FRENCH PLAYS
| The Examiner.] | [March 23, 1828. |
Monsieur Perlet is certainly a pearl of an actor. He does every part well, and every part varied from another. He is, however, a jewel set in lead: the rest of the company to which he belongs are but indifferent. He is exactly what a London star, engaged for a few nights to gratify the ‘upturned eyes of wondering audiences,’ is in a tattered troop of country-actors. Those who fancy that they see here a thorough sample of French acting, the elite of the capital of civilised society, are mistaken; and we perhaps should not undeceive them, but that we can assure them that they have a pleasure to come, something to look forward to, and something to look back upon, and which (we believe) can be found only at Paris. Oh! Paris, thou hast the Louvre, the garden of the Thuilleries, and the Thêatre Français; Madame Pasta we share by turns with you, as the sun sheds its light on either world—the rest is barbarous and common. A friend of ours once received a letter from a friend of his, dated Rome, with three marks of admiration after it, which he answered by writing London, with four marks of admiration after it: ‘and why shouldn’t he, since we had St. Paul’s, the Cartoons, the Elgin Marbles, and the Bridges?’ As to the three first, they were not ours; and as to the fourth, the reasoning puts me a little in mind of Sir William Curtis’s, who remarked that ‘it was very good of God, that wherever there was a great city, he had made a river by the side of it!’ There was another proud distinction, which our patriotic friend did not enumerate, though it was a thumping make-weight in the scale, and might have claimed a fifth mark of admiration, which was, that he himself was there. This is the triumphant argument in every Englishman’s imagination,—wherever he is, is the centre of gravity; whatever he calls his own, is the standard of excellence. It is our desire to shake off this feeling as much as possible that makes us frequent the theatre at the English Opera-house, and try (all we can) to ‘leave our country and ourselves’ at the door. Why in truth should an English Nobleman be convinced in himself and speak upon that conviction in his place in Parliament, that because he keeps a French cook, the French have no genius for anything but cookery? Or why, my dear Madam, should you have taken it in your head, that because you wear a French bonnet, there is nothing in Paris but milliners’ girls who are no better than they should be? Nay, that is what you really imagine, however you may deny it—but be assured, good, gentle, honest, reflecting reader of either sex, who feel your own existence so solid that every thing else is a fable to it, or your own virtue so clear that everything else is a spot to it, that there are things out of England besides what are imported into it—that French women not only make caps and bonnets, but wear them with a peculiar grace; that they have eyes glancing from under them full of fire and discretion; that they do not make a false step at every turn, though they do not walk like Englishwomen, that is, as if their limbs were an incumbrance to them; that the Chamber of Deputies think your Lordship’s speeches dry and tasteless, for want of a little French seasoning; that there are cities not built of bricks, faces not made of dough, a language that has a meaning though it is not ours, and virtue that is neither a statue nor a mask! For instance, we think good-manners is one part of ethics, and we do wish en passant that our fine gentlemen at the play would not loll on their seats, whistle, and thrust their sticks nearly in your face to show their superiority to the vulgar; and that those of the other sex, who are admitted on their good behaviour could be prevailed on not to talk and laugh so loud, not to nod or wink, not to slap their acquaintance on the back, or shut the doors with such violence after them, to attract admirers and shew an independent spirit. Strange that the English notion of independence consists in giving offence to and displaying your contempt for others! They order these things better in France, where they consult decency of appearance at least, and Venus is a prude in public—not a hoyden or a bully!
‘Our Cupid is a blackguard boy,
That thrusts his link in every face.’
