The most uncomfortable and gloomiest theater in Paris has given itself up to the laudable purpose of stirring up dissension. Last year it was “Le Retour de Jerusalem” that aimed at fomenting anti-Semitic feeling; this year it is “Ces Messieurs,” the sole object of which is to stir up anti-clerical strife. Perhaps the Gymnase needs this sort of “attraction.” I cannot imagine anybody sitting tortured in its stuffy, ill-kept, poverty-stricken auditorium for mere restful enjoyment.
“Ces Messieurs,” from the pen of M. Georges Ancey, was prohibited for a long time by the minister of public instruction, a benign censor, who objected to the play because it attacked the priests. His decision was, of course, bitterly resented; and it was asserted that Molière in “Tartuffe” had done a similar thing, and was a classic. Possibly we should have urged the same arguments in New York if—let us say—Mr. Theodore Kremer had woven a brand new melodrama around the theme of Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline,” and it had been “stopped” on the ground of impropriety.
The drama at the Gymnase seemed to me rather a pitiful effort at sensation. There is but one way of treating a priest upon the stage, and it is by placing him in juxtaposition with a woman. He is rarely allowed to be interesting in any other shape. Among actors there is a superstition that regards every play with a priest in it as “unlucky.” The cleric is supposed to “hoodoo” the drama. If I were a playwright I think I should elect to be on the “safe side.” I should take no risks, for very rarely does a priest-ridden drama succeed. “Ces Messieurs” certainly seems to be a case that justifies the actors’ superstition.
The heroine of the piece is a young widow, who, after the loss of her husband and child, has given up mundane pleasure. She lives in the provinces, with a large and singularly talky family, and has “taken up” religion. Upon the scene comes the Abbé Thibaut, a young priest with good looks and even better intentions. He is eloquent and mystic; Henriette interests herself in him immediately, and gives him funds for his schools and benevolent institutions. Thibaut is ambitious, and he needs the money. The man and woman are soon embroiled in an “affair,” though they are both unconscious of that fact.
Other priests occur. One—the villain of the piece—reports Thibaut to the other, a benevolent Monsignor, who is displayed in a luxury of “monsignor” robes. Pettiness, intrigue, jealousy, hatred, malevolence, are ascribed to the Abbé Morisson, who is as deep-dyed a villain as one could wish to find in the Third Avenue Theater or the Grand Opera House. Through a sea of talk, the audience is carried to the fourth act—which is the act—where Henriette learns that Thibaut is to be removed from her clutches to another scene of action. Then the storm bursts, and the air is cleared with much electrical sensation.
It is not necessary to go into details. All that a woman can say who has horridly mixed up the religious with the secular, the carnal with the mystic, Henriette says, in an ecstasy of exclamation points. Thibaut was essential to her, for she could not pray without him! He was part of her life, both earthly and heavenly. In an exasperation of anguish she develops a sort of insanity that makes a plausible excuse for the ugly irreverence and the blasphemy of the playwright.
Blasphemy always seems to me the weakest sort of sensation. Any idiot can blaspheme, and most of them do. It is the keynote of “Ces Messieurs.” The priest is the target at which the woman hurls her ugly shafts. Sensuality masquerading in the cloak of religion renders this heroine as disagreeable as any I have ever seen staged. And this—with nothing more—is M. Ancey’s case against the priests. The Abbé has accepted Henriette’s money for his works of benevolence, and she had given it not because she was actuated by religion, but because she was hopelessly in love with the priest himself, who had involuntarily inspired the sentiment.
There was nothing at all in the play but this fourth act, that gave you mingled sensations of disgust and shock. Moreover, nothing happened. After Henriette’s insanity, during which she threatened the priests with all sorts of scandals, she calmed down, went back to the family, devoted the rest of her life to her little nieces and nephews, and lived happily ever afterward. The moral—as far as I could see—was that women menace the life of priests, and not, as M. Ancey tried to insist, that priests threaten the welfare of women. The minister of public instruction, who must be as silly as the London censor, objected to the piece because it was supposed to malign the priesthood, and to hold it up as something to be ousted from the domestic hearth. The piece taught me quite a different lesson. It was that priests should beware of designing but apparently perfect ladies.
Fortunately “Ces Messieurs” was well acted. Madame Andrée Mégard played Henriette with exquisite distinction and much dramatic power. André Hall was the Abbé Thibaut, and into the rôle he managed to infuse a good deal of picturesque mysticism. The other priests were assigned to M. Arvel and to M. Jean Dax, who resisted the temptation to cheapen a cheap subject.
The cream of Paris—generally called “tout Paris,” which is quite a mistake, because the underlying milk is more important—no longer goes to the big, usual, conventional theaters. Little nooky places have become immensely popular here, and are gaining ground all the time. The Grand Guignol, the Boite a Fursy and the Mathurins are always packed to their tiny little doors, and the idea is to present varied dramatic entertainments in capsule form. It is the idea that Mr. Frank Keenan essayed so unsuccessfully at the Berkeley Lyceum in New York last season. Paris is fatigued, and finds no trouble in digesting tabloids. New York, still young, vigorous and hale, prefers its drama in lumps, and suffers from no dyspeptic results. We are not yet ready for drama in whiffs. In Paris that is the approved style of taking the medicine.