Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Corneille had written his earlier pieces, Hardy was still in the ascendant. Many of this author's works were mere skeletons, filled in by the improvisation of the actors, more especially of the comic ones, who had unlimited license to 'gag.' Under Molière the new theatre of the Palais Royal rose to supreme importance; but it was a Parisian Haymarket; the rival house held the monopoly of Corneille, Racine, and the tragic drama. At Molière's death the fortunes of his house fell, as several of the best actors went over to the Bourgogne. In 1665 the number of theatres had risen to five, but eight years later the King reduced it to two-the Hôtel de Bourgogne and a new one in the Rue Marazin. This arrangement did not last long, for in 1680 these were amalgamated, by royal command, under the title of the 'Sociétaires de la Comédie Française.' This was the origin of the most famous dramatic establishment in Europe, which has thus almost arrived at its two hundredth anniversary. It has, however, shifted its quarters several times: from 1668 to 1770 it was fixed in the Rue des Fossés-St.-Germain-des-Prés; then, for a short time, it was removed to the Tuileries, afterwards to the Hôtel de Condé-the site upon which the Odéon now stands-where it remained until the Revolution.

The theatres of the seventeenth century, and even of the earlier part of the eighteenth, were of the rudest construction, being usually formed out of disused tennis courts. Their shape was oblong; benches one above another were fixed against the side walls for the more aristocratic spectators. The inconvenience of these seats both for sight and sound led to the élite of the audience being accommodated with chairs upon the stage. The centre of the floor was the parterre, and was without seats. A ring of tallow candles, formed into a kind of rude chandelier, such as a few years ago might have been seen in a village circus, suspended over the centre of the stage, was the sole illumination. The stage was erected in an alcove at one end. Three or four wooden frames on each side formed the wings' or entrances, a painted curtain in the background the scenery, and some bands of blue paper hung from the ceiling represented sky and roof. The changes of scene were effected by movable curtains or rolling-cloths. The play began at two o'clock and terminated at half-past four. The price of admission to the parterre was four sous. The great success of 'Les Précieuses Ridicules' induced Molière to raise it to ten sous, but at the end of the run it had receded to five. By 1667, however, the price had risen to fifteen sous. The audience, both great and humble, were as rude as the accommodation. Here is a picture of the parterre, drawn by an eye-witness-The parterre is very

inconvenient on account of the press; there are to be found there a thousand knaves, mingled with the honest people whom they sometimes wish to affront. They make quarrels out of nothing, draw their swords and interrupt the play. At their quietest they do not cease talking, crying, and hissing; and because they have paid nothing for their entrance, and that they come there only for lack of another occupation, they care little to hear what the actors say.'

The behaviour of the aristocratic portion of the audience was little better. The fops and people of fashion had their seats upon the stage. The theatre was what the opera is at the present day— a rendezvous-and coquetting, and chattering, and loud laughter, interrupted the performance, to the indignation of the more respectable portion of the parterre, which frequently resented it. Sometimes the crowd upon the stage was so large that there was scarcely room for the actors, and sentinels had to be placed at the entrances to keep the people back. A ludicrous anecdote is told of the first representation of Sémiramis.' Just in front of the tomb of Ninus the crush was so great that the ghost could not issue therefrom until the sentinel had shouted out several times, 'Make way for the ghost, gentlemen! make way for the ghost!'

While stage and auditorium were so primitive, costume attained a magnificence which perhaps was scarcely equalled even under the Second Empire. The dresses of the actresses are said to have rarely cost less than eight hundred louis d'or, and exceeded in richness and amplitude of material and splendour of ornamentation those of the Court ladies. But the costliness was all; the appropriateness was never for a moment considered. The costume of the gentlemen was always the same, whether for tragedy or comedy, whether the scene was laid in Greece, Rome, France, or Constantinople: it was the dress of a gentleman of the Court-a velvet, gold-embroidered, full-skirted coat, short breeches, silk stockings rolled over the knees, red-heeled shoes, three-cornered hat trimmed with lace and feathers, and an enormous flowing periwig. A warrior was distinguished by wearing a cuirass over this dress, such as the fine gentlemen fought in at Blenheim or Ramillies; a king or emperor, by a wreath of laurel upon his head. In the eighteenth century the wig was powdered and the cuirass was superseded by a simple scarf; the hips were padded with horsehair, to make the waist appear slender. The ladies were of course

The troops of the royal household, and many servitors of the great, had the free entrée to the parterre, as the servants of the nobility had formerly to the gallery of Drury Lane. This troublesome and expensive privilege was abolished by Molière, but only after a riot, in which several persons were killed.

attired in the gigantic hoop and brocaded silk of the prevailing mode. Such was the appearance of Corneille's and Racine's heroes and heroines of 'Horace,' the Cid,' Titus,' 'Bajazet,' of 'Camille,'' Chimène,' Andromaque,' and 'Roxane.'

[ocr errors]

It was not until Voltaire's time that any attempt was made to alter these absurdities. The great reformers of French theatrical costume were Lekain and Mdlle. Clairon. It was a taste that encountered great opposition from the conservative Sociétaires, and could be pursued only with extreme caution and by sometimes ludicrous gradations. In Tancrède, Lekain cast aside for the first time the false hips; in 'Gengis-Khan' he wore a real tiger-skin; but the silk stockings, red-heeled shoes, and powdered, flowing wig remained. The wig was a kind of sacred institution that the bold innovator feared to attack. A coup de théâtre by an obscure performer, however, achieved that before which the great actor had trembled. This personage, having to perform the part of Hercules, dared to don a wig of tangled blackness that would have been worthy of a brigand chief of the old Coburg days; nevertheless, he did not present himself without providing a shelter for his temerity, should it be resented by the audience. In one hand he carried the traditional club, in the other the powdered peruke. For a moment he stood uncertain of the result, until a murmur of approbation reassured him; then, and with a triumphant air, he cast the courtly head-gear into the side scenes. It was a revolution, and from that time the work of reform went on bravely, until Talma walked upon the stage in a Roman toga, and studied accuracy of costume with as much attention as a Kean or a Macready.

