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The Pantomime of Jean-Gaspard Deburau at the Théâtre des Funambules (1819–1846)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Robert Storey
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Extract

“Now, I don't want to take anything away from the French resistance,” protests a character in a recent novel. “… Its brave raids and acts of sabotage undermined the Germans and helped bring about their downfall. But in many ways Marcel Carné's movie, his Children of Paradise, was more important than the armed resistance. The resisters might have saved the skin of Paris, Carné kept alive its soul.” It is a fatuous remark, the kind we expect from the determinedly fatuous hero, but its praise of Carné suggests with embarrassing accuracy the seductiveness of Les Enfants du Paradis. A Paris of romantically roiling passions, of pure Pierrots and gay Robert Macaires, of the Boulevard du Crime, whose little theatres stand as metaphors for the brash vitality of le peuple — it is a spectacle that few of us can resist. All our dreams of the City of Light (save those of shabby accordionists strolling beneath balloonbedecked Eiffel Towers) are contained in its opening shot, alive with the turbulent crowds of the old quartier du Temple.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , May 1982 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1982

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References

1 Robbins, Tom, Still Life with Woodpecker (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1980), p. 259Google Scholar.

2 Janin, Jules, Deburau, histoire du Théâtre à Quatre Sous pour faire suite à I'histoire du Théâtre-Français (1832; rpt. in 1 vol., Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1881), p. 75Google Scholar.

3 In Sand, George, Histoire de ma vie (Paris: Lévy Frères, 1856), VIII, 248Google Scholar.

4 “… Deburau's Pierrot embodied the common people, with all their virtues and vices”: Jaroslav Švehla, “Jean Gaspard Deburau: The Immortal Pierrot,” tr. Wilson, Paul, Mime Journal, #5 (1977), 24Google Scholar. (This long article is a translated condensation of Švehla's book-length study Deburau, nesmrtelny Pierrot [Prague: Melantrich, 1976]Google Scholar.) Of course the writers who have embraced the myth most ardently are those who, like Carné, have tried to turn the legend of the mime's life to the purposes of art: see especially the novel by František Kožík, Největsí z Pierotů (1939; tr. Round, Dora, The Great Debureau [New York and Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1940])Google Scholar.

5 Janin, op. cit., pp. 5–9.

6 Ibid., p. 5.

7 Ibid., p. 69.

8 Ibid., pp. 22–23.

9 Ibid., p. 23.

10 Ibid., pp. 32–33.

11 Jean Gaspard Deburau (Paris: L'Arche [“Le Théâtre et les Jours”], 1954), p. 68Google Scholar.

12 Anciens Théâtres de Paris: le Boulevard du Temple, les théâtres du Boulevard (Paris: Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1906), p. 41Google Scholar.

13 Chroniques des petits théâtres de Paris, ed. d'Haylh, Georges (1837; Paris: Rouveyre et Blond, 1883), I, 306Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., I, 317.

15 Hippolyte Hostein, “Causeries d'un ancien directeur”: undated article appearing in unidentified newspaper on occasion of publication of Champfleury's novel La Petite Rose (1877): in Ro 11521 (Rec. fac. d'art. de presse, textes de pièces, arguments, progr., doc. icon. concernant le théâtre des Funambules), f. 5, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris.

16 La Pandore, #1884 (July 19, 1828), 2.

17 La Petite Rose (Paris: Dentu, 1877), pp. 5–6Google Scholar, 60, 59. The Descente de la Courtille was a popular parade of maskers in the nineteenth century which began at dawn on Ash Wednesday at the cabarets of Belleville.

