Manuscrit autographe inédit d'un projet de sketch de Boris Vian intitulé "Deux heures de colles"

Complete unpublished autograph manuscript of a sketch project by Boris Vian entitled "Deux heures de colles". Each bundle, containing eight and ten sheets respectively, is held together with a staple. The first, written in different colored inks and featuring numerous crossings-out, additions and small marginal drawings, comprises two sheets of ideas for the sketch outline, one sheet describing its structure and five sheets of text and stage directions. The second, less corrected and entirely written in green ink, is a final version of the text incorporating the structure and ideas from the first draft without preserving them in their entirety.
In these notes, never published nor performed, the sketch takes place in a classroom where different teachers take turns delivering lessons in each of their subjects. The audience is supposed to form an assembly of unruly pupils and actively participate in the various activities imagined by Vian. The shameless teachers mistreat the pupils: "vous êtes des khons, de lamentables ratés [...] quelques interrogations auxquelles je vais procéder maintenant vont vous démontrer mieux qu'un long discours à quel point vous être abrutis." ["you are fools, pathetic failures [...] a few questions which I shall now proceed with will demonstrate to you better than a long speech just how stupid you are."]
The text, very humorous and remarkably modern, recalls the genre of current "talk shows" and their cascades of gags and games.
We thus find a large number of fanciful subjects designed to structure the different interventions: "cours du supporter de match" ["sports fan class"], "cours de digest" ["digest class"], "cours d'optimisme bourgeois" ["bourgeois optimism class"], "cours de liberté" ["freedom class"], "cours de diffamation" ["defamation class"], "cours d'exploitation de psychanalyse" ["psychoanalysis exploitation class"], etc.
We perceive Vian's nostalgia for the past and his fascination with the future: "Vous voyez 1900 avec 50 ans de recul, avec vos yeux de 1950, mais pour les gens de l'an 2000, 1950 sera aussi charmant que 1900 pour nous. Apprenez à voir votre époque avec les yeux de l'an 2000." ["You see 1900 with 50 years' hindsight, with your 1950 eyes, but for people in the year 2000, 1950 will be as charming as 1900 is for us. Learn to see your era through the eyes of the year 2000."] His love of cars also shows through in the staging of a "type qui rentre par le fond de la scène dans un bruit effrayant, avec sa traction (une calandre ou un moteur sous le bras) ..." ["fellow who enters from the back of the stage with a frightening noise, with his Citroën (a grille or engine under his arm) ..."]
Visionary, Vian? This text is in any case imbued with ecological awareness: "Le professeur insiste sur le gâchis qui caractérise la société actuelle et l'intérêt, par conséquent, d'un cours de récupération des produits inutilisés." ["The teacher insists on the waste that characterizes current society and the interest, consequently, of a class on recovering unused products."] The brilliant inventor in any case envisages presenting a recycling "machine" ["machine"] to his audience. He also denounces, under cover of humor, the shortage of Parisian housing and its poor layout: "on ne trouvait pas d'appartement à cause des collectionneurs d'appartements [...] Ce qui est difficile c'est de vivre dans les appartements qu'on vous propose ; mais quelques-uns de nos anciens élèves qui ont eu la chance de faire un stage dans un immeuble d'essai construit par Le Cornemusier vont vous faire une démonstration. [...] façon de vivre en rampant en rampant dans les appartements extrêmement bas de plafond." ["you couldn't find an apartment because of apartment collectors [...] What's difficult is living in the apartments they offer you; but some of our former students who had the chance to do an internship in a test building constructed by Le Cornemusier will give you a demonstration. [...] way of living by crawling by crawling in extremely low-ceilinged apartments."] It must be said that Boris was an expert in spatial ergonomics, as evidenced by the layout of his small apartment in Cité Véron.
The manuscript's climax, Vian delivers a superb passage on old age: "Enfin, le secret de la réussite : la vieillesse. Sketch : quelques jeunes, se disant « place aux jeunes » échouent car trop de vieux barrent la route. Ils kidnappent, pour se venger, quelques vieux. On met les vieux au régime le plus mauvais pour eux : beaucoup manger, beaucoup boire, beaucoup baiser, beaucoup danser. Finalement, ils séduisent les petites amies des jeunes et s'en vont avec elles. A la suite de quoi les jeunes décident de se vieillir artificiellement : s'opèrent mutuellement en s'arrachant les cheveux, en se teignant, se ridant, etc... Devenus vieux, ils trouvent tout, leurs amies reviennent et chœur d'apothéose." ["Finally, the secret of success: old age. Sketch: some young people, saying 'make way for the young' fail because too many old people block the way. They kidnap, for revenge, some old people. The old people are put on the worst regimen for them: eating a lot, drinking a lot, making love a lot, dancing a lot. Finally, they seduce the young men's girlfriends and go off with them. Following which the young people decide to age themselves artificially: they operate on each other by pulling out their hair, dyeing it, wrinkling themselves, etc... Having become old, they find everything, their girlfriends return and apotheosis chorus."] Irony of fate for Boris who knew, from his youngest age, that he was doomed and who would die at 39.