Playgoing in Baroque France
Over the course of the seventeenth century in France, significant development in theatrical styles occurred. In addition to the controversial experimentation with form and the emergence of a national dramatic literature, new theatrical techniques in performance style and design created a very specific theatergoing experience. The theater of the early seventeenth century was very different from the theater at the end of the century.
Theater had a very minor presence in France before the seventeenth century, at least in comparison with other European nations. Italy, England, and Spain all had a significant theatrical tradition by the beginning of the century; theater was incredibly popular in these countries, and there were a multitude of playhouses and performances. In France, however, development had been slower, mostly due to a royal monopoly: only one theater existed in Paris, the Hotel de Bourgogne, and all drama had to be authorized by the Confrerie, a group of the King’s officers. French theater at the start of the seventeenth century was highly elite, and it was not until the restrictions were loosened, more playhouses built, and theater companies founded that the French drama as an art form began to take shape.
Most early playhouses had once been tennis courts; the actors performed on a stage up in front, while the audience assembled, standing, on the floor of the old court, or in balconies overlooking the action. The seating plan reflected social class; although most theaters appealed to audiences from all classes, those of higher caste often sat in balconies while middle and lower classes mingled on the floor. As time passed, some theaters experimented with putting audience members on the stage as well. These seats were reserved for nobles as well, and theatergoing accounts of the time suggest that audiences often confused them for actors. The theaters were fully lit as well, and it is often said that theatergoers went to watch the audience as much as to watch the play.
Scenery and costume was often minimal. As theater became more and more popular, however, theaters and design became more and more elaborate and complex. In the 1630s, Italian and Spanish scenery came to France—large, complex systems of pulleys and other mechanical devices which allowed all kinds of spectacle onstage— “divine apparitions ascending and descending on flying machines; the earth was opening, spewing forth devils and demons and swallowing the damned; the sea raged and the heavens stormed. Space had broken its bounds and become indeterminate.” Plays grew increasingly epic to meet the new potential of the theater; the ‘machine drama’ was in vogue for much of the next century.
Performance style was in flux as well during the seventeenth century. In 1680, Charles Lebrun, often identified as a “dictator of the arts,” laid out a clear system ordering the rules of gesture in his Expressions of the Passions. Though used by visual artists primarily, it both dictated and reflected a “language of gesture” that was a highly dramatic and stylized representation of emotion and was used, in part, on the stage. The preciseness of this language went unquantified until Lebrun set down his restrictions, though, and many theatrical disagreements and rivalries played out because of the vagueness in the rules. Most notable was between the playwright and actor Molière, primarily a comic performer, and the tragedian Montfleury during the 1650s and 60s. Molière’s theory of performance, according to Dromgoole, seems to be to portray characters not as broad caricatures but as real people; in his occasional forays into tragedy he attempted this style. Unfortunately the Parisian public was more used to the more stylized performances of actors like Montfleury and his company, whose performances were extravagantly stylized. Moliere attempted to change the fashions nonetheless, and disastrously so on one occasion in a performance of a Corneille tragedy before the king. Montfleury, in the audience as well, was even less impressed—tragic acting was demanding, a great strain, and Molière, he felt, was trivializing it. However embarrassed Molière may have been, he nevertheless felt comfortable satirizing the performance styles of Montfleury and his company, as in The Rehearsal at Versailles:
See how I am holding myself? Watch the pose? Watch this sweeping movement? And you must roar out the last line of the speech. That always gets the audience on your side.
Montfleury himself died after breaking a blood vessel in the middle of a performance of Racine’s Andromaque. Moliere, a less showy actor, died of a hemorrhage suffered while performing his play Le Malade imaginarie.
The French baroque theater offered audiences an experience that was both sensory and intellectual; a growing visual culture enhanced the dramatic text to create a complete artistic event. Although accounts of the period are limited in their information, it is clear that theatergoing was one of the best entertainments around.
–Nick Currie, Dramaturgy Assistant