18 Pierrot, valet de la Mort (Pierrot, Death's Valet, 1846), Pierrot pendu (Pierrot Hanged, 1847), Pierrot marquis (Pierrot Marquis, 1847), Madame Polichinelle, ou les Souffrances d'une âme en peine (Madame Polichinelle, or The Sufferings of an Afflicted Soul, 1848), La Reine des Carottes (The Queen of the Carrots, 1848: in collaboration with Albert Monnier), Les Trois Filles à Cassandre (Cassandre's Three Daughters, 1849), and La Cruche cassée (The Broken Pitcher, 1849) were all produced at the Funambules after Deburau's death. Pierrot millionnaire (Pierrot Millionaire, 1857: a slightly revised version of Pierrot marquis) was produced at the Folies-Nouvelles, and La Pantomime de l'avocat (The Pantomime of the Lawyer, 1865) at the Fantaisies-Parisiennes. Champfleury first saw Deburau perform in 1843.

19 Champfleury, La Petite Rose, p. 270.

20 Ibid., p. 271.

21 Banville, Théodore de, Mes Souvenirs (Paris: Charpentier, 1883), p. 216Google Scholar.

22 Champfleury, La Petite Rose, pp. 56–57.

23 Much of that repertoire may be reconstructed from two sets of reliable sources. The first, which includes fifty-one pantomimes in manuscript first produced at the Funambules from 1835 to 1846, comprises documents F18 1083–1089 (Censure dramatique: manuscrits de pièces…représentées à Paris et dans la banlieue: Théâtre des Funambules, 1835–1846) in the Archives Nationales de France (hereafter: AN), Paris. The second, including pantomimes from the early years of Deburau's career (1819–1834), consists of eight texts in various forms: four as manuscripts submitted to the censor for later revivals (Le Songe d'or, ou Arlequin et l'avare [The Dream of Gold, or Arlequin and the Miser, 1828], Pierrot mitron [Pierrot the Pastry-Cook's Boy, 1831], Le Page de la Marquise [The Marquise's Page, 1832], Les Epreuves [The Ordeals, 1833]), one as a scenario (less its prologue) included in Janin's, Deburau (Ma Mère l'Oie [Mother Goose, 1830])Google Scholar, one as a published pamphlet (Le Boeuf enragé [The Mad Ox, 1827]), and two as full texts reproduced in Péricaud's, LouisLe Théâtre des Funambules (Paris: Léon Sapin, 1897)Google Scholar: Poulailler, ou Prenez garde à vous! (Poulailler, or Take Care! 1827) and Pérette, ou les Deux Braconniers (Pérette, or The Two Poachers, 1829). Péricaud also publishes the texts of Le Boeuf enragé, Le Songe d'or, and Pierrot en Afrique (Pierrot in Africa, 1842)Google Scholar. Unfortunately, however, his dates of first production, at least for the post-1834 pantomimes, cannot be trusted: except in a few instances, his dates are identical with those on which the manuscripts were registered at the Ministère de l'Intérieur for the censor's authorization, a process that took at least several days, sometimes weeks.

24 Review of La Gageure (The Wager, with Paul Legrand as Pierrot) at the Funambules: La Presse, August 31, 1846. In an updated letter to Gautier, obviously written in response to this review, the director-proprietor of the theatre, Charles-Louis Billion, objected that “you have been under the impression that Debureau [sic] never abandoned Pierrot's traditional costume save on two occasions. That is an error, for we have some thirty-odd plays performed by Debureau in different costumes, and Paul has simply continued the practice …” (MS C491, f. 529, Bibliothèque Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, Chantilly).

