LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES to Make World Premiere at East Village Basement
Michael Gardner, former artistic director of The Brick Theater, adapts and directs Cocteau's story for the stage.
Crawl Space Plays will present the world premiere of a new theatrical adaptation of Jean Cocteau's novella LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES, written and directed by Michael Gardner, for a limited engagement at East Village Basement in New York City. The production follows Paul and Elisabeth, two emotionally sheltered teenage siblings who withdraw into a private fantasy world governed by rules only they understand, drawing their companions Gerard and Agatha into cruel games that eventually collapse under the weight of reality.
Les Enfants Terribles runs September 10 - October 4, 2026 for 21 performances in a limited engagement at East Village Basement, located at 321 East 9th Street in New York City. Opening night is September 12 at 7pm.
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.
Performances are Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 2pm. Run time is approximately 100 minutes. Ages 18+. Tickets are $25 and $15 for students. To purchase tickets and for more info visit https://www.enfantsplay.com.
Michael Gardner is a playmaker and filmmaker and the proprietor of Crawl Space Plays, LLC. Recent film projects (written & directed) include I Watch Buildings and kintsugi: a VR theatre experience. Directorial works for stage include Breakfast at Blooms (segments), Brandywine Distillery Fire (2015 NYITA nominee 'Outstanding Performance Art Production'), Notes from Underground and Vaclav Havel's Mountain Hotel (English Language premiere). Adapted and directed: The Ninja Cherry Orchard, The Kung Fu Importance of Being Earnest, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness and In a Strange Room (Top Ten Plays, 2004—Time Out NY).
Crawl Space Plays, LLC is a production company, a venue and place for developing experimental and non-traditional artworks. Performance, film, VR and other arts are presented at their BedStuy studio, crawlspace, and in other traditional and non-traditional theater spaces. The company was born during the pandemic, and is not currently divided into seasons. Les Enfants Terribles will be the fourth production produced by the company, following Breakfast at Blooms (an adaptation of Molly's chapter from James Joyce's Ulysses), ghost light: a VR theatre experience, and enfants (a workshop precursor to Les Enfants Terribles).
Gardner, who founded The Brick Theater in Brooklyn and previously served as its artistic director, has described the adaptation as a long-held ambition to give physical, theatrical form to Cocteau's depiction of childhood ritual and cruelty.
