Love Letters: Some of our favourite writers write on one of their favourite writers. Originally published in Issue 21.
In 1946, shortly after WW2, at the age of 27, actress and writer Colette Thomas met Antonin Artaud when she went with her husband, French poet and writer Henri Thomas, to the south of France where Artaud was released from an asylum. She had read his work and Henri told Artaud she wanted to accompany him back to Paris because of her admiration. Even though Artaud looked deranged and was toothless after years of shock therapy, and Collette was his friend Henri’s wife, he found himself attracted to her and saw her as one of his “immortal young girls.” A muse who would help him restore his position in Paris in the intellectual scene.
On their journey back to Paris, they bonded about being incarcerated and the abuse they faced in these institutions (Thomas experienced Cardiazol, a drug that provoked seizures, used to treat patients with schizophrenia). Artaud was sent to another psychiatric clinic and his friends organized an auction to finance his living situation and some readings with a few famous actors and actresses, including Thomas, who was an inexperienced actress.
This is during a time in history where most poets hired actors or actresses to perform their poems at readings and the actor or actress was the vessel between the poet and the listener.
At this reading, Thomas was the only actress to read Artaud’s latest poems and the only actress to have worked with Artaud personally. When Thomas was on stage she was as sublime as an allegory of Mozart, focused on the way she delivered the words rather than what she said. The stage lights shut off, everyone was plunged into darkness and Thomas continued, it thrilled the audience, they had never seen or heard anything like it.
Writer Charles Estienne wrote in a review, “She read, in an overwhelming way, a recent page, a kind of impossible text, more scandalous than all Jarry…will hear that lone voice resonate for a long time still charged with beauty beyond the human of Artaud’s message.” She was applauded and called back numerous times to the stage to perform Artaud’s poems. Artaud praised Thomas, but told her he sensed her to be delicate and to beware of the attention men gave her.
At one of his stays in an asylum he thought a lot about “love.” He said, “I dreamed about some daughters of the soul, who would love me like daughters, and not as lovers—me, their pre-pubescent, lustful, salacious, erotic and incestuous father; and chaste, so chaste that it makes him dangerous.” He called them his “daughters of the heart to be born.” Even though there were several daughters, Thomas was the most devoted, being seen at numerous cafes with Artaud. By 1947, Thomas had separated from Henri. Thomas left Paris with another man, and Artaud expressed his distaste for it, feeling that she had abandoned him.
After a sold out performance that flopped (Thomas didn’t rehearse and looked “tired” to the audience), Artaud forced Thomas to rehearse for another performance. In their rehearsals Artaud was physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive. He was like this towards her on other occasions. Her redo performance was a hit. Artaud eventually became jealous of the attention she received and convinced himself she wanted to have a baby with him.
He told his friend French poet, Jacques Prevel, “Colette is jealous of what I’ve written. She believes that she wrote my texts, thought my texts, and that I have stolen them from her.”
Thomas was asked to do a radio performance with a few other actresses for Artaud and Thomas refused to participate with no reason given. She never saw Artaud again. In his last letter to her from September 1947, Artaud proclaimed: “Colette Thomas is the greatest actress the theatre has seen, the greatest being in theatre that the world has had.”
In 1954, under the pseudonym René, Artaud’s “daughter of the heart,” Thomas published Le Testament de la Fille Morte (The Testament of the Dead Daughter), which were accounts of her suffering, the theatre, religion, sex, fear, death, time incarcerated and letters to Artaud. The book received some attention and shortly after Thomas disappeared from the Parisian intellectual scene, a rumour circulated that she died (she didn’t die until 2006, at the age of 88) and the book was not published in English until 2014, by Vauxhall & Company. I didn’t read it until 2019, and she left her imprint on me like she did the people who watched her perform.
Diamond Stingily on Rene (Colette Thomas)
Love Letters: Some of our favourite writers write on one of their favourite writers. Originally published in Issue 21.
In 1946, shortly after WW2, at the age of 27, actress and writer Colette Thomas met Antonin Artaud when she went with her husband, French poet and writer Henri Thomas, to the south of France where Artaud was released from an asylum. She had read his work and Henri told Artaud she wanted to accompany him back to Paris because of her admiration. Even though Artaud looked deranged and was toothless after years of shock therapy, and Collette was his friend Henri’s wife, he found himself attracted to her and saw her as one of his “immortal young girls.” A muse who would help him restore his position in Paris in the intellectual scene.
On their journey back to Paris, they bonded about being incarcerated and the abuse they faced in these institutions (Thomas experienced Cardiazol, a drug that provoked seizures, used to treat patients with schizophrenia). Artaud was sent to another psychiatric clinic and his friends organized an auction to finance his living situation and some readings with a few famous actors and actresses, including Thomas, who was an inexperienced actress.
This is during a time in history where most poets hired actors or actresses to perform their poems at readings and the actor or actress was the vessel between the poet and the listener.
At this reading, Thomas was the only actress to read Artaud’s latest poems and the only actress to have worked with Artaud personally. When Thomas was on stage she was as sublime as an allegory of Mozart, focused on the way she delivered the words rather than what she said. The stage lights shut off, everyone was plunged into darkness and Thomas continued, it thrilled the audience, they had never seen or heard anything like it.
Writer Charles Estienne wrote in a review, “She read, in an overwhelming way, a recent page, a kind of impossible text, more scandalous than all Jarry…will hear that lone voice resonate for a long time still charged with beauty beyond the human of Artaud’s message.” She was applauded and called back numerous times to the stage to perform Artaud’s poems. Artaud praised Thomas, but told her he sensed her to be delicate and to beware of the attention men gave her.
At one of his stays in an asylum he thought a lot about “love.” He said, “I dreamed about some daughters of the soul, who would love me like daughters, and not as lovers—me, their pre-pubescent, lustful, salacious, erotic and incestuous father; and chaste, so chaste that it makes him dangerous.” He called them his “daughters of the heart to be born.” Even though there were several daughters, Thomas was the most devoted, being seen at numerous cafes with Artaud. By 1947, Thomas had separated from Henri. Thomas left Paris with another man, and Artaud expressed his distaste for it, feeling that she had abandoned him.
After a sold out performance that flopped (Thomas didn’t rehearse and looked “tired” to the audience), Artaud forced Thomas to rehearse for another performance. In their rehearsals Artaud was physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive. He was like this towards her on other occasions. Her redo performance was a hit. Artaud eventually became jealous of the attention she received and convinced himself she wanted to have a baby with him.
He told his friend French poet, Jacques Prevel, “Colette is jealous of what I’ve written. She believes that she wrote my texts, thought my texts, and that I have stolen them from her.”
Thomas was asked to do a radio performance with a few other actresses for Artaud and Thomas refused to participate with no reason given. She never saw Artaud again. In his last letter to her from September 1947, Artaud proclaimed: “Colette Thomas is the greatest actress the theatre has seen, the greatest being in theatre that the world has had.”
In 1954, under the pseudonym René, Artaud’s “daughter of the heart,” Thomas published Le Testament de la Fille Morte (The Testament of the Dead Daughter), which were accounts of her suffering, the theatre, religion, sex, fear, death, time incarcerated and letters to Artaud. The book received some attention and shortly after Thomas disappeared from the Parisian intellectual scene, a rumour circulated that she died (she didn’t die until 2006, at the age of 88) and the book was not published in English until 2014, by Vauxhall & Company. I didn’t read it until 2019, and she left her imprint on me like she did the people who watched her perform.