25 Péricaud, for example, almost always equates Deburau's type-characters with Pierrot — e.g., “Blanchotin … is the Pierrot of this pantomime” or “Here Pierrot is called Cruchon” (op. cit., pp. 168, 201). He also frequently implies that all the pantomimes are alike: “The more the titles change, the more it's the same thing” (op. cit., p. 227). Similarly, in her study “Jean-Gaspard Deburau and the Pantomime at the Théâtre des Funambules” (ETJ, XXVII [10 1975])Google Scholar, Adriane Despot claims that the apparent variety among Deburau's pantomimes “is misleading, for … most of the pantomimes are essentially the same; they share the atmosphere of light, small-scale, nonsensical adventures enlivened with comic dances, ridiculous battles, and confrontations placed in a domestic or otherwise commonplace setting” (p. 366). Despot was familiar, however, only with the scenarios in Péricaud and in the collection published by Goby, Emile: Pantomimes de Gaspard et Ch. Deburau(Paris: Dentu, 1889)Google Scholar. The Goby collection, put together from what Deburau's son, Charles, could recall of the pantomimes and reproducing (as Champfleury observes in his “Préface”) only “a repertoire easy to perform in the course of many peregrinations through the provinces” (p. xi), is doubly unreliable: it omits the spectacular pantomime-féerie, the most numerous and most admired of Deburau's productions, and it represents the pantomime of Baptiste much less accurately than that of Charles himself. Comparison of the censor's copy of Pierrot mitron with the Goby version, for example, reveals significant differences in both the conduct of the plot and the character of Pierrot; Goby's, scenario for Le Billet de mille francs (The Thousand-Franc Note, 1826Google Scholar) does not agree either with Auguste Bouquet's portrait of Deburau in that pantomime or with a remark by Gautier about a detail of its plot (in a review of Champfleury's Pantomime de l'avocat at the Fantaisies-Parisiennes: Le Moniteur universel, December 4, 1865). Švehla is one of the few critics to credit Deburau with having created a number of different characters, but that is because he — misguidedly, I think — sees in the mime a frustrated dramatic actor who “was limited by the naive scenarios, which often did little more than group together and repeat traditional, threadbare, primitive and in many cases absurd situations and mimic gags (cascades), insulting to even a slightly refined taste,” and who, in turn, “longed to represent a better character” than Pierrot (op. cit., pp. 22–23, 32).

26 Of Robert, chef de brigands (1799).

27 Op. cit., pp. 211–12.

28 Ibid., pp. 131–32.

29 His innovations are suggested by his changes in the costume. For the close-fitting woolen suit of tradition he substituted an ample cotton blouse and trousers, their sleeves and pantlegs very wide; he removed the frilled collarette and covered the white skullcap with a piece of black velvet. These changes were apparently intended to set off the comic lankiness of his own figure as well as to free his expressive face of shadow and frame its mobile pallor.

30 In the manuscript that survives for Le Petit Poucet, ou Arlequin écuyer de l'ogre des montagnes (Tom Thumb, or Arlequin, Squire of the Mountain Ogre), Pierrot's name in fact changes to Gilles midway through the pantomime: uncoded MS in the Collection Rondel (Rec. des pantomimes jouées au Théâtre des Funambules et copiees par Henry Lecomte), Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris.

31 Uncoded MS in the Collection Rondel (Rec. des pantomimes jouées au Théâtre des Funambules et copiées par Henry Lecomte), p. 4, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal.

32 Ibid., p. 16.

33 At least we must assume that the events take their usual course: before Arlequin is united with Julienne (who at first bears the name of Colombine), the manuscript breaks off: uncoded MS in the Collection Rondel (Rec. des pantomimes jouées au Théâtre des Funambules et copiées par Henry Lecomte), Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal.

34 D., , Le Génie rose et le genie bleu, ou les Vieilles Femmes rajeunies (Paris: Morisset, 1817), p. 33Google Scholar.

35 All of these pantomimes survive in manuscript as part of the previously cited recueil in the Collection Rondel (Rec. des pantomimes jouees au Théâtre des Funambules et copiées par Henry Lecomte), Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. Only L'Amour forgeron, ou les Deux Arlequins rivaux bears a date (1818), but both the centrality of their Arlequins and the comparative seriousness of tone in the others indicate that they were produced at the theatre roughly during the years 1816–1823; the character of Pierrot (or Gilles) is, moreoever, consistent with that in the pantomimes known to belong to this period.

36 For the period 1819–1826 information is especially meager; Péricaud provides what little we know of these years: op. cit., pp. 20–59.

