The Explosive device (theater)

the Explosive device is a part Surréaliste of Jean Cocteau, written in 1934. It is based on Oedipus king of Sophocle.

Act I: the Phantom

It occurs in waiting marked from concern. On the ramparts of Thèbes, two soldiers take care. They are charged to protect the city against the Sphinx. Since months, this monster, posted not far from the doors of the city, keep silent young people who venture in his trimmings, but nobody knows what it is truly.

For Cocteau, the Sphinx, " tueuse of hommes" , thus quite simply the Woman incarnates (it is undoubtedly the true direction of the myth).

In fact, our two guards do not await the Sphinx, they await " the fantôme". Precisely, their chief comes to ask them for accounts and to question them on this strange character who would visit them since several nights: He presents himself, say he, as being the king Laïus, it is a very nice phantom, very polished, but quite pitiful, because it seems terrorized by a horrible thing that one wants to prevent it from saying. They did not include/understand what it acted, they know only that the king must absolutely inform his wife and that the danger is imminent.

Accompanied by the soothsayer Tirésias, the queen Jocaste arrives in her turn, with the great agitation of the chief, who seeks to show himself well, while it has eyes only for the young soldier. She hopes to obtain by him information on that which would be her late husband, perhaps even to see it or hear it. Alas, when it tries to appear, occupied that she is by the beauty of the boy, she does not perceive her pathetic calls. When it moves away, the despaired phantom, lance with the soldiers, who them see it, this pressing message: " Report to the queen that an young man approaches Thèbes and that one does not need under any pretext… "

Then disappears for always the only one which could still have saved Oedipus.

Act II: the Meeting of Oedipus and the Sphinx

It is held in same time as the precedent. In bottom, in front of the doors of the city, it starts the process that up there, on the rampart, the phantom tries to stop, and it reveals us " the mystère" victory of Oedipus. The Sphinx is tired to kill and we discover that this monster is an young girl, an young girl willing to fall in love with next the pretty boy who will pass, and perhaps to sacrifice themselves to save it. But the dog Anubis day before with the respect of the instructions given by the gods, it is not question of tenderizing itself about the human ones…

When Oedipus appears, she éprend of him from the start and endeavors to move away it to avoid an unquestionable death to him, but the cold determination of the young man and his presumptuous conviction that he will overcome the Sphinx bring it to appear in its animal form and to show its capacity. Embanked by the monster which inflicts to him the torment of its preceding victims, he forgets any dignity and shouts grace. When he believes himself lost, he learns the secrecy from the enigma, the bonds which paralyzed it are untied, he is saved.

But Anubis is not satisfied this show, it requires that the question be put, Oedipus gives the answer then. Here it is the victorious one of the Sphinx, of which it will carry the skin to prove its success.

Insane of joy, it runs towards the city, the queen who is promised to him and towards the royalty, forgetting that of which it did not include/understand the love nor devotion.

To calm its terrible crisis of spite, Anubis then announces with the Sphinx become again woman after her defeat, the monstrous future which awaits Oedipus. The vision is so atrocious that it wakes up pity in the heart of Avenger, final misadventure of the Sphinx, which appears in apotheosis under the aspect of the goddess Némésis.

But nothing can save Oedipus any more, not even the compassion of a god!

Act III: the Wedding night

Oedipus and Jocaste, yielding to their inclinations, refuse all the warnings, but their love, which seems sincere, is expressed awkwardly. Too many memories worry them, too unvoiced comments separate them, too many obstacles obstruct them.

After one day of ceremonies and exhausting festivities, the two husbands find themselves only face to face in the room of Jocaste, for the first time. They ardently wish to make a success of this moment, awaited by one like a rebirth, the other like a crowning and an initiation with the love. " I am vierge" , known as Oedipus with Tirésias.

The soothsayer, indeed, tries an ultimate warning statement to stop the mechanism frightening and made state of " predict funestes". But the new king is wary of the councils of a leagued priest, thinks it, with the other powerful ones for the évincer, and it remains on its positions without worrying about the divine opinions: " oracles… my audacity thwarts them… "

Will the husbands finally benefit from their happiness? Alas, in spite of their good will, tiredness makes them sink in briefs drowsinesses where them last re-appears and expresses itself by confused bits. It is then a fight exhausting against the sleep which would reveal with different unavowable secrecies.

Does Jocaste know its fault, the child murder, it remains also marked by this wall on which (first sign of inaccuracy?) it did not know to see her husband. Oedipus, in spite of admiration éperdue of his wife, knows that he is not a hero, he gained only with the assistance of the Sphinx, he remembers that it was at his mercy, that it was weak and ridiculous.

The difference in age, about which Oedipus worries little, storm the growing old queen. And in this night of nightmare, it is a man in the street, a drunkard delayed under the royal windows, which has the last word: " your husband is too young person, well too young for you… hou! "

Act IV: Oedipus king

He specifies: " seventeen years après". To one will dissipate the illusions and the fictions which protected the royal couple. Of revelation in revelation, Oedipus and Jocaste will be brought in front of reality.

The advertisement of died of the king of Corinthe causes in his/her son the relief and even the joy. This attitude scandalizes its entourage and leads it to state the prediction become null and void: " my father died… oracle had said to me that I would be his assassin and the husband of my mère". Jocaste, which had received a similar warning and word had not blown about it, can realize here that her husband had carefully hidden annoying prophecy to him. This silence between them betrays an embarrassment vis-a-vis strangenesses which they did not want to examine of too close, to safeguard their happiness.

But " You were only his son adoptif" , the messenger reassures it, without understanding that it calls into question by this declaration all the strategy of escape worked out by Oedipus: who is his father?

Precision: " my father untied you almost dead, hung by your feet blessés" , if she simply explains to the king the origin of her scars, brings Jocaste to a quite worse discovery, that she receives without word to say: Oedipus is the child whom she wanted to remove.

A memory which is allocated sudden to the king: " during a brawl with servants, I killed an old man who travelled to the crossroads of Daulie and Delphes" , puts it in front of a new obviousness: Oedipus is the murderer of Laïus, i.e. of his father.

For Jocaste, now, all is clear. While her husband struggles in assumptions which irritate it and afflict it, the unhappy one is hung with its large red scarf… Oedipus, ridden to find it in his room, discovers his body. He appears, " uprooted, décomposé". He shows his brother-in-law " you have it to me tuée" , he believes in a plot.

Tirésias affirms to him then: " You assassinated the husband of Jocaste, Oedipus, the king Laïus. I knew it long time… neither with you, neither with it, neither with Créon, nor with anybody I have it dit".

In fact, there remains to him the worst to include/understand, because he is still mislaid on false tracks concerning his birth. Appears then an old shepherd, it is " the man who carried it wounded and bound on the montagne".

Pressed to answer, the old man acknowledges what one had prohibited to him to reveal under penalty of dead: " You are the son of Jocaste, your wife, and of Long-winded speech killed by you with the crossroads of the three roads. Inceste and parricide."

Oedipus includes/understands whereas one does not escape an oracle: " I killed that which one did not have. I married that which one did not have. Light is faîte."

It remains to him to punish itself. " It gives itself blows in the eyes with the large pin in or" , small the Antigone shouts.

Become blind, he sees to advance towards him Jocaste mysteriously become again his young mother to accompany it in his exile, because he must leave the city.

He moves away, accompanied by his daughter and his mother-wife, confused in the same solicitude: " Attention… account steps… one, two, three, four, five… "

In Créon which wants to intervene, Tirésias declares: " They do not belong to you plus".

Main characters

Oedipus: the abandoned son of Jocaste and Laïus, who will become the adoptive son of king de Corinthe, then king de Thèbes and the husband of Jocaste. It is coléreux proud and sure of him. Before marrying the Queen, it killed a viellard by accident with the crossroads of Daulie and Delphes. This one was Laïus, the king and thus his father…
Jocaste: it is first of all the queen and the woman of king Laïus. After the death of her husband, it becomes the woman of Oedipus, his son. She is energetic, excessive, curious, frivolous and demanding. She is not Greek.
Tirésias : : nobody that the Jocaste queen calls Zizi, very frequent by Jocaste and Laïus, which guesses the future. It is a person very close to the queen.
the Sphinx: monster with head of woman ordering by the gods to only pose the enigmas with the individuals passing with Thèbes, but it is not caught any to the weak young women. It is immortal. It will fall in love with Oedipus thereafter. It takes the appearance under which people describe it.
Anubis : nobody immortal with head of jackal accompanying the Sphinx and which carries out the individuals not being able to answer the enigmas of the Sphinx.

Supporting characters

Créon : brother of the Jocaste queen and thus brother-in-law of Oedipus.
Antigone : one of the girls of Oedipus and Jocaste.
the Messenger : he comes to announce the death of king de Corinthe and the fact that Oedipus is an adoptive son.
the Shepherd : nobody who brings Oedipus in the king of Corinthe.
the soldier and the young soldier : they see the phantom (Long-winded speech). They are the only ones to see it.
the chief: he announces the arrival of the queen and discusses with the soldiers.
the matron who seeks her son whereas it is not any more this world since the sphinx killed it

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