Les parents terribles

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Jean Cocteau's 1948 boulevard farce-with-a-vengeance Les parents terribles tells the tale of Michael and his Parents Terribles, George and Yvonne. Michael is smitten with the beautiful Madeleine, little knowing that she is the former mistress of his father. The play was once dubbed "Noel Coward on Opium."

Loveable Aunt Leo casts just enough of a jaundiced eye on the proceedings to give the audience a character with whom they can relate.

Jean Marais portrayed Michael in the film version of the play, also known as The Storm Within. Jude Law made his Broadway debut in the re-tooled version of the play entitled Indiscretions. He made quite a stir by making an entrance in a nude scene long enough, as one reviewer put it, to run home and get your binoculars.

The New York Times, for one, gave Indiscretions a favorable review. Vincent Canby wrote: "The play is something else. It's a lethal if often hilarious farce about the darkest neuroses of familiar comic characters. These people, as Leo says, are children who sometimes commit terrible crimes."