37 The Almanach des Spectacles … pour l'an 1823 (Paris: Barba, 1823)Google Scholar offers a spectator's view of the early pantomime at the Funambules: “We … noticed that the pieces there were of a more serious kind than at [the Spectacle Acrobate]. Although they employ no words, they are usually types of melodrama, in which ingenuous and candid Innocence is persecuted by Crime, which dares all, and by dissembling Treachery and Perfidy. There are, moreover, dances, battles, maneuvers, and conflagrations. The only essential difference between these pieces and others regarded by their authors as greatly superior is that the lover can not take part in the action — and attend to the affairs of his heart — without first having made several leaps and cut a few capers” (p. 245).

38 Titles of pantomimes alluding to commedia dell'arte characters suggest the succession: Arlequin médecin (Arlequin-Doctor, 1819), Arlequin dogue (Arlequin-Mastiff, 1819), Le Père barbare, ou Arlequin au tombeau (The Cruel Father, or Arlequin in the Grave, 1820), Arlequin statue (Arlequin-Statue, 1820), Pierrot somnambule (Pierrot-Sleepwalker, 1823), La Forêt de Bondy, ou Pierrot chef de voleurs (The Forest of Bondy, or Pierrot, Chief of Thieves, 1824), La Bouteille d'encre, ou le Petit blanc (hard to translate, like many of the titles: the first part is easily rendered The Bottle of Ink, but the second is a kind of pun, “un petit blanc” meaning both “a little white man” [with its dual meanings here] and “a glass of white wine”: 1824). When, very late in the mime's career, Arlequin was still enjoying his traditional conquest of the ingénue in the pantomime-arlequinade-féerie, Pierrot was the center of attention for the public.

39 Champfleury, , Souvenirs des Funambules (Paris: Lévy Frères, 1859), p. 86Google Scholar.

40 It was undoubtedly the pantomime-villageoise (and not the pantomime-meélodrame) that Banville was recalling when, in his Souvenirs, he described Pierrot as “a peasant by turns timid and brave who, aided by a fighting woman habitually played by Madame Lefebvre, slaughtered all the brigands in combat with broadswords, set to the rhythm of the music” (p. 223).

41 AN document F18 1085, MS #3035, p. 6.

42 AN document F18 1088, MS #7032, sc. 1 (unpaginated).

43 AN document F18 1088, MS #6974, sc. 1 (unpaginated).

44 Ibid., sc. 6.

45 Review of Pierrot et les Bohémiens (Pierrot and the Bohemians) at the Funambules: La Presse, 07 26, 1847Google Scholar.

46 AN document F18 1088, MS #7032, sc. 2 (unpaginated).

47 Ibid., sc. 4.

48 Ibid., sc. 7.

49 Les Naufrageurs de la Bretagne (The Ship-Scuttlers of Brittany, 1849: in collaboration with Ambroise), Les Bandits écossais (The Scottish Bandits, 1849), Le Juif de Satan (The Jew of Satan, 1849), Sébastiano le bandit (Sébastiano the Bandit, 1850), Les Pêcheurs napolitains (The Neapolitan Fishermen, 1851), Arcadius, ou Pierrot chez les Indiens (Arcadius, or Pierrot among the Indians, 1852), Les Circassiens (The Circassians, 1854), Les Prisonniers de la Tchernaïa (The Prisoners of the Tchernaya, 1855), Le Soldat Belle Rose (The Soldier Belle-Rose, 1857), La Moresque (The Moorish Maid, 1858), Le Crocodile de Java (The Crocodile of Java, 1862), Pierrot et les bandits espagnols (Pierrot and the Spanish Bandits, after 1850). Péricaud ascribes the authorship of Le Mandarin Chi-han-li, ou les Chinois de paravent to Charton (op. cit., p. 258).

