The Well-Made Play of Eugène ScribeAuthor(s): Douglas CardwellSource: The French Review, Vol. 56, No. 6 (May, 1983), pp. 876-884Published by: American Association of Teachers of FrenchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/392365 .Accessed: 25/05/2011 21:10

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THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. LVI, No. 6, May 1983 Printed in U.S.A.

The Well-Made Play of Eugene Scribe

by Douglas Cardwell

EUGENE SCRIBE HAS LONG BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED as the developer, or inventor, of what

is commonly called the well-made play, and there is an abundance of literature on translations, adaptations, and imitations of his works as well as general agreement on the importance of his influence on both French and foreign playwrights well into this century. The reaction against his plays-which began during his lifetime and continues today in the revolt against the "bourgeois" theater that he typifies for many, and of which he is indeed a primary source- serves as additional proof of his importance in the history of theater and of the

power of the forces he organized and directed, as does also the viewing of many current films and television programs, which bear his stamp as clearly as do the

plays of Augier, Feydeau, Ibsen, or Shaw. The essence of that power, the nature of that stamp, however, have generally

defied definition; his admirers have had as little success as his detractors. Both

groups have tended to emphasize his technical skill, usually without explaining it and without considering other factors that might have contributed to his success. Alexandre Dumas fils dismissed him as a "prestidigitateur de premiere force,"' while others commented on the absence of style and character development, but these typical generalities fail to answer satisfactorily the question raised so often and so despairingly by Theophile Gautier:

Comment se fait-il qu'un auteur denue de po6sie, de lyrisme, de style, de philosophie, de verite, de naturel, puisse etre devenu l'ecrivain dramatique le plus en vogue d'une epoque, en depit de l'opposition des lettres et des critiques?2

Gautier correctly perceives that Scribe's undeniable technical skills do not ade-

quately explain his success but cannot do better than to blame the philistine audiences of the time who made Scribe the first Frenchman to get rich by writing plays while neglecting the playwrights favored by the crimson-vested defender of Hernani. Most critics have been kinder to the audiences, but not to Scribe, and

they have continued to refer to technical skill, theatrical tricks, a basic structure, a formula, which would define the well-made play and explain its success.

The most recent and most elaborate attempt to reduce the well-made play to a formula comes from Stephen S. Stanton, who claims that "True examples of such

Theatre complet (Paris: Michel-Levy, 1868), III, 206. 2 Histoire de I'art dramatique en France depuis vingt-cinq ans (Paris: Magnin, Blanchard, 1859), II,

234.

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THE WELL-MADE PLAY OF EUGENE SCRIBE

drama display seven structural features," which he lists.3 The list is apparently based on a small number of Scribe's plays, especially Le Verre d'eau, which is included in his anthology. While one might use the phrase "true examples" to imply that any Scribe play that fails to exhibit the listed features is not "well- made," it is not logical to suppose that, having found a formula for success, Scribe used it only a few times and ignored or abandoned it in the remainder of his plays. Surely any attempt to define the well-made play as exemplified by Scribe must take into account the thirty-five plays included in the series Comedies- Drames by the editors of the only complete edition of his works.4 Stanton's list is at the same time too specific and too general: too specific, because it excludes many of those plays; too general, because one could follow it to the letter and still not produce a well-made play. A few adjustments will not solve the problem, for the difficulty lies not simply in finding a more accurate formula, but in the fact that accuracy is incompatible with the brevity of a formula. The most remarkable feature of these plays, when viewed collectively, is their variety. The lowest common denominator is just not low enough to be of much use. Thus the search for a formula that will explain the structure of the well-made play is doomed to failure. There is no general structure that is common to all such plays. One can, however, describe common practices and tendencies in order to understand better the meaning of that term as it applies to Scribe. The emphasis will be on the typical rather than on the exceptional, but the fundamental fact remains that the range of possibilities is too broad for the description to serve as a prescription. It takes more than the application of rules to construct a well-made play.

