, et ils deviennent une seule chair. »
Cette ternarité est renforcée par une autre beaucoup plus fondamentale et
structurante car elle concerne le monde créé, le monde matériel : les trois éléments naturels
que sont le ciel (l’air), la terre et les mers (l’eau, d’ailleurs développée dans le deuxième
chapitre avec des fleuves). On notera que ce ternarisme naturel est produit par deux
moments binaires : d’abord la binarité ciel-terre, puis la binarité terre-mers. Ainsi cette

37
double binarité à élément commun qui produit ainsi une ternarité, est reprise dans les
animaux créés : poissons-oiseaux-bestiaux (bestioles, bêtes sauvages, ce qui rampe ou
glisse sur terre), et cette fois cette ternarité n’est pas issue d’une double binarité à élément
commun mais de deux moments successifs : le cinquième jour qui produit poissons et
oiseaux et le sixième jour qui produit les bestiaux (etc). Notons la hiérarchie différente de
ces ternarités : ciel-terre-mers par opposition à poissons (mers)-oiseaux (ciel)-bestiaux
(terre). Plusieurs changements sont introduits : le couple initial ciel-terre est remplacé par le
nouveau couple mers-ciel ; les mers qui sont troisièmes dans la première ternarité
deviennent premières ; la terre qui est deuxième et l’élément commun entre les deux
binarités successives devient troisième ; le ciel, premier dans la première ternarité, devient
deuxième et donc l’élément central, cependant non redoublé.
Cette vision des discours et des éléments qui fonde la création est un schéma
structurant de la conscience humaine (sans oublier que l’on peut et doit penser que c’est
l’existence de ce schéma structurant dans la conscience humaine de la société qui produit
ce texte, qui produit cette ternarité dans ce texte). Je ne me pose jamais en termes de foi
ou non dans le caractère sacré du texte. Mais ce caractère sacré donne à ce texte une force
encore plus structurante, même si on peut considérer que cela n’est alors que l’ossification
d’une structuration matériellement et pragmatiquement mise en place par la conscience
humaine.
Ce ne sont là que quelques éléments. Le dualisme parcourt profondément le premier
chapitre, jour après jour, sauf le deuxième. On notera en plus que la création se fait en six
jours, que le « vent de Dieu » fait son travail en six jours, soit trois fois deux, ou deux fois
trois, et que ce six sera lourdement repris par le symbole de Salomon, le nombre de David,
et son étoile, représentant la coupe divine tournée vers la terre et qui verse la lumière de
Dieu dans la coupe humaine tournée vers le ciel et qui reçoit cette lumière de Dieu. Ce
chiffre six est renforcé par le fait que Dieu n’a nommé que six éléments : le jour, la nuit, la
terre, les mers, la lune et le soleil, soit trois groupes de deux éléments. Le septième jour est
le jour à part, le jour de repos, le célèbre sabbat. Le deuxième chapitre ajoute l’« arbre de
vie » sur terre, l’« arbre de la connaissance du bien et du mal » (notons qu’ils sont
coordonnés et suivent les autres arbres, et que donc on peut les considérer comme
différents, même si plus tard il n’en est pas ainsi) dans le « jardin en Eden ». C’est ce
deuxième chapitre qui donne un ordre limitant à l’homme : « Tu peux manger de tous les
arbres du jardin. Mais de l’arbre de la connaissance du bien et du mal tu ne mangeras pas,
car, le jour où tu en mangeras, tu mourras. » Autre élément capital dans cette téléologie :
l’homme a été créé immortel et la mort est expliquée ainsi, pour l’homme du temps présent
de l’écriture, comme le résultat d’un interdit divin.
