LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES World Premiere to Open at East Village Basement

Crawl Space Plays will present Michael Gardner's world premiere theatrical adaptation of Jean Cocteau's scandalous novella, Les Enfants Terribles, directed by Gardner, running September 10 - October 4, 2026 for 21 performances in a limited engagement at East Village Basement.

Paul and Elisabeth, two emotionally-sheltered teenage siblings, seclude themselves in a spiritual fiction of their own creation. A fantasy organized by rules and rituals only children understand. As they vie for dominance, the “enfants” play cruel games amongst themselves and upon their adoring companions, Gerard and Agatha. Reality creeps in, fantasies spin out and the borders of their worlds collapse. Is tragedy inevitable? And divine?

Michael Gardner says, “Jean Cocteau's novella, Les Enfants Terribles, feels like one of those subversive secrets you discover at some point in your reading life. It guts and delights you and breaks all the rules in a way you thought was not allowed. Sexy and verboten, heartbreaking and wrong. It reminds you of a time in your youth when playtime was more real than reality. And playtime had just as many rules. The book cries out for theatricality, describing the children's “room” as the set of a stage drama upon which they all play. I've been longing to create a literalization of their “play” for years. And the themes of cruelty, persecution and mythomania couldn't be more timely.”

“A child plays at horses and becomes a horse. A mythomaniac reads Les Enfants Terribles. He plays at horses and thinks he is a horse.” – Jean Cocteau (from his autobiography The Difficulty of Being)

The cast includes Caroline (Lina) DeFazio, Victor Gao, Maysie Jane Kilgore and Rutger Scott. Hannah Kunce is Intimacy Director and Bethany Qian is Production Stage Manager.