This brings us back to the French Theatre. As we do not approve every thing foreign or French, we are more bound to acknowledge and do justice to what we do like. Imprimis, we abhor French pictures. In the second place, we tolerate French tragedy. Thirdly, we adore French comedy. The characteristic of this in its best state, and as compared with our utmost efforts in the same line, is, that it is equally perfect throughout; and as that great philosopher of idleness (Mr. Coleridge) once wisely and wittily observed, ‘there is something in the idea of perfection exceedingly satisfactory to the mind of man.’ It is not as with us at present (it was not always so—or is it the haze of time, the tints of youth that made the difference?) where the most we can expect is one or two actors of disproportioned excellence, and all the others merely to fill the stage; but there all are in their place, and all are first-rate. Oh! it is a fine thing to see one of Moliere’s comedies acted (as they should be) at the Thêatre Français, with the sense of every pregnant line fully understood and developed, with the passion and character delineated to the life, every situation painted, and every shade and difference of absurdity hit off and realised; and not only this, but the whole so managed, with such studious attention to the public and respect to the art, that not the least bit of costume is out of place, and (what is more important) that every part is filled by an actor or actress not only who comprehends and enters into the spirit of it, but who seems made for it in person, gesture and features, as if they had been cast in a dramatic mould, or kept in a glass-case for that purpose from the first representation to the present day. Thus the long, nasal speeches are delivered by an actor with the prominent, pasteboard nose and arched eyebrows of the Oratory, and whose unusual height and shambling figure serve him as it were for a rostrum; the poetical dedicator in the Misanthrope has sparkling eyes and teeth, smiling delighted on his patron and himself; the confidante of Celimene, in the same piece, is slender, fragile, timid in appearance, a contrast to the firm precision and maturer enbon-point of Mademoiselle Mars; Orgon has a little, round, dimpled, credulous face, and easy contented corpulence; the Tartuffe has the sneaking sanctity of a monk and the grin of a monkey. Thus you have not only the poet’s verse exactly expressed and recited; but you have, in addition, the natural history of the part, the drapery, the grouping. The age of Louis XIV. revives again in all its masqued splendour; the folding-doors are thrown open, and you see men and women playing the fool deliciously, ‘new manners and the pomp of elder days,’ court-airs, court-dresses, the strut, the shrug, the bow, the curtsey, the paint, the powder, the patches, the perfume, the laced ruffles, the diamond buckle, the hoop-petticoat. Happy time! Enviable time to think of! When vanity and folly expanded in full bloom, and were spread out ostentatiously like the figures in a gaudy tapestry, instead of being folded up and thrust into a corner by the hand of a cynic and austere philosophy; when personal appearance and amorous intrigue were all in all; when a marquis stalked the God of his own idolatry, and Madame la Marquise was held for something divine by Monsieur Jourdain; when the whole creation was supposed to be concentred in the fantastic circle of lords and ladies, and the universal, the abstract, and the critical were held in the utter contempt which they deserve—and which they receive at the hands both of the ignorant and the adept! Nothing that we know of is a specific for conjuring up this shadow of the past, and making you (if you are in the mood) feel like a great booby school-boy, with a large bouquet at your breast, or an antiquated fop with a bag-wig and sword—but sitting at the Thêatre Français with Mademoiselle Mars and the whole corps dramatique drawn up on the stage. Then you have the very thing before you: it glitters in your eyes; it tingles in your ears, it sinks into the heart, and makes warm tears roll down the cheek of those, who have ever felt either what the present or the past is! It is said to be an ill wind that blows nobody good; and probably we owe it to the very exclusion of French players from general society, and their being compelled in self-defence to devote themselves wholly to their profession, that they keep up this sort of traditional copy of the manners, peculiarities, and tone of another age, ‘unmixed with baser matter.’ We could wish that a certain happy-spirited writer (who first gave the true pine-apple flavour to theatrical criticism, making it a pleasant mixture of sharp and sweet) would resume the subject of the age of Charles II. (our nearest approach to that of Louis XIV.) and as he has shocked the upstart petulance of Some of his Contemporaries, restore in his inimitable careless manner the wit and graces of a former period.
We expected to have seen Monsieur Perlet on Thursday evening in the Bourgeois Gentilhomme; and to make sure of the ground, had read three acts in the morning with great care and an anticipated relish of the acting. We were therefore disappointed; and the reader must accept of a rhapsody in lieu of a criticism. We think it bad policy to have many new pieces; for the English part of the audience in general require to peruse the text beforehand in order to follow the performance. We like to know exactly what we are about; and it is both a pride and a pleasure to have an excuse for rubbing up our acquaintance with an old and esteemed author. The universality of the French language is not an unalloyed advantage to them: it saves the trouble of learning any other, but the necessity of acquiring a new language is like the necessity of acquiring a new sense. It is an increase of knowledge and liberality. We are proud of understanding their authors. Why do they despise ours? Because they are ignorant of them. If they had known what ‘stuff’ we are made of, very likely we should not have beaten them. M. Perlet played the part of a strolling comedian in the new piece of the Landau, and eats and drinks in an admirable bravura style at a gentleman’s house on the road, where he passes himself off as a great man, and with that lively absorption in the present enjoyment and disregard of the consequences of his imposture, which are, we suspect, national traits. In the Landes which followed, he was equally happy in a poor, frightened servant, and expressed the surprises of fear and the tricks and disjointed pantomime antics, to which it resorted to screen itself, with admirable quaintness and drollery. The swagger and self-possession of the one character was totally opposed to the imbecility and helplessness of the other. Madame Falcoz made her first appearance in the Tyran Domestique as Madame Valmont. She is an elegant woman and an interesting actress, though with too much appearance of still-life. This is not the case with Madame Daudel. She has all the vivacity and bustle of a chambermaid. She ought always to come in with a broom in her hand; or rather, it is quite unnecessary.
