The present company at this pleasant theatre is rich in talent. It includes seven or eight actors and actresses, who may be justly termed excellent in their respective styles. At the top of the list stand Bouffé and Déjazet. Respecting the latter, we have but little to add to the opinion we expressed in a recent number of this Magazine. After a long and fatiguing career, and at an age when most actresses have either left the stage, or dwindled into duennas and other subordinate parts, she still affords more pleasure by her performances than nine-tenths of her youthful contemporaries. Her making-up, is admirable, and she and Madame Doche divide between the honour of being the best dressed women on the French stage. In the ball-room or the street she still looks young; for although her face depends upon paint, her figure is erect and juvenile, and one would hardly suspect her of being the mother of "Monsieur Eugene Déjazet, who has attained some celebrity as a musical composer, and of a daughter who appeared at the St. James's theatre, in 1844, under the name of Mademoiselle Herminie." Her generosity and excellent heart have endeared her to her comrades. Her wit and ready repartee are proverbial. Mr. Hervey quotes a few of her bon mots, but he might have made a better selection. It is true that, besides the difficulty of translation, he may have been hampered by the latitude the lady allows herself. He regrets that a collection of her smart sayings is not made, to be called Déjazetiana; and opines that it would rival in merit, and far surpass in bulk, the volume containing the sallies of the famous Sophie Arnould. Something of the sort has been published, under the title of the "Perroquet de Mademoiselle Déjazet," but to its authenticity or value we are unable to speak.
In the year 1821, a young man in his twenty-first year, by trade a carver and gilder, was engaged to act at the new theatre of the Panorama Dramatique, at the enormous salary of twelve pounds per annum. To augment this pittance, and to please his father, who was averse to his new profession, he employed himself between the acts in gilding frames in a small workshop behind the scenes. This ill-paid aspirant to histrionic fame was Marie Bouffé, "the most perfect comedian of his day," says Mr. Hervey, and we fully coincide in the verdict. Bouffé, is one of the most intelligent, accomplished, and agreeable actors we ever saw; subtle and delicate in his conceptions of character, energetic without rant, ever true to Nature, and of a rare versatility of talent. We have known several persons who fancied, partly perhaps on account of his name, that he only acted comic parts: they should see him obtain a succès de larmes, throw a whole theatre into tears, by his exquisite feeling and pathos in serious ones. No actor more thoroughly makes his audience forget that he is one. His identification with his part is complete. The two lines of characters he usually takes are old men and lads, even very young boys. And in both he perfectly succeeds. We are doubtful in which to prefer him. As the noisy, lively, mischievous urchen in the Gamin de Paris, and as the griping old miser in the Fille de l'Avare, he is equally excellent. His countenance is remarkable. A clever critic has said of him, that he has the physiognomy of a Mephistopheles and the eye of an angel. The observation is singularly happy. There is something Mephistophelian in the curve of his nose, and in the lines around his mouth. His command of expression is extraordinary; his eyes, especially, alternately flash fire and grow dim with melancholy or tenderness. His figure is short, thin, and frail; his general appearance sickly, and not without cause, for poor Bouffé is consumptive, and, to judge from his looks, not long for this world. The only actor upon the French or English stage with whom we can compare him is the veteran Farren. But the comparison is to the advantage of the Frenchman, whose chief characteristic is his entire freedom from mannerism and stage trick. Mr. Farren is of the old and sterling school of actors, of which, unfortunately, so few remain. He stands first in his line upon the English boards, and deserves to be spoken of with all respect. Would that we had a dozen as good. But he has his faults, and the chief one is mannerism, certain peculiar ways that prevent the spectator from forgetting the actor in the person he represents, trifles, which it may be hypercritical to cavil at, but which nevertheless spoil the illusion, and compel the exclamation, "There is Farren." Take for example his favourite trick of scratching his upper lip with his forefinger. We have seen Bouffé many times—less frequently, certainly, than we have Farren—but we never perceived in him any of these peculiarities. His creations are original and new throughout; the mime disappears, and we have before as the gossiping old man, the rough shipboy, the simple-hearted recruit. We are really at a loss to point out a fault or suggest an improvement in Bouffé's acting. "If the public," says M. Eugene Briffault, "finds that he makes but little progress in the course of each year, it is because he is as near perfection as an actor can be." Many of Mr. Hervey's criticisms are excellent; none more so than the following:—"Bouffé's gaiety is frank and communicative, his pathos simple, yet inexpressibly touching; the foundation of his character is sensibility; he feels all he says. He never employs any superfluity of action for the purpose of producing effect, nor does he seek, by first raising his voice almost to a shriek, and then lowering it to a whisper, to startle his audience into a fit of enthusiasm; on the contrary, a studied sobriety, both of speech and gesture, is one of the peculiar features of his acting." When Bouffé visits England, we recommend some of our actors, who at present "imitate humanity so abominably," to attend his performances, and strive to profit by his example.
