Jules Verne and the stage

‘Mais, dira-t-on, cela finit comme un vaudeville… Eh bien, qu'est ce récit, sinon un vaudeville sans couplets, et avec le dénouement obligatoire du mariage à l'instant où le rideau baisse?’ (CD, p. 211) [‘But, you will say, it all finishes like a vaudeville. Well, what is this story if not a vaudeville without verse, and the obligatory ending with a marriage as the curtain falls?’] Thus reads the final, self-reflexive line of Clovis Dardentor. Not only does it make absolutely explicit the link between the style of the vaudeville and the plot of the narrative just completed, it also uses the comparison itself as a means of closure. Young love and family interests, marriage, wealth and inheritance, conflict occasioned by the presence of an unwelcome suitor – these are the ingredients not only of Clovis Dardentor, but of many of Verne's novels, and they return us directly to the apprenticeship years of the 1850s when he learned the craft of the vaudeville through his involvement in the Parisian stage. As secretary of the Théâtre Lyrique from 1852 until the death of its director Jules Seveste in 1854, Verne met and fraternised with many of the best-known dramatists and actors of the day, and wrote numerous plays himself. He also made important contacts with influential critics and journalists, notably Théophile Gautier and Emile de Girardin. One of the most significant friendships he formed during this period was with Alexandre Dumas fils, who collaborated with him on two plays and also introduced Verne to his father, who was director of the Théâtre Historique. In 1894 Verne reminisced: