Staging Crime: From Murder to Fine Art in Genet's Les Bonnes and Kesselman's My Sister in this House

THE COMPAKATIST STAGING CRIME: FROM MURDER TO FINE ART IN GENET'S LES BONNES AND KESSELMAN'S MY SISTER IN THIS HOUSE Paula K. Kamenish Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families. (G. H. Lewes, The Physiology ofCommon Life) Two dramatists, one French, the other American, have created publicly acclaimed plays from a grisly murder committed on the evening of February 2, 1933 in the provincial French town of Le Mans: two maids, Christine and Lea Papin, bludgeoned and hacked to death their employers , Madame and Mademoiselle Lancelin. Since a clear motive for the double murder remains a mystery, Jean Genet's Les Bonnes and Wendy Kesselman's My Sister in This House serve as hypothetical speculations that attempt to interpret the events, the characters, and the meaning of this crime. Each play brings its viewers closer to understanding the motivations of the murderers. However, long before Genet and Kesselman conceived their renditions of the crime in 1947 and 1981, the double homicide avidly stirred the curiosity and imagination of the general populace who circulated the latest rumors and followed in-depth coverage of the trial in the newspaper of their choice, Paris-Soir or L'Humanité. Curiously enough, world-renowned journalists, psychoanalysts, and literary figures joined the discussion, demonstrating an uncanny and continuing fascination with the psychology ofthe murderers. These analyses act as a vital and influential filter through which the story of the Le Mans murders passed on its way to becoming dramatic art. Thus, Genet 's Les Bonnes and Kesselman's My Sister in This House are the result of more than a mere binary, event-to-play operation of influence; in each case, the play benefits from interpretations that enable Genet and Kesselman to elevate a heinous crime to the realm of art. The result of this movement from fait divers to theatre reveals more than the psychological motivations of the murderers, of the crime's contemporary commentators , or ofthe two playwrights; it also exposes our own insidious yearnings for an encounter with the violence within us, the spectators. I. Discursive Background to the Plays Celebrities such as Jacques Lacan, Simone de Beauvoir, and Janet Flanner made noteworthy contributions to both plays inasmuch as they converted the crime from a news headline to a subject ofintellectual inquiry and debate. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan appears to have been one of the first to delve deeply into the question of motive in his study of the Vol. 27 (2003): 117 STAQINQ CRIME: QENETANV KESSELMAN Papin sisters. His doctoral thesis, De la psychose paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la personnalité, was published not even a year before the Papin crime. It is clear that at the time of the double homicide Lacan was enmeshed in his study ofparanoia. The publicity over the trial ofthe Papin sisters attracted Lacan's attention and he promptly saw an opportunity to test his theories. In December 1933 Lacan's essay on the Le Mans murders appeared in the journal Minotaure, in a notable surrealist number of the quarterly . In "Motifs du crime paranoïaque: le crime des soeurs Papin," Lacan sets the scene, introducing the twenty-eight and twenty-one-year-old sisters who, after the Lancelin women discovered the maids' small error that had caused the electricity to go out, attacked their employers in a paroxysm of fury. He describes the method of assault: each sister attacked an adversary, tearing out the eyes and beating the women with handy household instruments: hammer, pewter pitcher, kitchen knife. Afterward, the sisters reportedly washed themselves and crawled into the same bed. What concerns Lacan is that, when questioned in court, the murderers could offer no comprehensible motive for their bloody crime. They showed neither hate nor grief and seemed only concerned that they share completely in the responsibility for the crime. He relates that three medical experts had been unable to find any signs of dementia in them. Thus, the Papin sisters were ruled sane and able to stand trial. Despite the court's ruling, Lacan notes that the majority of psychiatrists became convinced of the sisters' mental instability (26). He points out instances of their unusual behavior and their strong attraction to...