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The Théâtre du Marais in 1644: A New Look at the Old Evidence Concerning France's Second Public Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

John Golder
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Extract

The history of the Théâtre du Marais is linked indissolubly with the name of Mme S. Wilma Deierkauf-Holsboer, the Dutch theatre historian whose archival researches brought to light some thirty years ago such a wealth of unsuspected new documentation about the theatre itself, the actors who worked there and the plays they presented. In 1954, in the first of her two-volume Théâtre du Marais, she published the central document for any understanding of the theatre's physical disposition in the early part of its life: the mémoire de ce qu'il faut faire au jeu de paume des Marais, a carpenters' contract which describes the reconstruction work to be carried out after the theatre had been destroyed by fire in January 1644. Historians were quick to pay tribute, not only to the thoroughness of Deierkauf-Holsboer's research, but also to the validity of her interpretation of the new evidence. In 1957 the late Tom Lawrenson established what soon became the general attitude:

The indefatigable researches of Mme Deierkauf-Holsboer have finally dragged this house, after centuries of neglect, into the light of day. We now have a very good idea of the aspect it must have presented after its rebuilding … in October 1644. We can do no better than to give the main details of her interpretation of her discovery, Mémoire de ce qu'il faut faire.…

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , November 1984 , pp. 127 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1984

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References

NOTES

1 Le Théâtre du Marais, 2 vols. (Paris, 1954 & 1958)Google Scholar. For all subsequent reference to and quotation from the mémoire, see I, 194–98.

2 The French Stage in the Seventeenth Century (Manchester, 1957), p. 167Google Scholar. See also, for example, Gossip, C. J., An Introduction to French Classical Tragedy (London, 1981), pp. 21–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who declares that “more recent studies have only served to confirm” Deierkauf-Holsboer's description. Gossip is referring to studies such as that of Georges Mongrédien, La Vie quotidienne des comédiens au temps de Molière (Paris, 1966), pp. 94–96.Google Scholar

3 “The Hôtel de Bourgogne: Another Look at France's First Public Theatre,” Studies in Philology, 70 (12 1973), 27.Google Scholar

4 For her reconstruction of this theatre, see her Histoire de la mise en scène dans le théâtre français à Paris de 1600 à 1673 (Paris, 1960), pp. 14–19Google Scholar. Deierkauf-Holsboer's view of the building was challenged by Roy, Donald, “La Scène de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne”, Revue d'histoire du théâtre, 14 (1962), 27–35.Google Scholar

5 To my knowledge only Per Bjurstrôm, Giacomo Torelli and Baroque Stage Design (Stockholm, 1961), p. 119Google Scholar note 19, has voiced any doubts about Deierkauf-Holsboer's reconstruction.

6 “The Hôtel de Bourgogne …,” p. 105 note 17.Google Scholar

7 Théâtre du Marais, I, 107, 113.Google Scholar

8 Bail par Michel Mesnel et Elizabeth Troche, sa femme, à Guillaume des Gilberts dit Montdory et aux autres comédiens ses associés de la maison et jeu de paume du Marais (Arch. nat., Min. centr., XXXVI, 39)Google Scholar, published by Lemoine, Jean, La Première du Cid (Paris, 1936), p. 26Google Scholar. All translations from the French are my own.

9 Arch, nat., S.6128, published by Lemoine, , p. 30.Google Scholar

10 The toise was divided into 6 pieds and the pied into 12 pouces. In the calculations which follow, I have adopted these equivalences: 1 toise = 6'4.73” & 1 pied = 1'0.79” (see Doursther, Horace, Dictionnaire universel des poids et mesures, anciens et modernes [Brussels, 1840], p. 408)Google Scholar. Measurements in the seventeenth century as today were taken from the property line, half-way through a party wall. This was not, nor is it now, generally the case with internal room measurements.

11 Théâtre du Marais, I, 107.Google Scholar

12 In volume II of her Théâtre du Marais, inter alia, Vente par Jean Coudray père de sa part dans la propiété du Marais (20 06 1648), p. 261Google Scholar; Constitution de 574 livres tournois 9 deniers de rente par les propriétaires du Marais à Madeleine Lemoine (15 03 1653), p. 265Google Scholar; Bail par Adrien Michelin aux Comédiens du Roi du Théâtre du Marais (21 03 1663), p. 269Google Scholar; and Bail consenti par Mres Jean Pezet et Hipolite Noel aux Comédiens du Théâtre du Marais (22 03 1671), p. 321.Google Scholar

13 Or 16 toises 1 pied, as Mme Deierkauf-Holsboer would presumably have calculated it, since she never takes wall-thicknesses into consideration.