FRENCH PLAYS—(Continued)
| The Examiner.] | [March 30, 1828. |
We exhausted that subject last week, and were complimented upon it, which we took ill. Probably advisable to be ill this week, to let our absence be felt, or to make up with scraps and quotation. To transcribe four different accounts of the Tartuffe, Sir Walter Scott’s, Mr. Leigh Hunt’s, Monsieur Perlet’s, and one of our own, and to make it understood that the last is the best. To remark that Monsieur Perlet, ‘that soul of pleasure and that life of whim,’ is a provoking actor—for there is no fault to be found with him, and to give the reader an idea of his peculiar excellence is next to impossible. Whatever he does, his ease, self-possession, and spirit are the same. To make it a rule not to tell any one who asks me the plot of the Ecole des Maris, but to tell it myself. Borrowers of plots are like borrowers of snuff:—every one his own box-keeper. (Ha, ha, ha!) The laugh here comes from a friend of ours to whom we read this, and who kept repeating the whole evening—‘Every man his own box-keeper.’ (Ha, ha, ha!) Very well indeed. Sganarelle and Ariste are two brothers, both of them in years, who have two wards, Isabelle and Leonore, whom they propose to marry. Sganarelle is an old blockhead, who brings up his intended bride with the greatest severity, and will let her see no plays, go to no balls, receive no visits, lest it should corrupt her manners or divert her affection from him. He is very angry at his brother Ariste, who gives full liberty to his mistress Leonore, and contends that bars, bolts, female Arguses, and ill-humour are not the way to make women in love with virtue, or to prevent their inclination from wandering. Sganarelle laughs at him, but he turns out a true prophet. Isabelle, not thinking the disagreeable the most agreeable thing in the world, meets with a lover (Valere) more to her mind than her guardian. And here begins the interest of the plot. Having no other mode of communication, she sends Sganarelle to him, to let him know that she is apprized of the state of his affections, and to beg him not to persecute her with his amorous thoughts, if he has any regard for her honour or peace of mind. He understands the hint, and sends the supposed husband away, delighted with his confusion and repulse, who has no sooner returned to his intended, than she desires him to go back with a letter, which Ariste has just had the assurance to send her in his absence, full of his absurd passion. This Sganarelle consents to do, but proposes to open the letter first, which she will not allow him to do, saying it would betray curiosity to break the seal, and no woman of virtue should feel even a wish to know the improper sentiments entertained towards her. Her guardian delivers the letter with an air of triumph and pity for his rival, which Valere reads, and finds it a frank and passionate declaration of Isabelle’s attachment to him. Not satisfied with this, she informs Sganarelle that he has a design to carry her off by force, who goes to reproach him with the baseness of his conduct and the pretended terror and uneasiness of his ward. Valere affirming that Sganarelle has no authority to bring him these disdainful messages from the lady, Sganarelle brings them together in his presence, when an admirable scene of double-entendre follows: Isabelle declaring that she sees two objects before her, one which she adores, the other which she abhors, Sganarelle taking to himself the preference which is intended for Valere, and the latter rapturously kissing her hand behind his back, while her guardian affectionately embraces her. But in recompense for her fondness, he proposes to marry her the next day instead of at the end of eight days; and this driving Isabelle to despair, she takes the resolution to quit the house in the middle of the night, but is met by her guardian, who asking the meaning of this nocturnal expedition, she tells him that her sister has come to her house, violently in love with Valere, whom she is going in search of, to console her; but Sganarelle not being satisfied with this assignation, will not allow her to remain, and presently after turns his own bride out of doors, thinking it to be his brother’s ward Leonore, and goes with great glee to inform Ariste of the adventure, and to lecture him on the difference of their schemes of female education. In the meantime Leonore comes in from a ball, is scandalized at the story that she hears told of her; and the Notary that Sganarelle had sent for to witness her elopement and the treachery of Valere, having married him to Isabelle, she comes out from his house, and explains the whole mystery to the delight of every one but Sganarelle.—The plot is charming, and the style is profuse of sense and wit; but there is this remark to be made here, as on other of Moliere’s plays, that however elegant, ingenious, or natural, the scene must be laid in France, that the whole passes under that empire of words, which is confined to her airy limits, and that there is a credulous and unqualified assent to verbal professions necessary to carry on the plot, which can be found nowhere but in France. This comedy was correctly but somewhat faintly represented. Mademoiselle Falcoz, who played Isabelle, was dressed as we have an idea servants were formerly dressed, with a full handkerchief and a black silk apron. Perhaps it was the costume of young ladies at that period; but we suspect that this is carrying literal correctness too far, where it shocks instead of assisting the imagination, and instructing us at the expense of our amusement, which is against the law of dramatic propriety. If the play was not done quite as it might be, it received a brilliant comment from the looks of some of the audience: and as the stage is a mirror to nature, so these are a mirror to the stage itself. Bright eyes! Laughing lips! Tell-tale eyebrows! spare us or we retire incontinently from the French play,—‘To the woods, to the waves, to the winds we’ll complain’ of your inexorable cruelty and endless persecution!