We have lingered at the Variétés, and must move onwards, rather against our will, and although much remains to be said concerning that amusing theatre and its actors. Hyacinthe's nose, alone, would furnish materials for a chapter, and of alarming longitude, if in proportion with the feature. The two Lepeintres would fill an article. They are brothers and rival punsters. The jokes of Lepeintre, Jenue have been printed and sold at the theatre door. His senior, who is no way inferior to him, either as a wit or an actor, said, with reference to himself, that he carried abundance, wherever he went, "puisqu'on y voyoit le pain trainer (Lepeintre âiné.)"
On the site of an old cemetery stands the theatre known as the Gymnase Dramatique. A suggestive fact for the moralist. Death replaced by Momus; the mourner's tears succeeded by the quips and cranks of an Achard, by the wreathed smiles of a Rose Chéri. Where the funeral once took its slow and solemn way, rouged processions pass, tinsel heroes strut, and vapour. Thousand-tinted garlands supplant the pale immortelles that decked the graves; the sable cloak is doffed, and motley's the only wear. Surely actors must be bold men to tread a stage covering so many mouldering relics of mortality. Not for Potosi, and the Real del Monte to boot, would we do it, lest, at the witching hour, some ghastly skeleton array should rise and drive us from the Golgotha, or drag us to the charnel-house beneath. But we forget that the good old days are gone when such things were, or were believed in, and that superstition is now as much out of date as a heavy coach upon the Great North Road. Spectres may occasionally be seen at the Gymnase, but they are very material, flesh-and-blood sort of goblins, well known as impostors, even to the scene-shifters. This need not prevent any aspiring young novelist, desirous of coming out in the ghastly and ghostly line, from profiting by our hint, and producing, after a little preparatory cramming with Mrs. Radcliffe and the Five Nights of St. Albans, what the newspapers call "a romance of thrilling interest" on the subject of the gay Gymnase and its grave foundation.
Built in 1819, the Gymnase "was originally intended, as its name denotes, to be a kind of preparatory school for dramatic aspirants, whence the most promising actors and actresses were to be occasionally transferred to the different royal theatres." For some years—from 1824 till the July Revolution—it was known as the Théatre de Madame, and was under the special patronage of the Duchess of Berri, whom the manager had propitiated by sending a part of his company to amuse her when bathing at Dieppe. At that time it ranked immediately after the theatres royal, taking the precedence of the Vaudeville and other minors. Shorn by the Revolution of its honours and privileges, its favour with the public suffered little diminution. For many years Bouffé performed there, and there achieved his greatest triumphs. At the Variétés he has not been so well catered for by the dramatists. The present company at the Gymnase is very good. Bressant, Ferville, Numa, Klein, and Achard, are excellent actors. In actresses, also, the theatre is well provided, and the whole tone of its company and performances is such as to render it one of the most correct and agreeable in Paris. But the gem of the Gymnase, its grand attraction, to our thinking, is that delightful little actress, Rose Chéri. Never, assuredly, was a pretty name more appropriately bestowed. Her plump, fresh, pleasant little face, reminds one of the Rose, and chérie she assuredly is by the hundreds of thousands whom her graceful and tasteful performance has enchanted. Mademoiselle Chéri, who is only one-and-twenty, made her "first appearance upon any stage" at the somewhat early age of five years. "She acted the part of Lisette, in the Roman d'une Heure, for the amusement of her parents, (the other two characters being sustained by two of her playmates;) and the talent displayed by her was so remarkable, that she was encouraged to repeat the essay in public at the theatre of Bourges, on which occasion her infant exertions were rewarded by the enthusiastic applause of the audience, and—which was probably still more to her taste—by a shower of bonbons." Either the applause or the bonbons, or both, decided her vocation, and she continued to act from time to time, until at length she became a regular member of a provincial company, whose manager was her father. In 1842, she went to Paris, where she soon took rank with the best jeunes premières of the capital. She has been justly called the most loveable actress upon the French stage; so graceful, so soft and womanly, displaying alternately such genuine feeling and nature, and such arch coquetry of manner; always such great freshness of style. We were pleased to see her properly appreciated during her last visit to London, both by press and public. Trained to the stage from so early an age—although not, as Mademoiselle Déjazet is said to have been, born in a theatre—it is not surprising that Rose Chéri is in the highest degree self-possessed and at her ease. But if she is sans peur on the boards, she is also—most rare commendation for a French actress—sans reproche in private life. Such a Rose as this is indeed the pride of the garden.
