The Gas Heart - Early Production History

Early Production History

The Gas Heart was first staged as part of a Dada Salon at the Galerie Montaigne by the Paris Dadaists on June 6, 1921. The cast included major figures of the Dada current: Tzara himself played the Eyebrow, with Philippe Soupault as the Ear, Théodore Fraenkel as the Nose, Benjamin Péret as the Neck, Louis Aragon as the Eye, and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes as the Mouth. The production was received with howls of derision and the audience began to leave while the performance was still in progress.

The collaboration between André Breton and Tzara, begun during the late 1910s, degenerated into conflict after 1921. Breton, who objected to Tzara's style of performance art and the Dada excursion to Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, was also reportedly upset by the Romanian's refusal to take seriously the movement's informal prosecution of reactionary author Maurice Barrès. A third position, oscillating between Tzara and Breton, was held by Francis Picabia, who expected Dada to continue on the path of nihilism.

The first clash between the three factions took place in March 1922, when Breton convened the Congress for the Determination and Defense of the Modern Spirit, which rallied major figures associated with the modernist and avant-garde movements. Attended by Tzara only as a means to ridicule it, the conference was used by Breton as a platform for attacking his Romanian colleague. In reaction to this, Tzara issued the art manifesto The Bearded Heart, which was also signed by, among others, Péret, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard, Man Ray, Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp, Vicente Huidobro, Ossip Zadkine, Erik Satie, Jean Metzinger, Paul Dermée, Serge Charchoune, Marcel Herrand, Clément Pansaers, Raymond Radiguet, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Cécile Sauvage, Léopold Survage, Marcelle Meyer, Emmanuel Fay, Ilia Zdanevich, Simon Mondzain, and Roch Grey.

Tzara celebrated the formation of this new group with a Dada show, also titled The Bearded Heart, hosted by Paris's Théâtre Michel (July 6, 1923). According to music historian Steven Moore Whiting, the Romanian writer "cast his net too widely. The programme was a volatile hodge-podge of ex-Dada, pre-Dada and anti-Dada", while the audience, art critic Michel Sanouillet argued, comprised "gawkers and snobs as well as artists and those in the know, who were attracted by the prospect of watching wolves devour each other." Tzara's play was one of the attractions, but the event also featured music by Georges Auric, Darius Milhaud and Igor Stravinsky, films by Man Ray, Charles Sheeler and Hans Richter, as well as another play by Ribemont-Dessaignes (Mouchez-vous, "Blow Your Noses"). There were also readings from the writings of Herrand, Zdanevich, Cocteau and Philippe Soupault, as well as exhibits of design works by Sonia Delaunay and Doesburg. Whiting notes that controversy erupted when Soupault and Éluard found their writings "being read in the same events as those of Cocteau", and that no explanation was provided for presenting works by Auric, "in view of his alliance with Breton." He also recounts that Satie unsuccessfully sought to make Tzara reconsider the choice for musical numbers weeks before the premiere.

The new stage production of The Gas Heart was a more professional one, with designers and a full crew of technicians—although Tzara neither directed nor acted in this performance. Sonia Delaunay designed and costumed the production, creating eccentric trapezoid costumes of thick cardboard, their angular fragmentation recalling Spanish painter Pablo Picasso's designs for Parade, but in this case ostensibly rendering the performers' bodies two-dimensional and immobile. According to Peter Nichols, Delaunay's contribution formed an integral part of the performance, with the costumes being "a visual clue to one-dimensionality."

A riot broke out just as The Gas Heart was premiering, and, according to poet Georges Hugnet, a first-hand witness, was provoked by Breton, who "hoisted himself on the stage and started to belabor the actors." Also according to Hugnet, the actors could not run away because of their restricting costumes, while their attacker also managed to assault some of the writers present, punching René Crevel and breaking Pierre de Massot's arm with his walking stick. Although they had beforehand shown a measure of solidarity with Tzara, Péret and his fellow writer Éluard are reported to have helped Breton cause more disturbance, breaking several lamps before the Préfecture de Police forces could intervene. Hugnet recounts: "I can still hear the director of Théâtre Michel, tearing his hair at the sights of the rows of seats hanging loose or torn open and the devastated stage, and lamenting 'My lovely little theater!' "

Art historian Michael C. FitzGerald argues that the violence was sparked by Breton's indignation over Masson having condemned Pablo Picasso in the name of Dada. Reportedly, Masson's speech also included denunciations of André Gide, Duchamp and Picabia, to which, FitzGerald notes, "no one took offense." FitzGerald also recounts that, after breaking Masson's arm, Breton returned to his seat, that the audience was subsequently ready to assail him and his group, and that an actual brawl was averted only because "Tristan Tzara alerted the waiting police". According to Whiting the scuffles "continued outside the theatre after the lights were snuffed".