Haute surveillance

by Jean Genet

Décor: une cellule de prison.
Personnages: le surveillant et trois détenus: Yeux-Verts, vingt deux ans, condamné à mort; Maurice, dix-sept ans, qui lui voue une admiration sans bornes; Lefranc, voleur de vingt-trois ans dévoré par la jalousie.

Dans ce huis clos, tout est drame: un lit défait, un mot de trop. Mais la tragédie naît d'une femme absente, celle que Yeux-Verts va laisser en mourant sur l'échafaud. Maurice et Lefranc la convoitent, se la disputent sous le regard de Yeux-Verts. Jusqu'au meurtre: Lefranc étrangle Maurice "J'ai fait ce que j'ai pu pour l'amour du malheur", dit-il. "Je suis vraiment tout seul".

Cette pièce en un acte a été créée au Théâtre des Mathurins le 26 février 1949. Jean Genet en a remanié le texte en août 1985. Cette nouvelle version est publiée ici pour la première fois.

Genres: Plays, France, Fiction, Theatre, Drama, French Literature

128 pages, Pocket Book

Published May 25, 1988

About the author

Jean Genet was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His work, much of it considered scandalous when it first appeared, is now placed among the classics of modern literature and has been translated and performed throughout the world.

Reviews

[Mariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ran in all directions. I shifted. I tried every form and shape so as not to be a murderer. Tried to be a dog, a cat, a horse, a tiger, a table, a stone! I even tried, me too, to be a rose. Don't laugh. I did what I could.

I am nursing the monster back to life. Bloodied hands hold past the curtains in the murder room. But they are going to chop off his head, not those hands. He's all appendage, anyway. A tongue to strangle the air in the cell where Maurice and Lefranc divvy up the parts. If he dies can I get his girl. Don't bother. She's a tattoo on his chest. The time he has left, maybe two months, isn't going to leap out of the dark into their bones.

Can't you see that here we make up stories that can live only within four walls?

Something about Genet makes me think of what it would look like met in the wild. Behind the cage outlives the jungle hungry. The wishitneverhappened eyesshutsotight is like when you are too tired to sleep. Reading him is the prowl between the bars. Whatever the stage directions thought about the "set" and what you wouldn't see if you were scared straight. Whatever the father of the wooden boys thought he was doing it's the big why hanging on the details. This was his life, even when Genet finally got out, this crude fantasy holding back what it would look like if you looked directly into the beast. I could sense the world isn't big enough when the inmate up stairs pulls the strings. What could you pull up from their dead sea that would be worth throwing back? Probably the take over of which kind of guard is "the good sort". Something about Genet feels like the fish in a pitch dark tank when there is such a thing as "the good sort", or the body bags behind his thieves and murderers. Somewhere some one got married to a check list and what then? Did life stop? People aren't roles even if you could get through the world only feeling the walls. This monster is going to cry in the night. Make me a mate, I'm incomplete. Someone will scream, somewhere, reaching for the most bleaching light to read their name. Prisoner, death row, big hands. Maurice and Lefranc circle his hell within their own hell and what do they even want? What is there to want? A tattoo, a death silence. Does it muster for mystery. I would die in prison. If you had to listen to guys like this talk in their own language of "good sort" and law of kingdom. The hawk gets to fly, yeah, maybe it's more than kill, eat, sleep. But there's the one where the jewel wasp zombies the roach into following into its den to womb the next killer. I shiver as if it could happen to me just thinking about it. Inherit what earth? If you could throw yourself into the arms of something else, anyone.... I don't want Maurice and Lefranc. Their begging, their speech thick with oh hell the guy is going to die anyhow. They are slithering like worms on the corpse. They irritated me and they should have made me watch my back. My favorite part is when Green Eyes slips out of his own dance (the rehearsed kind that doesn't look easy because he's not a good dancer) to ask why Maurice didn't tell him he was seen in the murder room. As if Maurice were there, he wasn't, and it is then and not THEN, as if time could fall away. Maybe the monster was never born. I don't know if it hurts him to stop his dead dance, if he has to learn how to act again. I have to look past him to Genet for that. I believe it hurt HIM.

[Amirsaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

در نسخه‌ی نشر نیماژ مراقبت شدید (با ترجمه‌ی مدیا کاشیگر)، دو پیوست وجود دارد. اولی توضیحاتی طولانی است درباره‌ی ادیشن‌های بسیارِ ژنه روی نمایش در طول سالیان، و دومی پی‌نوشت‌های بی‌وقفه‌ی خود متن است که بسیاری از جملات را باز هم با نسخِ دیگر مقایسه کرده. می‌خواهم بگویم که این «شرح»ی که ناشر و مترجم پیوست کرده‌اند، تحلیلی از خود نمایش نیستند.

[Niousha mokhtari · Rating 5 out of 5]

رنج زیستن که ژنه به دوس حمل می‌کرد را در لابه لای آثارش می‌توان فهمید، نظارت عالیه دومین مواجهه من با نویسنده است، البته دیدن اجرای نمایش کلفت ها هم باید به این تجربه افزوده شود، همچنین مطالعه مقاله سارتر درباره ژنه،
پیشنهاد می‌کنم کتاب زیبایی شناسی ژنه که نشر بیدگل به تازگی چاپ کرده رو هم از دست ندید، اگر اجرایی از این نمایش نامه نویس بر روی صحنا بود به هیچ عنوان از دست ندید،
ژنه رو روانکانه میتوان به تحلیل نشست، ساعت ها و ساعت ها

[Nel]

this is way above my paygrade and its french but also trying to understand the heck they are rambling on about at any given point. its like all three chars were high off their tits or smth. anyway, i dredged up an eng version to do a parallel reading of both versions - cant rate something i barely understood now can i welp.
also there is a black character here nicknamed snowball...

[امیرمحمد حیدری · Rating 1 out of 5]

خوشم نیامد. سر و ته نداشت.

[raniam15 · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was so weird

[Jacques Coulardeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toute cette pièce n’est que la mise en scène d’un seul mot, « l’expiration ». Le verbe est profondément ambigu derrière ce mot (page 60). Expirer c’est rejeter de l’air chargé de CO2 et d’humidité dans le cadre de la respiration vitale, mais c’est aussi mourir, donner son dernier souffle, expirer son dernier souffle.

Mais qu’est-ce qui respire et donc vit – encore – ici sur cette scène ?

Une cellule de forteresse plutôt moyenâgeuse où évolue trois prisonniers tous pour des crimes devant entrainer la déportation au bagne de Cayenne – ou d’ailleurs – ou bien l’exécution par la guillotine. Ils sont promis donc à la mort tranchante de la lame – qui est une dame punisseuse – ou bien lente du bagne. Un quatrième personnage est évoqué avec insistance, un noir, appelé nègre et surnommé Boule de Neige, une dénomination tout juste raciste, et pourtant il est affirmé comme étant le grand maître de la forteresse, s’entend des prisonniers. Il représente la jungle sauvage, voire le cannibalisme, et à ce titre pour ces prisonniers il est comme un dieu supérieur.

Les trois prisonniers de cette cellule sont Yeux-Verts, qui a une épouse qu’il est en voie d’abandonner puisqu’il va mourir d’une façon ou d’une autre, Maurice qui a tué, et Lefranc qui n’a peut-être pas tué mais aura tué à la fin de la pièce. Trois condamnés à mort qui sont sous surveillance de la part d’un gardien et d’un gardien-chef qui révèlent à la fin qu’ils ont suivi toute l’action de la pièce par le judas ou œilleton de la porte, ce qui pour eux est un divertissement.

Les trois hommes sont réduits à une solitude extrême car confrontés à la mort certaine il n’y a pas d’autre solution que de l’affronter seul à seul car on meurt toujours seul, même si c’est entre les mains d’une ou plusieurs autres personnes. Cette solitude est si extrême que les échanges entre les trois hommes sont totalement dérisoires. Ceci étant, Yeux-Verts est illettré, analphabète et c’est Lefranc qui a écrit les lettres à son épouse, des lettres d’amour qui ont détourné cette femme de son mari pour l’orienter vers cet intermédiaire. Cela donne une rivalité majeure entre Maurice et Lefranc car Maurice veut récupérer la femme.