What Lekain was doing for the male characters Mdlle. Clairon was accomplishing for the female, and hoops and brocades were giving place to the narrow and simple garments of the classic age. Marmontel tells us in his Memoirs that he had been continually urging upon this great actress to cast aside, not only the artificial costume, but the stilted declamation which was the fashion of the day, and to resort to a more natural style. But other counsels than mine prevailed,' he writes, and, tired of being importunate without utility, I had given up the point, when I saw the actress suddenly and voluntarily come over to my opinion. She came to play "Roxane" at the little theatre in Versailles. I went to see her at her toilette, and for the first time I found her dressed in the habit of a sultana, without hoop, her arms half bare, and in the truth of Oriental costume. I congratulated her. "You will presently be delighted with me," she said. "I have just been on a journey to Bordeaux. I found there but a very

to me.

The

small theatre, to which I was obliged to accommodate myself. thought struck me of suiting my action to its size, and of making trial of that simple declamation you have so often recommended It was there the greatest success; I am going to try it again here, upon this little theatre." The event surpassed her expectations and mine. It was no longer the actress, it was Roxane herself, whom the audience thought they saw and heard. The astonishment, the illusion, the enchantment, were extreme. All enquired, "Where are we?" They had heard nothing like it. I saw her after the play, and was about to congratulate her on her success. “Ah,” she said, "don't you see that it ruins me? In all my characters the costume must now be observed; the truth of declamation requires that of dress. All my rich stage wardrobe is from this moment rejected. But the sacrifice is made. You shall see me here within a week playing' Electra' after nature, as I have just played Roxane.'"

While the mechanical part of the theatre was rude and inartistic the intellectual portion was transcendent. Corneille, Racine, Molière, Voltaire, were interpreted by geniuses such as Champmeslé, Clairon, Lecouvreur, Baron, Molé, Lekain, and others too numerous to mention. The training, however, to which these artistes submitted was most tedious and laborious. The voice was educated to a perfection of flexibility, that could produce the most delicate shades of meaning, with as much care as would now be bestowed upon that of an aspirant for opera. Gesture was cultivated with an attention to propriety equally minute. To go to a later period than that at which we have at present arrived, when Mdlle. Mars was studying under Mdlle. Contat her gesticulation was so excessive, and frequently so inappropriate, that her instructress had to bind her arms down to her sides; but one day, carried away by the passion of the scene, she burst the cord by an uncontrollable movement. That,' exclaimed Mdlle. Contat, is true passion, which ever breaks through the barrier that decorum imposes.' The art of facial expression, of conveying without speech by the eye and lip and muscles of the face the feelings of the soul, was carried to the same perfection. While listening to the avowal of Atalide's love for Bajazet, Champmeslé, as Roxane, could, without uttering a syllable, bring down the house.

Such minute attentions to detail were absolutely essential to fix the interest of the spectators during the interminable declamations, descriptions, long stories, and frequently wearisome inaction of the French classical drama. The different conditions of the stage in the two countries will go some way in accounting for the superior artistic excellence of French acting. The Shakespearian

drama and under that name we include not only the works of the great master, but those of his contemporaries and imitatorswas so vigorous, so replete with interest and action, that, while the actors caught its spirit and presented it with boldness and fire, such tricks of art were needless to grasp the sympathies of the audience; and being, as we are, by nature the least artistic of all the great nations of Europe, such tricks would be despised, at least, by performers of inferior merit.

[ocr errors]

During the two centuries of its existence there are few institutions which can boast of so long and illustrious a roll of names as the Comédie Française. Going back to its very first days, we are encountered by two most famous ones-Champmeslé and Baron. Champmeslé was the heroine of all Racine's great plays, and was instructed in her art by the master himself. Madame de Sévigné, after seeing her as Roxane in ‘Bajazet,' pronounced her to be the most miraculously fine actress she had ever seen. It was the ambition of the age to reproduce as nearly as possible the dramatic and histrionic forms of the classic stage. It is supposed that the verses of Sophocles and Euripides were delivered by the Greek actors in tones resembling the recitatives of the modern opera; and to approximate to this form, the first representatives of Corneille's and Racine's tragedies affected a half musical style of recitation, which in the mouths of inferior performers became unnatural and monotonous in the extreme. Champmeslé was the first to modify-although she used it—this style of delivery by tones of real passion. She takes good care not to sing, as the others do,' writes a contemporary, but she knows so well how to guide her voice, and gives such natural inflexions to her speech, that she appears as though the sentiments were in her heart when they are only upon her lips.' The handsome Baron was the idol both of the Parisian public and of the fine ladies of the Court. At thirtyseven he quitted the stage in a fit of spleen, to return to it again at sixty-eight. He resumed the parts of his youth-Titus, Achille, Oreste-and is said to have sustained them with all his old fire and vivacity. Occasionally, however, the disparity between the man and the character became awkwardly apparent, as when, at the age of seventy-eight, he was playing Antiochus in Rodogune.' In one scene, Cleopatra, which was played by a young and beautiful woman, has to address Antiochus and Seleucus with 'Approchez, mes enfans.' The audience burst into a fit of laughter. Indeed, at the first indication of failing powers, they showed him but little indulgence. Ungrateful parterre!' he exclaimed one night after he had been hissed, if thou hast any taste, it is I who have bestowed it upon thee, and now thou hast turned it into a

[ocr errors]
« ZurückWeiter »