Deburau

Pierrot, Mime, and Culture

Edward Nye

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780429649028
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Literatura
• Categoria: Crítica literaria gótica, romántica y de terror

This volume analyses the nature of the mime art of Deburau and of the pantomime performances of the Théâtre des Funambules in Paris in the context of Romantic art, literature and socio-political thought.

Deburau and the Théâtre des Funambules are characteristic of Romantic art in that they are closely associated with certain aspirations for social reform, even revolution. Deburau was an iconic figure for intellectuals such as George Sand who effectively considered him to be part of the 'poète-maçon' movement. Edward Nye examines this fascination as well as the myth which developed from it.

With its unique framing in art, literature and politics, this book is a must read for undergraduates and postgraduates in theatre, literary studies and the Romantic period.

1Pierrots before Deburau The history of Pierroterie

DOI: 10.4324/9780429026591-2

Deburau is the most famous Pierrot actor in the history of this theatrical role, but he is the product of long-standing conventions of what are, slightly misleadingly, considered to be ‘fixed roles’ (or ‘tipi fissi’ in the Italian tradition). His achievement was to develop and adapt existing conventions and expectations in new ways for a new era, exploiting the relatively elastic nature of the role which was only ‘fixed’ to a certain degree. Perhaps because of his success at establishing his particular interpretation, perhaps also because roles in more recent theatre (and now cinema) are rarely ‘fixed’ in the same sense, there is sometimes a tendency to underestimate the importance of this elasticity and to assume that Pierrot has – and had – more standardised features than is in fact the case. Although the history of Pierrots is not a chaos of unique characters, neither does it consist of a single, timeless archetype travelling unscathed through different eras, theatres and media. Pierrot is as enduring as Cervantes’s Sancho Panza or Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but is much freer to change at the behest of the actor, or indeed novelist, poet and painter. This is what we would expect from a role at least partly born of the Commedia dell’arte tradition. In some senses, then, the subject of this chapter goes without saying: of course the ‘fixed’ role of Pierrot changed. What is interesting, however, are the ways it changed, the theatrical, social and cultural contexts of these changes, and how these changes mattered to contemporaries. Although it is not possible in a short introductory chapter to go into as much historical detail as others have already provided,¹ it is important to sketch the course of this development in order fully to appreciate how Deburau encapsulated but also transformed the role.

The first Pierrot: Giuseppe Giaratone

Scholarly opinions on Pierrot’s earliest origins differ,² but one can plausibly argue that he was spawned in the second half of the seventeenth century from a process of mutual influence and reciprocal inspiration when Locatelli’s troupe of Italian players shared the Petit-Bourbon Theatre in Paris with Molière’s company.³ Their performance of the Don Juan myth in 1658, Il Convitato di pietra, perhaps encouraged Molière to produce his own famous version in 1665, Dom Juan, which itself led the Italians to add a number of scenes when they restaged their version in 1673. In adapting the myth to the French context, Molière introduced a certain ‘Pierrot’ character, so named either because it was a close translation of the Italian ‘Pedrolino’ (which, like ‘Pierrot’, means ‘little Peter’), or because it was already a typical French stage name for a slow-witted peasant character. When, in 1673, the Italians restaged their version, entitling it Agiunta al Convitato di Pietra, they added scenes which included a character with the French name ‘Pierrot’, attributing to him some of Pedrolino’s characteristics.⁴ It was a small part, played by the ‘gagiste’ or stipendiary actor who was not a full member of the company, Giuseppe Giaratone, but it developed a more substantial presence in plays performed during the next quarter of century until the Italian Theatre was shut down in 1697.⁵ Giaratoni was, then, the first Pierrot.

Even though Giaratone at first performed a small part in terms of stage time or influence on the plot, his Pierrot was strikingly well defined. In the decade after its first appearance in 1673, the role appeared again in at least three more plays. In each case, his function is to be the foil for Arlequin’s scheming or physical antics rather than to instigate stage action himself. In La Propreté ridicule ou Arlequin roi de Tripoli, he competes with Arlequin to hold the train of his mistress’s dress.⁶ In Arlequin dogue d’Angleterre et médecin du temps, Arlequin overpowers him in a duel and subsequently dupes him into thinking that his urine reveals whether or not his legal complaint will be found in his favour.⁷ In L’Auberge d’Arlequin, he cannot follow simple orders from his master, runs away because of a misunderstanding, and later duels with Arlequin (providing Arlequin with the first occasion when he shows genuine skill and courage in a duel).⁸ He plays a similar role of the comically ignorant and incompetent valet in the first play written for the Italians by a French playwright, Fatouville’s L’Empereur de la lune (1684). Observing the moon through a telescope, his master, Le Docteur, tries his best to teach him something about astronomy. Pierrot is convinced, though, that the moon is about the size of an eight-egg omelette, and he makes comic malapropisms when he tries to use his master’s technical vocabulary. Later, he is not sufficiently alert to notice that Arlequin is hiding behind his master, and therefore he mistakes Arlequin’s words for his master’s, provoking a great deal of confusion and a beating.⁹