14 Lemoine, , pp. 40–43.Google Scholar

15 Théâtre de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne, 1 vols. (Paris, 1968 & 1970), II, 56.Google Scholar

16 In Deierkauf-Holsboer's transcription of the document this reads, not “in accordance with the drawing of those etc.” (“suivant le dessin de celles etc.”), but “in accordance with the designs of/plans for those etc.” (“suivant les desseins de celles etc.”), Théâtre du Marais, II, 182.Google Scholar

17 Lemoine, , p. 39.Google Scholar

18 Art. cit. above, note 4.

19 Barlow, Graham, “The Hôtel de Bourgogne According to Sir James Thornhill,” Theatre Research International, new series, 1 (02 1976), 93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who makes passing reference to this, sees no reason to interpret the mémoire any differently.

20 The upper stage, discussed at some length below, was provided with a safety railing.

21 Théâtre du Marais, I, 113.Google Scholar

22 Arch. nat., Min. centr., LI, 237, published in Théâtre du Marais, II, 265.Google Scholar

23 Théâtre du Marais, I, 108.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.

25 Bjurström, , op. cit., p. 117Google Scholar note 10, regards the rake on the 1644 Marais stage as “considérable, 52 cm. in 9.75 m.” He is mistaken in his calculations, however, for the rise is at most 33 cm. in 9.75 m.

26 Presumably this only refers to the boxes at stage level, since it is made clear elsewhere in the mémoire that there is only 7 pieds clearance at the substage level.

27 Deierkauf-Holsboer, , Théâtre du Marais, I, 93–94.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., I, 110. This also seems ultimately to have proved embarrassing to M. Holsboer, for in his only scale plan to show this opening (see Plate III), its width has had to be reduced by several feet in order to accommodate it.

29 Torelli and Baroque Stage Design, p. 119 note 19.Google Scholar

30 Paris, Quinet, T., 1650, titlepage.Google Scholar

31 Deierkauf-Holsboer, , Théâtre du Marais, II, 29Google Scholar. For further accounts of the action of this play and of that of Boyer's Ulysse, see Lancaster, Henry Carrington, A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century, 9 vols. (Baltimore, 1929–42)Google Scholar, Pt. II (1932), I, 173 & II, 720.

32 For discussion of the authorship and provenance of this play, and of another machine play (Andromède et Persée, La Délivrance) which she believes was staged at the Marais at this time, see Deierkauf-Holsboer, , Théâtre du Marais, II, 21–28.Google Scholar

33 ibid., II, 221.

34 See Dessein du Poème de la Grande Pièce des Machines de la Naissance de'Hercule, dernier ouvrage de Monsieur de Rotrou, représentée sur le Théâtre du Marais par les comédiens du Roi, Paris, René Baudry, 1649Google Scholar. For discussion of the play, see Deierkauf-Holsboer, , Théâtre du Marais, II, 30–31.Google Scholar

35 Celler, (Ludovic Leclerc, dit), Les décors, les costumes et la mise en scène au XVIIe siècle (1615–1680) (Paris, 1869), pp. 70–72.Google Scholar

36 Bjurström, , p. 121Google Scholar, notes that Buffequin “excelled at machinery for supernatural appearances” and draws attention to the moment in act II of La Naissance d'Hercule when “three gods flew on separate courses simultaneously round the heavens.”

37 Sabbattini, Nicola, Pratica di fabricar scene e machine ne'teatri (Ravenna, 1638), chap. 37.Google Scholar

38 “Giacomo Torelli, Sir Philip Skipton and Stage Machinery for the Venetian Opera,” Theatre Journal 32 (12 1980), 450.Google Scholar

39 The fullest account of this production, based on extensive contemporary documentation, remains that of Prunières, Henry, L'Opéra italien en France avant Lulli (Paris, 1913), pp. 86–150.Google Scholar

40 It is Agne Beijer who has argued that this system, perhaps best observed in the late work of Inigo Jones in England, may already have found its way to Paris: “That a system very similar to that of Inigo Jones, perhaps even inspired by him, was in operation for the productions of Mirarne and of the Prospérité [des Armes de France] seems to me highly probable …. In the article quoted … I suggested that towards the end of the century [the] stage [of the Hotel de Bourgogne] was equipped with wings and shutters capable of being moved in grooves and it seems likely that they had already been installed before 1650.” (“Une Maquette de décor récemment retrouvée pour le Ballet de la Prospérité des Armes de France, dansé à Paris, le 7 février 1641: Etude sur la mise en scène au Grand Théâtre du Palais-Cardinal avant l'arrivée de Torelli,” in Le Lieu théâtral à la Renaissance, edited by Jacquot, Jean [Paris, 1964], pp. 398 & 401)Google Scholar. The article to which Beijer refers in this quotation is his own and is entitled “Le Théâtre de Charles XII et la mise en scène du théâtre parlé au XVIIe siècle”, Revue d'histoire du théâtre, 8 (1956), 197–214.Google Scholar

41 Quoted by Lemoine, , p. 16.Google Scholar

42 Quoted by Niemeyer, Charles, “The Hôtel de Bourgogne: France's First Popular Playhouse,” Theatre Annual (1947), p. 73.Google Scholar

43 Lawrenson, , p. 167.Google Scholar