The theater does not exist without actors or actors. But what were their working conditions at XVIIIe century ? How were they paid ? What was happening when they were sick and unable to play ?
The fascinating Theatrical lives. The profession of actor in Paris between Enlightenment and Revolution Confirms, if necessary, that historians have a lot to bring to the knowledge of the shows given during the old regime and the revolutionary period. This robust work (486 pages of text, 551 pages in total) is the revised version of a doctorate of history entitled “ Work on the front of the stage: the profession of actress in Paris (years 1740-1799) “, Prepared forEhess Under the direction of Antoine Lilti. He had, in Public figures. The invention of celebrity (Fayard, 2014), explored the renown springs enjoyed by the tragedians François-Joseph Talma and Hippolyte Confon, the comic actor Janot or the English actors David Garrick and Sarah Siddons.
In this teeming text of anecdotes, Suzanne Rochefort, herself a daughter and granddaughter of actors, makes us penetrate behind the scenes of theatrical quarries XVIIIe century, at a period when shows are the most popular entertainment among all the strata in society. The book reads like a novel and has the great merit of giving flesh to the actors. Through these “ theatrical lives “, They no longer appear only as spectacle beings playing characters on stage before disappearing behind the scenes: they are individuals at work, engaged in individual and collective logic of troops, career and market.
Historians seize the theater
Suzanne Rochefort revisits recent research in literature and show arts from two complementary angles: social history of work, in its sociological and legal dimensions, and the cultural history of leisure and media. His study confirms a contemporary trend, which sees historians seizing the scene, experimenting, following Daniel Roche, the crossings between urban, social and cultural stories: we think in particular of Stestruck. The Business of Theater in Eighteenth Century France and its colonies (Cornell University Press, 2013) by Lauren Clay, who analyzes the Louis reign theater industry XIV during the French Revolution, and Civilize Europe. French theater policies at XVIIIe century (Fayard, 2014) of Rahul Markovits, who follows the circulation of troops of French actors across Europe.
By its title and method, Theatrical lives is in line with Max Fuchs’ seminal study (Theatrical life in the provinces at XVIIIe century1933), extended by Henri Lagrave who, in Theatrical life in Bordeaux from origins to the present day (1985), told the political and administrative history of the Bordeaux troops. Martine de Rougemont followed him in Theatrical life in France at XVIIIe century (1988, reed. 2001), opening fertile exploration tracks to bring to light the material conditions of theatrical creation and the sociology of shows.
These works inaugurated a vision of the theater which is no longer exclusively literary: rather than studying pieces like texts to read, they invite researchers to consider them from the point of view of their representation. This methodology is particularly successful in analyzing the theater of XVIIIe century, long devalued in the textbooks of literary history and reduced to a few pieces of Marivaux, Beaumarchais or Voltaire. To consider in an interdisciplinary way the shows of the Old Regime and the Revolution gives to understand how they are the place of decisive changes, whether they are aesthetic (with the emergence of bourgeois drama and staging), sociological or political.
Work organization and management of theatrical staff
Rather than evoking the actors through the writings on them, Suzanne Rochefort chose to make their voice heard directly, through their administrative traces (police and justice reports) and their letters kept at the Library-Museum of the Comedy-French. It thus gives voice to more than a thousand individuals, illustrious for some, little known or anonymous for the most part.
The most fascinating passages in the book concern the way in which the actors consider their working conditions. Their tool is their body, whose evils began to be recognized from the 1770s, through the ancestor of the medical certificate. Returning at night to play in Versailles, Mlle Luzy clings his ankle, Molé grabs a “ votes »And Mlle Dugazon is “ hit with an air Who makes her deaf (p. 215). Mlle Confiron warns young actors against the dangers of “ overwork (P. 233). And Molé deplores having to play a comic role even though his wife saw his last moments: “ I will make it the effort, but what awful profession that ours ! (P. 231). The author immerses us in the administrative backstage of the profession: she deciphers her singular accounting, which lies in the number of verses to remember, details the system of fines (in particular for delay or absenteeism) and traces the emergence of the figure of the stage manager, contemporary with an increased division of tasks.