En arrière plan il y a la relation entre Yeux-Verts et Boule de Neige, une relation qui a une dimension érotique, émotionnelle au moins, et cette relation émotionnelle se retrouve entre Yeux-Verts et Maurice, ce qui amplifie encore la rivalité entre Lefranc et Maurice.

Le reste est alors une descente dans un enfer que seules la prison et son isolation, parfois à deux ou trois, produisent. Ces hommes sont enfermés dans leur individualité absolue qui devient une solitude contrainte et sans aucune alternative. Cette solitude de l’homme face à sa mort annoncée et totalement artificielle pour des actes qu’il ne nie pas produit un solipsisme infini. le monde n’est plus que moi et ma mort annoncée. Cela produit alors un narcissisme égotiste car la seule valeur qui demeure face à cette mort annoncée, c’est le retour sur soi et l’enfermement en soi, même si en plus il y a du regret, de la culpabilité. L’homme doit accepter son sort et son narcissisme devient alors un onanisme mental qui ne peut que causer de la violence avec d’autres prisonniers qui essaieraient d’entrer en contact avec cette bête furieuse qui n’est contenue que par la promesse de la mort, car la mort devient alors une promesse.

Et l’expiration devient alors le souffle de la vie dans la dernière expiration de la mort programmée au couteau, à la lame. Mourir pour mieux ne pas survivre car survivre ne peut être que dans le regret de ne pas avoir pu vivre sans côtoyer la mort. Et le cercle totalement vicieux de cet enfermement en soi est alors bouclé par Lefranc étranglant Maurice. « J’ai fait ce que j’ai pu, pour l’amour du malheur. » On ne peut pas être plus narcissique que Lefranc à ce moment-là. Et c’est comme une auto-vengeance, un auto-châtiment car Lefranc qui écrivait les lettres à l’épouse de Yeux-Verts avait commis un crime de narcissisme altruiste comme il le dit en cinq mots. « J’entrais dans ta peau. » Et cela est intolérable et Maurice le dénoncera à la fin, et il en mourra d’un acte désespéré de Lefranc qui ainsi se punit en tuant et donc en se condamnant à mourir.

Poignant d’une certaine façon et ce drame n’a pas la moindre once d’espoir. Nous sommes tous soit des prisonniers dans la forteresse ou des matons qui matent le spectacle par l’œilleton de la porte. Et cet œilleton fait de nous des exécuteurs systématiques car un œilleton c’est un petit viseur circulaire qui joue le rôle de cran de mire sur certaines armes.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU


VERSION ANGLAISE

The whole play is only the staging of a single word, "expiration." The verb is deeply ambiguous behind this word (page 60). To exhale is to throw out air loaded with CO2 and humidity as part of vital breathing, but it is also to die, to give one's last breath, to exhale one's last breath.

But what is breathing and therefore living – still – here on this stage?

A rather medieval fortress cell where three prisoners are evolving, all for crimes that should lead to deportation to the penal colony of Cayenne – or elsewhere – or to their execution by the guillotine. They are thus promised to the sharp death of the blade – which is a lady punisher – or the slow death of the forced labor camp. A fourth character is insistently evoked, a black man, called Negro and nicknamed Snowball, a racist name, and yet he is affirmed as being the great master of the fortress, and we understand the prisoners. He represents the wild jungle, even cannibalism, and as such he is like a superior god to these prisoners.

The three prisoners of this cell are Yeux-Verts, who has a wife that he is in the process of abandoning since he is going to die one way or another; Maurice who has killed; and Lefranc who may not have killed but will have killed at the end of the play. Three condemned to death are under surveillance by a guard and a head guard who reveal at the end that they have been following all the action of the play through the peephole of the door, which for them is entertainment.

The three men are reduced to an extreme solitude because faced with certain death there is no other solution than to face it alone, because one always dies alone, even if it is at the hands of one or more other people. This loneliness is so extreme that the exchanges between the three men are totally pitiful and pathetic. This being said, Yeux-Verts is illiterate, analphabetic, and it is Lefranc who wrote the letters to his wife, letters of love which diverted this woman from her husband to direct her towards this intermediary. That gives a major rivalry between Maurice and Lefranc because Maurice wants to recover the woman.

