Thou Shalt Not

Thérèse, the daughter of a French officer and a mother of mixed race, has been brought up in New Orleans by her father’s sister after her mother’s death. She has grown up with Camille, her sickly and spoiled cousin, and entered into a loveless marriage with him when she came of age. Thérèse and her aunt go into business to support him; eventually he gets a job and runs into an old childhood friend, Laurent LeClaire.

Laurent, motivated at first by a lack of funds to pay prostitutes, easily seduces the lonely Thérèse, and soon they are enmeshed in a torrid love affair. The lovers take Camille out on a boat trip and drown him. Madame Raquin is paralyzed by a stroke brought on by her son’s death, but becomes aware that Thérèse and Laurent are guilty. They marry, and immediately their guilt begins to haunt them both; the thought – or the ghost – of Camille prevents them from touching each other. Laurent, a painter, cannot paint anything that does not somehow represent the drowned man. Their passionate love turns to hatred.

Eventually each develops a plan to kill the other. At the climax, they realize what has been happening and commiserate over their destroyed lives. They take poison together and expire under Madame Raquin’s unblinking gaze.

“I wrote many more songs than were needed for Thou Shalt Not,” writes Harry Connick, Jr. “This collection includes songs that were cut from, as well as in, the show.”