In this perspective, Rochefort explains in detail how private theaters contributed in the years 1760-1770 to develop the professional organization of the troops, which were not structured in academy or in corporation, unlike most other trades. Indeed, well before the law Le Chapelier of 1791, the privilege conferred on three official theaters (La Comédie-Française, La Comédie-Italienne and the Opera, placed under the monarchical supervision) is constantly disputed by fairground theaters, the Opéra-Comique, then the theaters installed on the Boulevard du Temple or at the Palais-Royal. Rochefort shows how, to compete with members, salaried theaters invent new methods of organization and personnel management in order to discipline workers and contract relationships.
Contributions for theatrical studies
By highlighting the multiple links that unite theaters in activity in Paris in the Age of Enlightenment, the work completes the work carried out on the theater of the Foire and on the Bas Comic, absent from dramatic theory and periodicals. He thus contributes to filling a lack pointed by the American historian Jeffrey Ravel when he greeted the innovative character of the book by Martine de Rougemont: the “ Articulation between (l) multiple theaters ». Thanks to this overhanging approach, he can delicately question the concept of “ public service », Heard during the Revolution in the sense of training of citizen minds.
Using archives hitherto little exploited, he replaces in a larger context of the episodes that were believed to be known, as the publication of the Memory to consult, on the issue of excommunicationwritten in 1761 by lawyer Huerne de la Motte and the actress Mlle Bugle, the controversy surrounding the Calais seat In 1765 or the split within the Troupe de la Comédie-Française in 1791.
At the same time, he beats some received ideas. By unlocking several proven cases of excommunication of actors at XVIIIe century, he proves that the exclusion of actors was not just a word of word. He documents the weak attractiveness of Parisian scenes and wages at the Comédie-Française. He demonstrates that Hormis in the administration of theaters, where they were in the minority, the actresses enjoyed remuneration and career opportunities similar to men ; it is only at XIXe century that the condemnations of the theater and women will be more systematically peer.
“” Boulevard theater », An expression of XIXe century
Despite the undeniable merits of the book, two small reservations should be issued. The first, minor, concerns the name boulevard theater : repeated to envy in the book, she is annoyingly a sign towards the XIXe century and its famous “ Boulevard du Crime ». The term certainly refers to a reality, that of popular theaters which swarm on the boulevard du Temple from the 1760s. But the term did not really spread from 1806, when Napoleon Ier Publish a decree reserving the tragic theater and spoken at the Comédie-Française and the Opera and the silent shows at Boulevard, whose popularity will only grow. To this anachronistic name to XVIIIe century, which tends to obscure the persistence of the theater of the Fair after 1750, one might prefer theater names private,, commercial or unofficial.
Crossroads between historical and literary studies
The second reserve, more structural, is due to the articulation between the historical method and the work of researchers in literary and theatrical studies. It would be fruitful to make the primary corpus dialogue much more systematically (police and justice archives, actors of actors) with a secondary corpus, that of printed literary texts, on which research is numerous: meta-theatrical pieces and the various texts devoted to the game, some of which are written by actors, would profit with the periodicals mobilized by the author.
Identify the multiple echoes between these sources, in a more resolutely interdisciplinary approach crossing history and literature, would make it possible to put into perspective, even to qualify, several conclusions, in particular concerning the formation of actors and their morality, the distinction between job And artthe misdeeds of the game on body health or the stormy relationships between actors and playwrights.
Similarly, taking into account the gender and aesthetics of the parts represented would offer the possibility of assessing the role played by the generic specialization or versatility of actors in careers and market strategies, or even specifying the springs of citizen vocation assigned to the theater (in particular through drama and melodrama). We can only delight these open deepening avenues for future research.