PICHETTE (Harry Paul, known as Henri). - Lot 180

PICHETTE (Harry Paul, known as Henri). Born in Châteauroux. 1924-2000. Writer, poet and playwright. L.A.S. "Henri Pichette" to "Dear Pierre Brasseur". Cargèse, July 28, 1948. 6 pp. large in-4, in red ink on lined paper. Scratches and clippings (preparation for printing?). Joint: placards (4 pp. in-8), incipit to Apoèmes. Superb letter to actor Pierre Brasseur about theater and Antonin Artaud: After the immense success of his play Les Épiphanies, a "profane mystery" staged in Paris in 1947 with Gérard Philipe, Maria Casarès and Roger Blin, Henri Pichette is preparing a new theatrical project: ...Quelques mots, dont vous mexcuserez (...). I am, with my customary wife and doll-like daughter, off to Corsica indeed. One month, albeit elastic, and I'll have to commit suicide again in the Paris raps. HERE, in short, sky and sea are the great married couple. As for me, I tend to fight. If we don't put our feet down on the 5 continents, we won't be able to hang on to anything, and at best, we'll only be able to live off the little lobster. OR une LANGOUSTE is a lesson in THEATRE: the sets are clean, the grace clear, the perfume sublime and simple; everything is spiky and pointed, ready to receive the word that must first kill and then shine, in the night of the brain. What I'm saying is that no one, not even Artaud, makes theater or inspires it. Nobody: (...) because Artaud saw for himself what should have been seen with at least a thousand pairs of eyes. To be 1,000, you have to be mad, and Artaud wasn't mad. A madman is different. "Molière remains theatrical, whatever the fools say". But working on a play now means thinking about as many consecutive and consequential problems as possible. My manifesto is In theater out. All life must take its toll, then sink to death, where man is better than an illuminated chandelier. So I've got two or three years ahead of me. But as a friend, I can promise you better than a masterpiece of nourished realities (...). That's because Paris has the wrong lamps, and because the theater tries to be understandable. People don't understand each other either. I build as much as Molière, as Shakespeare. Who are eagles as wise as sparrows. (...) I send you the hungry sea of spectators: they are the seaweed, tender but so battling..." You had the face I was waiting for: that of a young, sonorous barbarian well equipped to awaken the noise itself", wrote Max-Pol Fouchet in 1948, shortly after the premiere of Les Épiphanies, that explosive "profane mystery" that marked French poetry in the second half of the century. Henri Pichette's work had been first performed by Georges Vitaly at the Théâtre des Noctambules in December 1947, with Gérard Philipe, Roger Blin and Maria Casarès on stage. The dramatic poem is divided into five chapters: "La Genèse" (Genesis), "L'Amour" (Love), "La Guerre" (War), "Le Délire" (Delirium) and "L'Accomplissement" (Fulfillment). Pichette had given this poetic challenge a sumptuous, baroque language.