Two words about the Palais Royal, and we have done; leaving the dramatic aristocracy of the theatres royal, and the smaller fry of the Boulevards, for some future opportunity of comment. The Français, although it reckons in its company several excellent comic actors, relies chiefly on tragedy, and will doubtless continue to do so, as long as it possesses Rachel, or until a comedian of very extraordinary talent starts up. And in French tragedies, even, heretical as it may sound, in the classic masterpieces of Corneille and Racine, we take far less pleasure than in the witty and sparkling comedies of many less renowned authors, to which the genius of the language so much better adapts itself. Nay, we confess to have more than once passed the Français without the least compunction, with les Horaces or Andromaque on the bills, and a crowd at the door, to commit ourselves, a few paces farther, to the friendly arms of a stall at the Palais Royal, and the mirth-inspiring influence of Tousez and Levassor, the most comical buffoon and admirable mimic on the French stage.
When the Variétés' company was expelled from the little theatre of the Palais Royal, it became the scene of all manner of bastard performances. Rope dancers, wooden puppets, even dogs were the actors. The most intelligent of these were the quadrupeds. Mr. Hervey gives the following analysis of a melodrama enacted by them:—
"A young Russian princess, held captive in a castle by a tyrant, has a lover, who has sworn to effect her rescue. On the rising of the curtain, the fair prisoner, a pretty spaniel, is discovered walking on the parapet of a tower; the lover, a very handsome dog, presently appears at the foot of the wall, barking most amorously. As for the tyrant, he is represented by a ferocious-looking bull-dog, with a smashed nose. On a given signal, the lover's army make their entrée, and scale the walls of the castle, which, after a gallant defence on the part of the garrison, is finally taken, and the princess delivered."
When the public had had enough of these canine comedies, the theatre was converted into a coffee-house. But the old dramatic prestige still hung about the place, and, after a time, the frequenters of the establishment were diverted, whilst sipping their punch and lemonade, with detached scenes and short vaudevilles, performed by two or three persons. Finally, in 1830, the house was rebuilt, and a regular license obtained; and from that date to the present day it has been a favourite resort of all lovers of a hearty laugh. Déjazet and Achard were long its chief support. They have left it; but others, little, if at all, inferior, have replaced them. Foremost amongst these stands Pierre Levassor, the best comic ballad-singer in France. Innumerable were the difficulties he had to overcome before he could fully gratify his passion for acting, and display his innate talent at a Paris theatre. His father, an old soldier of Napoleon's armies, opposed his propensity, which early manifested itself, in every possible way, and apprenticed him to a trade. During the revolution of 1830, young Levassor was on business at Marseilles, where a dinner was given to celebrate the event. "At the general request, he sang the song of the Trois Couleurs, with such immense success, that on the party adjourning after dinner to the theatre, a note was thrown on the stage, in which he volunteered to sing it in public, if agreeable to the audience. The offer was accepted; and both song and vocalist were loudly applauded." This incident was decisive of his future career. On his return to Paris he became an actor, and soon conquered great popularity. He is particularly clever in disguising himself, so as to be quite unrecognisable. With his dress he changes his voice, gait, and even his face; and will look the part of a decrepid old woman every bit as well as the more easily assumed one of a scapegrace student. His vivacity, good-humour, and fun, are inexhaustible. In the ludicrous extravaganzas, reviews of the past year, which nearly every carnival sees produced at the Palais Royal, he is perfectly irresistible. Powerfully aided by Grassot, Lemenil, Sainville, and Alcide Tousez, he keeps the house in an unceasing roar, even at pieces which, like the Pommes-de-terre Malades and the Enfant du Carnaval, are in themselves of very feeble merit. An excellent singer and clever actor, he is also a capital dancer and first-rate mimic, imitating with extraordinary facility every possible sound, whether the cries of animals or any thing else. And, off the stage, Levassor is as unassuming and gentlemanly as he is amusing and accomplished upon it.
Ravel is another droll dog, but quite in a different style from Levassor. The latter is all quickness, impetuosity, and entrain; Ravel is of a more passive style of comicality. At times he reminds us of two English actors, Buckstone of the Haymarket, and Wright, the Adelphi low comedian. He has something of Buckstone's odd monotony of manner, and, like him, often excites the laughter of an audience by his mere look or attitude. When Wright is not compelled to make a buffoon of himself in some stupid travestie, but is allowed fair scope for the display of his comic talents, which are really considerable, we prefer him to Ravel. He is a steady and improving performer. In Paul Pry, and some other stock pieces, his acting is quiet and excellent. Many of Ravel's characters have been taken by him in the English version. Ravel is seldom seen to greater advantage than as a soldier. He exactly renders the mingled simplicity and cunning of the conscript; the tricks of the barrack-room grafted upon clownish dulness. The piece called the Tourlourou—the French nickname for a recruit—founded on a novel of Paul de Kock's, was one of his triumphs, and another was Le Caporal et la Payse, Englished as "Seeing Wright." In short, he occupies a high position amongst the half-dozen drolls who, night after night, send home the audience of the Palais Royal brimful of mirthful reminiscences.