Théâtre Français

“ LET us now return to the Palais Royal, and to the theatre which adjoins it. The Comédie Française, or Théâtre Français, as it is also called, was never, as the first of these names might suggest, devoted exclusively to comedy. The word “comedy” was used in France in the early days of its stage to denote any kind of theatrical entertainment. The famous “Ballet Comique de la Reine,” produced towards the end of the 16th century, was, in fact, a dramatic entertainment with singing and dancing, strongly resembling what would now be called an opera ”

“ A subsidy ought to be granted to the theatre which produces literary works which are remembered in following years and remain in the repertory. Now, let us see what pieces were running at the Théâtre Français concurrently with those of the Porte-Saint-Martin, and then tell me which were the pieces during this period of four years which you remember and which remain on its repertory? ”

“ The theatres of Paris are in full swing during the [Pg 153] winter, and new plays are magnets for the society set as for all Paris; but even the smartest of Parisians are democratic when it comes to theatre-going, and no one or two houses claim their allegiance. The Théâtre Français, the Odeon, les Nouveautés, les Variétés, le Vaudeville, le Théâtre Antoine, le Théâtre Sara Bernhardt, le Maturin,—to all of these Madame goes, and to the cafés chantants in addition. Wherever there is clever entertainment, there one finds the swell Parisienne. ”

“ The theatres present, at first view, a very favourable aspect of French character. The audience uniformly conduct themselves with propriety and decorum; they are always attentive to the piece represented, and shew themselves, in general very good judges of theatrical merit; and the entertainments which please their taste are certainly of a superior order to a great part of those which are popular in England. A great number of the performances which are loudly applauded by the pit and boxes of the London theatres, would be esteemed low and vulgar, even by the galleries at the Theatre Français. ”

“ It shows a delicate attention on the part of the directors of the Théâtre Français, now that so many foreigners of all nations are here, to cause to be represented every night the masterpieces of the French classical dramatic authors, since these are pieces that every foreigner of education has read and admired ”

“ Corneille, Molière, and Racine having each his separate company. In the present day the Théâtre Français comprises in its repertory all the masterpieces of France’s three greatest dramatists; and many imagine that for this famous establishment may be claimed the honour of having first produced them. But the finest tragedies and comedies that France possesses were written for theatres of little or no standing; and not, as just pointed out, for one, but for three different theatres. An actress celebrated in her time, Mdlle. ”

“ Undoubtedly, many persons of a true taste and an experienced ear have disappeared, and no one now seems inclined to say to the performers: "That is the point which you must attain, and at which you must stop, if you wish not to appear deficient, or to overact your part." But the fact is, they are without a good model, and the spectators, in general, are strangers to the minutiæ of dramatic excellence. In tragedy, indeed, I am inclined to think that there never existed at the Théâtre Français such a deficiency of superior talents. ”

“ I never disgraced my colours by abandoning legitimate comedy, to whose service I am sworn, and in whose defence I have kept the field for nearly half a century—till at last I have survived all true national taste, and lived to see buffoonery, spectacle, and puerility so effectually triumph, that now to be repulsed from the stage is to be recommended to the closet; and to be applauded by the theatre is little less than a passport to the puppet-show." This spirit of self-satisfaction, and depreciation of the public taste, was nothing new. ”

“ That the theatre feels this reflex influence, that it appreciates all that is going on around it, that it is not asleep, that it is penetrated with the spirit of the century, whether that spirit be good or evil, the selection of plays now popular is another proof. In France, where the success of the histrionic art now culminates, a contemporaneous drama is flourishing, the absolute society of the day is represented. That society has faults, and the stage mirrors them. ”

“ With that beginning the way was opened for the growth of superb stock-companies, in the early days of the American theatre. The English, next to the Italians, were the first among modern peoples to create a dramatic literature and to establish the acted drama, and they have always led in this field—antedating, historically, and surpassing in essential things the French stage which nowadays it is fashionable to extol. English influence, at all times stern and exacting, stamped the character of our early theatre. ”

“ Partly a compilation from French works, and partly the result of the author's own experience, it contains the general history of each of the Paris theatres, biographical and critical sketches of the actors, lists and anecdotes of the principal musicians and authors who compose and write for the stage, and, finally, an enumeration of the best performers at each theatre, and of the pieces in which they are seen to the greatest advantage. We need say no more to demonstrate the utility of the work to those going abroad. ”

“ Much as we admire the excellencies of the English stage, and none we are persuaded can have an opportunity of comparing it with the acting of the French theatre, without being more sensible of its perfections, we think it may yet be observed, that many important objects are sacrificed to the desire of producing continual emotion,—to the practice of making every sentiment and every word tell upon the audience, with an effect which could not be greater, if that sentiment were the whole object of the tragedy. ”

“ There is no country in which the theatre has so great a hold on the public as in France; no country in which the successful dramatist has so high a fame; no country perhaps in which the state of the stage so faithfully represents the moral and intellectual condition of the people. ”

“ The close conjunction between the history of a living dramatic literature and that of the theatre can least of all be ignored in the case of France, where the actor’s art has gone through so ample an evolution, and where the theatre has so long and continuously formed an important part of the national life. ”

“ The repertory of the theatre was one of the most dramatically romantic and sentimental ever known to France and the one of all others best fitted to turn a generation from sound reality to false and fantastic visions. ”