50 Souvenirs des Funambules, p. 86.

51 Op. cit., p. 2: the critic was probably Charles Nodier.

52 AN document F18 1086, MS #3924, p. 9.

53 Champfleury, Souvenirs des Funambules, p. 84.

54 These quotations are taken, respectively, from Le Diable boiteux (AN document F18 1083, MS #797, p. 5), Pierrot errant (AN document F18 1084, MS #1987, p. 11), and La Sorcière, ou le Démon protecteur (AN document F18 1084, MS #1957, sc. 1 [unpaginated]). The first, describing Asmodée, the crippled devil of the title, paraphrases Lesage's portrait in his own Diable boiteux, the source for the pantomime.

55 AN document F18 1084, MS #1957, sc. 1 (unpaginated).

56 Their roles are always in dialogue; but it is not true, as Banville (and others) observed, that while “the divinities spoke in lyric verse, … the human beings did not utter a sound …” (Banville, Théodore de, L'Ame de Paris: nouveaux souvenirs [Paris: Charpentier, 1890], p. 36)Google Scholar. Often Pierrot is the only mute character in the pantomime-pierrotade-féerie — and even his silence was not absolute. As Gautier pointed out in a review of Fernand Desnoyers's Le Bras noir (The Black Arm) at the Folies-Nouvelles (Le Moniteur universel, February 11, 1856), “Debureau [sic] permitted himself a little inarticulate cry, a bizarre clucking, in extreme situations …”

57 AN document F21 984 (Procès-verbaux de la censure à Paris: classement par théâtres: Théâtre des Funambules), MS #1485. The remark is in reference to the plot of La Chatte amoureuse (The Amorous Cat, 1838), a pantomime-arlequinade-féerie dans le genre anglais, but it is equally applicable to the pantomime-pierrotade-féerie.

58 In the pantomime that follows the prologue, all of the characters — save the supernatural agents — perform in silent mime. (Deburau's role, in both the prologue and the pantomime, was of course always mute.) The first pantomime to be preceded by the prologue in verse with couplets and choruses was Les Epreuves (1833), probably by Eugène Grangé.

59 According to Péricaud, it was the elder of the two Laurent brothers, an English Harlequin responsible for introducing the pantomime-arlequinade-féerie dans le genre anglais to the Funambules' public in the 1820s, who “had the idea of sprinkling spangles over Arlequin's costume” (op. cit., p. 146).

60 AN document F18 1083, MS #112, p. 12.

61 Ibid., p. 18.

62 Janin, op. cit., pp. 80–81.

63 L'Ame de Paris, p. 36.

64 Review of a revival of Les Pilules du Diable (The Devil's Pills, 1839) by Bourgeois, Anicet, Lalouse, Ferdinand, and Laurent, C.-P. at the Théâtre du Cirque: Le Moniteur universel, 04 9–10, 1855Google Scholar.

65 AN document F18 1084, MS #1987, p. 11.

66 Of Deburau's pantomime in general, George Sand wrote that “the poem is buffoonish, the role cavalier, and the situations scabrous” (“Deburau,” Le Constitutionnel, February 8, 1846); several months later, after Deburau's death, Paul de Saint-Victor made the same observation: “Indeed, in plenty of places, the poem of his roles was free, scabrous, almost obscene” (“Mort d'un artiste et de son art,” identified — by hand — as from La Semaine, July 1846: Ro 11577 [Rec. fac. d'art. de presse sur Jean-Gaspard Deburau (1796–1846). 1829–1950], f. 21, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal). Of course, very little that is sexually suggestive may be glimpsed through the censor's copies of the pantomimes. The vigilance of the censor's readers may be inferred by the changes that were demanded in the dialogue of Le Mandarin Chi-han-li, ou les Chinois de paravent. Pierrot has just filched some of the mandarin's chocolate, a theft that has elicited an exasperated threat from his host: “I'm going to cut off his head!” The next line, spoken by one of the women in the “seraglio” is struck out, and an “Oh! no” substituted in its place: “Oh! don't cut anything off of him [Oh! ne lui coupez rien].” Similarly, after the woman remarks that Pierrot “is so amusing,” the mandarin's response is partially censored (i.e., the phrase here in italics is struck out): “Yaa, yaa, yaa, he's so amusing! You don't need him to be amused: find your fun by yourselves [amusezvous toutes seules]” (AN document F18 1087, MS #4523, sc. 2 [unpaginated]).