Scribe's works include several types of play. Not only are there the expected comedies with various themes and settings-social, historical, political-but also a play that anticipates the piece a these (La Calomnie) and a serious drama (Adrienne Lecouvreur). Dix ans de la vie d'une femme is a pre-naturalist play that traces in dismal detail the decline and death of a woman who falls under the influence of the wrong friends, and there is even a melodrama (Les Freres invisibles). It is certainly not possible to deny the flexibility and variety of the well-made play.

For the exposition there are some clearly defined principles. It must be complete, not in the sense that every detail about previous events that is to be included in the play must be in the exposition, but rather that there must be at least an allusion to every event, though the details may be filled in later if it suits the purposes of the playwright. The exposition must not precede all the action, but be mixed in with the first part of it. The play begins with an event that precipitates a crisis in an already unstable situation, which arouses the interest and curiosity of the audience and gives more life and energy to the exposition. Often an action illustrates the exposition: when an unexpected visitor shows up for breakfast in the first act of Les Trois Maupin, the tip he gives the "servant" is used to buy the groceries needed to feed him, thus graphically demonstrating the previously- mentioned poverty of the family. Scribe avoided monologues and dialogues in

3 Introduction to Camille and Other Plays (New York: Hill and Wang, 1957), pp. xii-xiii. 4 CEuvres completes d' Eugene Scribe, 76 vols. (Paris: E. Dentu, 1874-1885), Vols. I-IX.

877

which the characters exchange information already known to both of them in favor of scenes that seem more natural and that often help to advance the action. The "dilution" of the exposition with action obviously prolongs it, and in the longer plays, which require a great deal of exposition, it is not unusual for it to extend into the beginning of the second act. Generally it is spread over the first quarter of the play.

The action of the well-made play is made up of attempts to overcome a series of obstacles, culminating in the major obstacle that will hold up until the denouement. Obstacles can be of any type, though they very often have to do with communication-either achieving it or preventing it. There must be several obstacles in each play, and they must be arranged in ascending order of difficulty, except that a major obstacle may have satellite lesser obstacles that serve to make it more imposing, in which case it is the total weight of the problems a protagonist faces that increases as the play progresses as much as the weight of the individual

problems. The reversals associated with each obstacle usually come in pairs, the first favorable and the second unfavorable, so that the hero's difficulties afford

only brief respites before the final victory. Often the action includes a near- solution (in some cases one that would result in an unsatisfactory denouement) to add excitement and suspense as well as to prepare the real solution. The action also includes situations, known as scenes a faire, that the audience longs for but

regards as uncertain, or dreads but believes to be unavoidable. They usually involve a direct confrontation between protagonist and antagonist, or their rep- resentatives, from which one will emerge the victor (at least provisionally). The scene a faire generally comes fairly late in the action and points the way to the denouement. There are usually secondary scenes a faire as well; sometimes one becomes part of the denouement, as does the threatened scene a faire that is avoided at the last minute to save the happy ending. Though the antagonist may get his just desserts in some other fashion, the scene usually depends upon the decisive communication of a key piece of information, or upon its prevention. The scene is carefully prepared, highly dramatic, and, despite its structural

importance, designed primarily for the emotional satisfaction of the audience. In its broadest formulation, the structure of a Scribe play usually centers around

a single character whose decisions and actions vitally affect the fates of the other characters. In many of the plays a decision is made and then changed several times, with appropriate reactions by the other characters, before the final curtain. The action swings back and forth without making any real progress until the end. In another group of plays, the action is linear, with steady progression from

beginning to end. In Reves d'amour, for example, Jeanne flees from Henri

throughout the play, while Henri overcomes obstacle after obstacle before finally catching her in the last scene. And in Dix ans de la vie d'une femme, the morals and situation of the title character go down steadily from beginning to end, with

only the most illusory upswings. Scribe's basic dramatic device is the quiproquo. There are usually several in

one play; one may be the basis for the main action, but this is not always the case (in Les Contes de la reine de Navarre, for example, there is a succession of