Two aspects of these scenes subsequently become closely associated with Pierrot’s role: he is often the ‘whipping boy’, and his foolish attempts to understand or articulate intellectual or complex matters frequently develop into a verbal lazzo or extended comic verbosity. His part a year later in Fatouville’s Colombine avocat pour et contre is similar, but it demonstrates two other facets of his role which he subsequently always maintains. Firstly, his identity is French and contrasts with the varying degrees of Italian identity of many of the other roles. This shows in his exclusive use of French rather than Italian, even when addressed by his master in Italian (Act III, Scene 6). Secondly, he has an abiding self-interest manifested particularly through his cupidity. In the same scene, his major concern is not the execution by hanging of the Marquis de Sbrufadel but whether or not the Marquis’s death will prevent him from being paid for the services he has rendered.¹⁰ There are echoes of Sganarelle’s famous words at the end of Molière’s Dom Juan (1665), crying out ‘Ah mes gages! mes gages!’ (‘my wages! my wages!’) as his master descends into hell.

Pierrot’s foolishness is just as evident in the two scenes in which he appears in Regnard’s Le Divorce (1688), but here it produces another distinctive trait of the Commedia dell’arte ‘zanni’: the tendency to speak frankly to his master (if only through a lack of tact). Thus, the first time Pierrot appears (Act I, Scene 4), his reaction to his master’s intention to marry a much younger woman produces an impertinent response: ‘What the devil came over you when you decided you wanted to marry at your age? You know very well that an old husband is like those trees that bear bad fruit, good for nothing but a little shade’.¹¹ The down-to-earth analogy he draws here is quite typical of his rustic proverbs or figurative language and is perhaps a sign of his roots in one of Molière’s peasant characters. In subsequent plays, his tendency to articulate axiomatic truths or common sense with a certain foolish candour means that he cannot be categorised as wholly foolish.¹² In Regnard’s Arlequin homme à bonne fortune (1690),¹³ he uses his facility with inventive figurative language to cut short the squabbling between his master’s two daughters, playing on the expression in French ‘to fight like cat and dog’: ‘you seem to be flattering each other like cat and dog. Would you by chance be able to scratch each other’s eyes out more quietly?’.¹⁴

When Pierrot has more stage time than he does in the aforementioned plays, his tendency to speak plain but tactless common sense and to believe too much in his intellectual abilities becomes a major source of comedy and plot progression. In Dufresny’s L’Opéra de campagne (1692),¹⁵ a large part of the comedy is driven by the fact that the Bailli is under the thumb of his wife, and his wife will do only Pierrot’s bidding. Even Arlequin is no match for Pierrot’s high-handed manner and calls him ‘a joker whose favours are very difficult to earn’.¹⁶ The Bailli despairs of having to suffer not only the dominion of his wife but also of Pierrot (Act II, Scene 8). Given that Pierrot is just as simple-minded and intellectually overconfident as in other plays, his advice is not always good, so that when the Bailli attempts to reproduce in front of his wife the confused moral arguments Pierrot has suggested to him, his wife thinks he is speaking so much nonsense that he must be drunk (Act II, Scene 9). Pierrot thus prompts a good deal of the action, but his incompetence combined with his master’s spineless behaviour lead to comic consequences rather than the intended results.

As if to balance the greater sway Pierrot holds in this play, Dufresny gives him a new, additional characteristic to emphasis his intellectual weakness: he cannot read and never attended school. Whether or not Pierrot can read is a matter which returns periodically throughout the performance history of the role, including when Deburau played him in the nineteenth century. It is often a marker of the degree of foolishness or intelligence he has. It is not necessarily, however, an indication of how foolish he is compared to other ostensibly more sophisticated characters with whom he shares the stage. For example, in the opening scene of Palaprat’s La Fille de bon sens (1692),¹⁷ Pierrot is grateful that he has not learnt to read, because this sort of schooling seems to have turned some of the other characters into ‘sots’ or fools. He is right that a great deal of the action of these plays depends on the foolishness of masters and mistresses. Like the proverbial ‘wisdom of fools’, Pierrot’s intelligence can afford to be mixed with foolishness, because his masters are sometimes more foolish than he is, even if they did attend school and learn to read.

It is in this period that Pierrot’s costume begins to be used for theatrical effect. In the tradition of the Commedia dell’arte, the costumes of the fixed roles are not usually related to the specific characters played by the actors, but there are exceptions, teasing references to Pierrot’s costume which show that the role had achieved a certain notoriety and popularity. Sometimes, there are references in t...