SOURCE: Crowson, Lydia. “Cocteau and ‘Le Numéro Barbette’”. Modern Drama 19, no. 1 (March 1976): 79-87.

In the following essay, Crowson investigates the relationship between his essay “Le Numéro Barbette” and L'Impromptu du Palais Royal.

One of the accusations most frequently leveled against Jean Cocteau is that there is no continuity in his work, that he created merely for the sake of effect without having any real goal in mind. Yet, if the evidence is fairly examined, it becomes clear that this is not the case, at least in his conception of stage performance. One of his earliest esthetic formulations is an article entitled “Le Numéro Barbette” which appeared in the July 1926 issue of the Nouvelle Revue Française, and his last play, L'Impromptu du Palais Royal, produced and published in 1962, is a theatrical presentation of his theories of theater. The latter is in fact a refinement, a...