Dieu dans ce deuxième chapitre ajoute un fleuve qui se divise en « quatre bras »
(première intervention du chiffre quatre, alors que les éléments donnés précédemment ne
sont qu’au nombre de trois, excluant le quatrième, le feu). Ces fleuves permettent à l’auteur
de donner une géographie du pays. Le premier fleuve Pishôn contourne le pays de Havila
et ce pays contient trois biens précieux : l’or, mis en avant par une répétition, le bdellium et
la pierre de cornaline. Le deuxième fleuve Gihôn contourne le pays de Kush, le troisième
fleuve Tigre coule à l’orient d’Assur et le quatrième fleuve est l’Euphrate mais n’est pas
positionné géographiquement, ce qui introduit un double déséquilibre : trois fleuves sont
géographiquement positionnés, deux contournent et un coule à l’orient d’Assur, et le premier
contourne un pays qui contient trois richesses, dont la première est plus importante que les
deux autres, et enfin un quatrième fleuve n’a qu’un nom et pas de lieu géographique. Ce
sont ces jeux sur le binarisme, le ternarisme qui est un binarisme étendu, et le quaternarisme
qui n’est qu’une extension du binarisme, qui montrent combien cela est issu de la

38
conscience des hommes qui ont écrit ces textes. D’un singulier compact recouvrant un tout
pluriel, on a tiré l’unité par étape successive qui posent, comme dans les langues, les formes
de non singulier dont le singulier sera issu car on descend du pluriel compact vers l’unité.
Quatre est le pluriel (le quadriel semble avoir disparu), trois est le triel, deux est le duel, et
le singulier vient après. Cela pose dans le sens inverse, car l’esprit de l’homme renverse
toujours ses propres inventions, que l’on a le singulier puis le duel, le triel, et au-delà, donc
à partir de quatre, le pluriel. On notera que le pluriel n’est inventable qu’à partir du singulier
et donc que ce pluriel est une remontée à partir de l’unité pourtant atteinte en dernier. On
notera que nous n’avons pas cet élément UN-DEUX-TROIS-QUATRE dans le premier
chapitre qui ne dépasse pas le ternarisme, et donc on peut accepter l’hypothèse de la Bible
de Jérusalem que le second chapitre est postérieur : il l’est car il a inventé le quadriel, c’est
à dire le pluriel. Dans le premier chapitre deux mouvements seulement existaient : le
binarisme que l’on étendait au ternarisme puis une composition de binarismes, trois fois
d’ailleurs en ce qui concerne Dieu, pour aller au-delà. Le quadriel ou quaternarisme dont je
parle avec le deuxième chapitre est une extension du ternarisme. Le pluriel est donc produit
par l’adjonction d’une unité au triel.i
Le Chapitre trois raconte la chute de l’homme et son exclusion du jardin d’Eden.
Outre le récit au passé simple, Dieu, systématiquement appelé Yahvé Dieu, a un discours
illocutionnaire performatif au futur en direction du serpent comme de l’homme et de la
femme :
« Parce que tu as fait cela, maudit sois-tu entre tous les bestiaux et
toutes les bêtes sauvages. Tu marcheras sur ton ventre et tu mangeras de
la terre tous les jours de ta vie. Je mettrai une hostilité entre toi et la femme,
entre ton lignage et le sien. Il t’écrasera la tête et tu l’atteindras au
talon. » (3:14-15) ; « Je multiplierai les peines de tes grossesses, dans la
peine tu enfanteras des fils. Ta convoitise te poussera vers ton mari et lui
dominera sur toi. » (3:16) ; « Parce que tu as écouté la voix de ta femme et
que tu as mangé de l’arbre dont je t’avais interdit de manger, maudit soit le sol
à cause de toi ! A force de peine tu en tireras subsistance tous les jours de ta
vie. Il produira pour toi épines et chardons et tu mangeras l’herbe des
champs. A la sueur de ton visage tu mangeras ton pain, jusqu’à ce que tu
retournes au sol, puisque tu en fus tiré. Car tu es glaise et tu retourneras à la
glaise. » (3:17-19).
C’est à ce moment là que l’homme nomme la femme « Eve » qui est dérivé de
« hayah » qui signifie vivre, ce qui est parfaitement la même chose que dans le Ragnarok.
La femme, seconde dans la Bible et première dans le Ragnarok, est l’identification de la vie.