“ The circumstance which perhaps, of all others connected with the people of France, is most likely to create this feeling of curiosity and interest, is the opportunity of attending the French theatres. In most countries, and even in some where dramatic representations possess much greater power over the minds of the audience, the theatre is comparatively of much less importance to a stranger in assisting him to judge of the character of the people ”

“ With his professed interest in the theatre—one of those deep subjections that, in men of "taste," the Comédie Française used in old days to conspire for and some such odd and affecting examples of which were to be noted—he yet offers her his hand and an introduction to the very best society if she will leave the stage. The power—and her having the sense of the power—to "shine" in the world is his highest measure of her, the test applied by him to her beautiful human value; just as the manner in which she turns on him is the application of her own standard and touchstone. ”

“ Burnt by the Communards in May, 1871, it was re-opened as a dramatic theatre under the title of Théâtre Lyrique-Historique, afterwards to become Théâtre des Nations, Théâtre Italien, Théâtre de Paris, and finally in 1888 Opéra Comique. The interior of the house is more remarkable for elegance than for comfort. ”

“ Vous aurez un théâtre qui attirera la foule, et qui répandra les idées civilisatrices, l'héroïsme, le dévouement, l'abnégation, le devoir, l'amour du pays, par la reproduction vraie, animée ou même patriotiquement exaltée des grands faits de notre histoire.
Et savez-vous ce qui arrivera! Vous n'attirerez pas seulement le peuple à vos théâtres, vous y attirerez aussi l'étranger. Pas un homme riche en Europe que ne soit tenu de venir à vos théâtres compléter son éducation française et littéraire. Ce sera là une source de richesse pour la France et pour Paris. ”

“ The theatre was fitted up with the taste of a people more essentially theatrical than any other in the world. For not merely the eye, but the tongue, is theatrical; and not merely the stage, but every portion of private life. ”

“ With such an arrangement of the stage, the piece itself, the actors' mode of playing, in a word, everything was to coincide; and thus an entirely new theatre was to arise.
The French actors had, in comedy, attained the summit of the true in art. Their residence at Paris, their observations of the externals of the court, the connexion of the actors and actresses with the highest classes, by means of love affairs—all contributed to transplant to the stage the greatest realness and seemliness of social life; and on this point the friends of nature found but little to blame. ”

“ When the time for the performance drew near, the scene almost baffled description. All the approaches to the Comédie-Française were so blocked with people that the actors themselves could with difficulty persuade their excited patrons to make way for them. An enormous crowd surged round the theatre, forced the doors, and struggled and fought for the best places in the pit. ”

“ They at present are the people’s favourites, and all have individually a large public following. It was but just to these men to ask them to come into the scheme as honorary members of the institution, in the hope that they would associate themselves with those parts and plays of more than ordinary merit which undoubtedly have a claim to be admitted into the repertory of a National Theatre, and with which they individually were specially identified. ”

“ For the Theatre, as the original source of all the arts, the spring from which half a hundred streams have poured, into the separate arts of music, dancing, singing, poetry, pageantry, and what not—the Theatre in its historic aspect as the spirit of communal festivity—is significant to us not as the vehicle of a so-called dramatic art, separate and distinct from the arts which go to make it up, but rather as the institution which preserves the memory of the common origin of all these arts and which still has the power to unite them in the service of a common purpose. ”

“ To realise the truth of these remarks, one should visit a small theatre in France, a theatre in some little provincial town, where a quite unimportant company is playing. They all seem to act, to be thoroughly enamoured of their parts, and to play them with their whole heart and soul. It is quite wonderful, indeed, to see the extraordinary capacity of the average French actor and actress for expressing emotion upon the stage. ”

“ THE THEATER.—The theatre has always been a vital influence in man's aesthetic and emotional life. Drama, opera, comedy, and burlesque are variant forms, but they are alike in that they influence the audience. In the last decade the moving picture has greatly increased the power and influence of the theatre. ”

“ Music aided the action; the drama was tragedy, comedy, opera, pantomime in one. The actors were amateurs from every class of society—clergy, scholars, tradesmen, mechanics, occasionally members of the noblesse. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion had almost an exclusive right to present these sacred plays; in the provinces associations were formed to carry out the costly and elaborate performance. To the Confrères de la Passion—bourgeois folk and artisans—belonged the first theatre, and it was they who first presented plays at regular intervals. ”

“ I have never set foot inside a theatre myself, I am proud to say, nor attended even private theatricals before—such things are not in my line! But I can honestly assure you that I have rarely seen histrionic ability more consummate, or a dramatic performance more exceptionally complete in every respect, than that which it has been our truly enviable privilege to witness this evening! ”

“ Our theatre merely offers the convenient locale for the tempting exhibition of the heterogeneous wares of art manufacture. How incapable is our stage to gather up each branch of art in its highest and most perfect expression—the drama—it shows at once in its division into the two opposing classes, play and opera; whereby the idealizing influence of music is forbidden to the play, and the opera is forestalled of the living heart and lofty purpose of actual drama. ”

“ Moreover, the French theatre has long been, and is more than ever likely to continue, an affair of the state as well as of the nation; and the judicious policy of not leaving the chief theatres at the mercy of shifting fashion and the base demands of idleness and sensuality will remain the surest guarantee for the maintenance of a high standard both in principle and in practice. ”