67 AN document F18 1083, MS #112, p. 25.

68 “The Sexuality of Pantomime,” Theatre Quarterly, IV (02–04 1974), 59Google Scholar.

69 AN document F18 1085, MS #3357, p. 25.

70 AN document F18 1084, MS #1957, sc. 4 (unpaginated). Pierrot's own peculiar tastes persist even after Deburau's death. In Champfleury's, Pierrot pendu (1847)Google Scholar, while Pierrot and Polichinelle are having a meal, Arlequin slips an enormous rat into Pierrot's plate. Pierrot at first tries to interest Polichinelle in the morsel; then, “in the end, Pierrot eats it and declares it to be a very good dish” (AN document F18 1089, MS #7585, p. 6).

71 AN document F18 1083, MS #797, p. 30.

72 père, Laurent, Le Boeuf enragé, pantomime-arlequinade en 12 tableaux, dans le genre anglais (Paris: Dechaume, n.d.), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

73 “Shakspeare aux Funambules,” Revue de Paris, New Series, year 1842, IX (09 4), 60Google Scholar.

74 In Janin, op. cit., p. 138.

75 Review of La Gageure at the Funambules: op. cit. Gautier's remarks seem to have been based almost exclusively on his familiarity with the pantomime-féerie. Of Deburau's pantomimes mentioned repeatedly in his reviews, all but two, Le Billet de mille francs and Pierrot en Afrique, are of le genre féerique.

76 L'Ame de Paris, p. 14.

77 Souvenirs et portraits de jeunesse (1872; Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970), p. 64Google Scholar.

78 The drawings accompany a scenario, Satan, ou le Pacte infernal (Satan, or The Infernal Pact), apparently based on the pantomime Satan Ermite (1841); this number of the Musée Philipon, which also includes an illustrated parody (by Cham) of Pierrot en Afrique (1842), is undated: Ro 11536 (Rec. fac. de quelques pièces, critiques et progr. du repertoire du Théâtre des Funambules, 1846–1855), ff. 23–26, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. The full name of the caricaturist — I owe this information to the generous research of Mr. David Allen — was Eustache Lorsay (b. 1822).

79 Op. cit., p. 28.

80 Review of the English pantomime Harlequin et Hudibras (with Flexmore, Richard as Clown, ) at the Porte-Saint-Martin: La Presse, 08 8, 1853Google Scholar.

81 Tarachow, Sidney, “Circuses and Clowns,” in Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences, ed. Róheim, Géza, III (New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1951), 173Google Scholar.

82 “Deburau,” op. cit.

83 Buffo: The Genius of Vulgar Comedy (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978), p. 196Google Scholar.

84 Kris, Ernst, “Ego Development and the Comic,” Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art (New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1952), p. 215Google Scholar.

85 Critic (probably Charles Nodier) of La Pandore, op. cit., p. 2.

86 Op. cit., p. 211.

87 See Soulé, Michel, “Oedipe au cirque devant le numéro de l'Auguste et du Clown Blanc,” Revue française de psychanalyse, XLIV (01–02 1980), 99–125Google Scholar.

88 Cf. the remarks by Annie Reich: “… in the comic sublimation the ego is really great and powerful. Deliberately it draws forth the otherwise repressed instinctual impulses from the unconscious and plays with them” (“The Structure of the Grotesque-Comic Sublimation,” Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, XIII [09 1949], 170)Google Scholar.

89 I am grateful to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for having provided the grant that made the research for this article possible.