Mais ce chapitre de la Genèse introduit ainsi une téléologie différente de celle
introduite dans les deux premiers chapitres. Dans les deux premiers chapitres on avait une
téléologie de création et donc d’explication par le passé qui était vu comme éternel donc se
projetant sur l’avenir. Dans le troisième chapitre la téléologie divine est une prédiction du
futur, une projection directe de Dieu sur le futur. On a donc deux téléologies qui se
succèdent : d’une part une téléologie rétrospective (remontée vers le passé puis retour au
présent et à l’avenir), et une téléologie prospective (prédiction de l’avenir). On notera que la
seconde prend appui sur le présent, ou présent récent de l’épisode du fruit, mais aussi sur
le passé et la création, du moins en ce qui concerne l’homme à qui il est rappelé d’où il vient,
de la glaise. On notera enfin que cette téléologie prospective est aussi une suite
d’imprécations, donc elle est imprécative. On voit donc que le récit essaie d’expliquer le
présent au moment du récit, l’aliénation de l’homme face à la nature, par la faute d’Adam et

39
Eve dans le jardin de l’Eden. A ce niveau-là la téléologie prospective dont nous venons de
parler en devient rétrospective. On a alors deux téléologies rétrospectives, la première qui
est positive (création), la seconde qui est négative (punition). On voit donc comment ce récit
confronte le fidèle à une dialectique entre deux téléologies, soit rétrospective et prospective
dans le texte, soit positive et négative pour le moment du récit et l’avenir. On voit alors que
chacune de ces deux téléologies est à la fois rétrospective et prospective mais de façon
inversée dans le texte. La première est d’abord rétrospective (dans le discours) et ensuite
prospective (par projection). La deuxième est d’abord prospective (dans le discours) et
ensuite rétrospective (à partir du présent du narrateur). La première est positive et la
seconde négative. Cela pose alors un Dieu dont la nature est double : Dieu créateur est
donc bénéfacteur, Dieu imprécateur et donc punisseur.
Cet ensemble téléologique est la base même de la culture, de l’idéologie, de la vision
du monde portée par le monde judéo-chrétien, par le monde occidental. La dialectique des
philosophes occidentaux prend ses racines dans cet héritage, même si Aristote avait pensé
la dialectique avant l’installation du christianisme (ce livre de la Bible est bien antérieur au
christianisme). Cette dialectique est posée comme extérieure à l’homme qui la subit. On
pourrait comparer avec les dialectiques de l’Asie qui sont très souvent posées dans leur
dimension intérieure à l’homme. Dans notre monde cette téléologie dialectique va varier
dans l’élément extérieur mis en avant. L’approche religieuse pose la dialectique comme
relevant de cette Genèse justement et donc de Dieu (et on sait le débat dramatique avec
les Cathares par exemple qui posaient deux Dieux : un Dieu du bien et un Dieu du mal,
toujours extérieurs à l’homme) ainsi que la vision diabolique du serpent qui pose, dès la
Bible, un second être de dimension surnaturelle, Lucifer ou Satan, ange déchu qui a la
charge de représenter le mal, la tentation, et la mission de punir les pécheurs, ceux qui
cèdent à cette tentationii. L’approche des Lumières posera cette dialectique au niveau des
concepts, éthiques pour Kant, formels pour Hegel, mais absolu de toute façon donc
dépassant l’homme. L’approche marxiste posera cette dialectique comme fondée dans le
mode de production et la propriété des moyens de production, donc encore une fois
extérieure à l’homme. Il n’y aura un début de renversement de cette approche téléologique
qu’avec Freud qui commencera à parler du bien et du mal comme étant intérieurs à l’homme,
Eros contre Thanatos, la libido contre l’instinct de mort (on pourrait discuter sur la genèse
de ces pulsions : sont-elles inscrites dans la chair de l’homme, ou sont-elles l’inscription
dans son psychisme d’une situation extérieure d’aliénation ?). Nous n’entrerons pas dans
ce débat ici.
b- Caïn et Abel
Cette dialectique est renforcée dans le chapitre quatre concernant Caïn et Abel où
on finit le passage du nom de Dieu de Dieu à Yahvé Dieu et enfin à Yahvé. La dialectique
est posée par la rivalité entre les deux frères. Caïn est fratricide et donc banni par Dieu mais
marqué d’un signe qui le protège. Il deviendra le fondateur d’une immense lignée :
l’agriculture sédentaire, les forgerons, les villes (Hénok, du nom de son premier fils). Ses
fils posent aussi des jalons de vie. Yabal fondateur des pasteurs nomades (de Ybl =
conduire). Yubal ancêtre de ceux qui jouent de la lyre et du chalumeau (de yôbel =
trompette). Tubal ou Tubal Caïn : forgerons de cuivre et de fer (de Tubal = peuple du Nord,
ce que nous devons garder en mémoire car Goliath sera le représentant de ces peuples du
Nord adonné à la métallurgie ; et Caïn = forgeron). Naama (la jolie, l’aimée) est
généralement vue comme la fondatrice de la lignée des prostituéesiii. On a ici un ensemble
sémantique d’un autre monde que celui d’Abel qui est le monde des pasteurs nomades et
des populations égaillées dans le désert. C’est le monde de la ville, de ses artisanats, dont
les artisans du métal, et de ses plaisirs que sont la musique – et bien sûr le théâtre –, et

40
l’amour non pas dans sa dimension purement procréatrice mais dans sa dimension de
beauté, de jouissance. On peut voir dans cette vision l’ancêtre de Babylone.