In the background, there is the relation between Yeux-Verts and Snowball, a relation which has an erotic dimension, emotional at least, and this emotional relation is found between Yeux-Verts and Maurice, though inverted from Yeux-Verts dominated by Snowball to Yeux-Verts dominant over Maurice. And this amplifies still the rivalry between Lefranc and Maurice.

The rest is then a descent into a hell that only the prison and its isolation, sometimes with two or three inmates, produce. These men are locked up in their absolute individuality which becomes a forced solitude without any alternative. This solitude of the man facing his announced and totally artificial death for acts that he does not deny produces infinite solipsism. The world is only me and my announced death. This produces an egotistical narcissism because the only value that remains in front of this announced death is the return on oneself and the enclosure in oneself, even if in addition there is regret, guilt. Man must accept his fate and his narcissism then becomes mental onanism that can only cause violence with other prisoners who would try to come into contact with this furious beast that is only contained by the promise of death, because death then becomes a promise, the promise of liberation.

And expiration becomes the breath of life in the last expiration of death programmed with a knife, with a blade. To die rather than survive because to survive can only be in the regret of not having been able to live without being in close contact with death. And the totally vicious circle of this confinement in oneself is then closed by Lefranc strangling Maurice. "I did what I could, for the love of unhappiness." One cannot be more narcissistic than Lefranc at this moment. And it is like a self-vengeance, a self-blame because Lefranc who wrote the letters to the wife of Yeux-Verts had committed a crime of altruistic narcissism as he says it in five words. "I entered in your skin." And that is intolerable, and Maurice will denounce it at the end, and he will die for it with a desperate act of Lefranc who thus punishes himself by killing and thus by condemning himself to die.

Poignant in a way and this drama has not the slightest ounce of hope. We are all either prisoners in the fortress or guards watching the show through the eyepiece of the door. And this eyepiece makes us systematic executors because it becomes the eyepiece becomes the telescopic sight or scope of a sniper’s gun.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

[Rebekah Parsons · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75.

[Theodore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complicated but super intricate for a short play with such few characters and actions.

[shamaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just like when I lived with three other gay guys

[Richard008 · Rating 2 out of 5]

اصلا چی شد؟

[Emma Bodin-Joyeux · Rating 1 out of 5]

Je pense ne pas avoir réussi à saisir le sens de ce livre.

[marcos_.02 · Rating 3 out of 5]

que loco que bestia

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Green-Eyes has killed a woman and is to be guillotined, Maurice and Lefranc are sentenced for more minor crimes. Maurice has a deep attachment to Green-Eyes, as does Lefranc, but secretly. The three prisoners are locked up in the same cell. Green-Eyes and Snowball- is also condemned to death- are considered the Kings of the prison. In fact their sentence traps them in a solitude and an immense unhappiness.
چشم آبی به اتهام کشتن زنی به اعدام با گیوتین محکوم شده، موریس و لوفرانک نیز هر کدام بدلیل جنایات کوچک و بزرگی دیگر، محکوم اند، و هر دو وابسته به "چشم آبی"، موریس آشکارا، و لوفرانک پنهانی. سرنوشت سه زندانی در انتظار و درون مجازات، بهم گره خورده و تنگاتنگ، داخل سلولی کوچک، در تنهایی غمناکی قصه هایشان را بازی می کنند، تا زندگی بگذرد و مرگ فرارسد. محافظ مرگ یا آن گونه که به فارسی ترجمه شده؛ "نظارت عالیه" در سال های دهه ی چهل در ایران منتشر شده، اجرایی هم از آن در خاطرم مانده، کی و کجایش یادم نیست.

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[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Etrafımızdasınız, biliyoruz.

[Jawharblid · Rating 5 out of 5]

je suis un grand fan de Genet ..j ai pratiquement lu tous ses livres pendant mes années fac ..j aime !

[katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was fine but that’s all

[Sarah ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

vrmt c’est simple efficace crade parfait petit bonus max de fleurs et esthétique misogyne homoérotique
tt ce dont j’ai besoin