Taste and Revolution
1997; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3138/cjh.32.3.375
ISSN2292-8502
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis
ResumoJust as the Terror loomed on the horizon, on 1 July 1793, the Revolution's first, dedicated, theatre paper, the Journal des Spectacles, commenced its eight-page daily publication by declaring unambiguously: Let us make a revolution in theatre.(1) Nodding approval in the direction of the so-called little or popular theatres, where it claimed great talent could be found, and slighting the great theatres which, it said, often housed mediocre actors, the Journal des Spectacles seemed to sanction the famous Le Chapelier Law of January 1791. That law allowed any theatre to exist and to produce any repertory it pleased thus breaking with the century-old theatrical privileges and monopolies of the Old Regime. Never did this journal call into question that law or presume that only great theatres could produce great drama. Like other journals that listed theatre performances in their end pages, the Journal des Spectacles omitted the subtle but discriminating line underneath the ex-privileged theatres' listings by which the popular theatres had once been separated from the great.(2) Perhaps one might presume that the revolution in question was to be staged with patriotic subject matter. Or could it mean that classical, republican tragedies like La Mort de Cesar, or Caius Gracchus would be enacted? This was what the Committee of Public Safety in the person of Georges Couthon persuaded the Convention on 2 August 1793 to legislate in order to counteract the indecence of much theatrical fare.(3) For the Journal des Spectacles, whose editor was Jacques Marie Boyer, the failing of theatres was not the lack of revolutionary subject matter staged, nor the absence of regenerate virtue, but the lack of taste. The revolution the Journal sought would restore bon gout -- not so much to the recently redefined regicide republic, but rather to the older republic of letters under siege from the new barbarians whose bad moeurs would trigger the fall of Empires. Charlatanism, ignorance or bad wherever they were to be found were proscribed.(4) In what did bad taste consist? One could point to the elite Theatre du Feydeau's production of L.B. Picard's Les Visitandines, that depicted the ordinary adventures of a dissolute monasticism [`monachaille](5) performed over two hundred times after its premiere in August 1792. There nuns were shown entertaining nocturnal travellers in their convent. In doing so the comedy tapped a centuries old well of ribald anticlericalism that certainly antedated the 1790 abolition of religious orders. That it might have offended religious sensibilities does not seem to have been the Journal's objection. That more probably sprang from the classical taboo against representing religion and the clergy(6) on stage, particularly in carnavalesque fashion. Such plays were very numerous -- Le Couvent ou Les Voeux forces, Les Victimes cloitrees, La Sainte omelette, Les Capucins aux frontieres, Encore un cure, Les Dragons et les Benedictines, La Journee du Vatican, among others. What do we find in most comedies, asked the Journal in its prospectus? -- black for tragedy, antitheses for eloquence? -- puns (calembourgs) for witticisms (bons mots), gibes (quolibets) for epigrams (du phoebus), and some gibberish (galimatias) for the natural and the fine; and yet all this has been praised to the skies.(7) The black effects refer to the theatrical counterparts of the roman noir -- the necrophilic cavern and corpse shows like Camille ou le souterrain(8) performed 134 times between 1791 and 1799, anticipating the melodrama of Pixerecourt Such melodrama could be seen as a parody of the drama as indeed the farce was a parody of comedy. Theatre directors were following the logic of their pocketbooks rather than that of good taste when they staged such productions. This is why, the Journal des Theatres later complained, the Sourd with its popular deaf-mute, Danieres, and Joseph Aude's Cadet Roussel, enjoyed such long runs. …
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