c- Abraham et Isaac
L’épisode d’Abraham et de son fils Isaac renforce la vision d’un Dieu autoritaire,
arbitraire car il a ses raisons bien à lui et ne les partage pas, et d’un homme obéissant,
soumis jusqu’à l’horreur de l’infanticide si cela est demandé par Dieu. Cet épisode est la
symbolisation (et l’appel) cathartique de la fin des sacrifices humains dans cette société.
d- David et Goliath
L’épisode de David et Goliath renforce l’opposition entre une civilisation de la pierre,
du désert, du nomadisme d’un côté et une civilisation du métal, de la force violente, du Nord
de l’autre côté. On sait l’issue du conflit. On sait aussi que cela entraîne une montée en
pouvoir de David qui causera bien des problèmes à Saul. Nous y reviendrons avec Haendel.
e- Daniel
L’épisode de Daniel, le prophète, est beaucoup plus complexe. Il révèle la puissance
de Dieu qui peut y compris mettre son peuple élu en esclavage pour produire l’avenir. C’est
là une téléologie qui devient fréquente dans le monde judéo-chrétien. Dieu a ses raisons
que la raison ne doit pas connaître. Tout est le signe de la volonté de Dieu, même les pires
malheurs, et ces derniers, comme les meilleurs bonheurs, ne sont que la punition (par
opposition à la récompense) de Dieu. Mais Daniel introduit une dimension fondamentale
dans la Bible puisqu’il transforme la justice sémitique où deux témoins concordants suffisent
pour prouver la culpabilité de l’accusé : il introduit le contre-interrogatoire de ces témoins et
le droit à la défense, et ce pour une femme, Suzanne. C’est là une évolution que le Christ
va porter encore plus loin avec le concept de pureté nécessaire chez les accusateurs et
bien sûr les lapidateurs. C’est aussi, nous le verrons, une dimension fondamentale de
perversion de la tradition biblique dans le procès contre Jésus où aucune de ces deux
dimensions n’est respectée. On note ici cependant que cette intervention de Daniel dans la
justice des hommes montre que la téléologie divine ne suffit plus. Il y a là une importante
dimension sociale et humaine : l’homme doit gérer ses affaires selon des principes simples
comme le principe de justice et ne pas s’en remettre aveuglément à une tradition définie et
posée comme divine, révélée. Ce n’est pas la première fois que cela apparaît dans la Bible,
mais c’est extrêmement spectaculaire et signifiant du fait de la déportation des Juifs à
Babylone, du pillage et de la destruction du Temple, de la prédiction de la chute de Balthazar
sur intervention surnaturelle mais devant un auditoire et dans une forme fortement
théâtralisée. On sait que ce livre de Daniel sera l’enjeu de débats entre les catholiques et
les protestants, les protestants bannissant une partie de ce livre de leur version de la Bible.
On sait aussi que ce livre a fait l’objet d’un opéra au 13ème siècle en la Cathédrale de
Beauvais. Nous y reviendrons.
f- Les quatre évangiles
Nous en arrivons naturellement aux quatre évangiles que nous devons approcher
dans le détail. Il n’est bien sûr pas question de les examiner dans leur ensemble, mais de
simplement nous consacrer aux passages qui couvrent la Passion du Christ. Il s’agit aussi
de voir comment une téléologie s’insère dans ces descriptions de la Passion. Notre
justification ici est de servir de base à notre approche ultérieure des quatre Passions de
Jean Sébastien Bach.
La première remarque est que trois évangiles (Matthieu, Marc et Luc) commencent
le récit de cette Passion au repas de la Cène, donc la veille, le jeudi, alors que Jean
commence le récit de la Passion à l’arrestation du Christ le vendredi à la fin de la nuit.

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