878 FRENCH REVIEW

THE WELL-MADE PLAY OF EUGENE SCRIBE

quiproquos, as Marguerite tries one scheme after another to try to free her brother). Usually the misunderstanding is an accident, often without the knowl- edge of any of the parties to it, but sometimes it is induced with intent to deceive, and often exploited. The use of the quiproquo is part of a broader pattern in which the revelation or continued concealment of a secret, the receipt of certain information by the correct person, or the prevention of its discovery by the wrong person is essential to the proper outcome of the action. Various bits of information may, in the course of the play, be communicated, withheld, distorted, falsified, or invented, causing the many ups and downs in the action. One visible indication of the importance of communication in Scribe's plays is the constant use of letters and various documents and papers. (Over one-fourth of all scenes involve some form of paper stage property, and only eleven of the one hundred thirty-three acts have no such scene.) The secret or quiproquo is usually made obvious to the spectator from the beginning, or at least early, but not always (in Oscar the audience must wait until the end of the play to learn the true identity of the woman with whom Oscar had a rendezvous, after two other candidates are implicated, then cleared). In this Scribe follows the policy that he reportedly claimed to be the secret of his art. Octave Feuillet, in the speech he gave when taking Scribe's seat at the Academie Fran:aise, quotes him as saying:

Le publique m'aime parce que j'ai soin de le mettre toujours dans ma confiance; il est dans le secret de la comedie; il a dans les mains les fils qui font jouer mes personnages; il connait les surprises que je leur menage, et il croit les leur menager lui-meme; bref, je le prends pour collaborateur; il s'imagine qu'il a fait la piece avec moi, et naturellement il 'applaudit.5

He may indeed have done this for the reason he states, but there is also more potential for drama and suspense when the audience knows the secret than when it does not, for then it is constantly aware of what is at stake. Nevertheless, this does not prevent Scribe from springing a few surprises on the audience.

Each scene must make a definite contribution to the development of the action. As could be expected in plays where communication is so important, the combi- nation of characters to be found onstage at a given moment is determined mainly by the potential for the transfer of information. Some bit of information received or imparted, some act or failure to act, some decision or indecision marks every scene. A very important part of the structure of the well-made play is thus determined by the arrangement of the entrances and exits of the characters and the onstage combinations that result. The scenes are usually tightly linked together, as each prepares the next; the author must thus ensure that each succeeding scene has a combination of characters that will permit the action to move forward according to plan. He avoids, however, certain necessary combi- nations as long as possible or, even more tantalizingly, permits and then interrupts them, before finally satisfying the carefully cultivated desire of the audience to witness the expected outcome. He must also avoid excessive and increasingly

5 Academie franSaise, Recueil des discours, rapports et pieces diverses lus dans les seances publiques et particulires de l'Acad6mie francaise, 1860-1869, Premiere Partie (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1866), p. 69.

879

hard-to-justify entrances and exits by any of the characters. In Scribe's plays, major characters average at least three scenes per appearance, sometimes more than four-scarcely a frenzied pace. Though there should be two or three characters onstage most of the time in order to control the spread of information properly, more are needed here and there for the sake of variety. Often most or all of the main characters are on stage for the last scene, for the long-awaited revelation of the facts that will make possible the happy ending, or that will give certain characters (and the audience) some anxious moments before the danger of a fatal revelation is dissipated, often by means of the artful lie. At the end of Le Verre d'eau, for example, disastrous scandal is averted when Bolingbroke asserts that he has sent Masham to see his wife Abigail in the queen's apartments. In fact Masham is not married and has come to see the queen.

Typically, one character will dominate each act, but the same person does not dominate all the acts in a play. In Adrienne Lecouvreur, the dominant characters are, in turn, the princess, Michonnet, Adrienne, the princess, and Adrienne. This domination is indicated by the fact that the character is onstage through most or even all of the scenes of the act, but it is not usually limited to that constant

presence. The character may be actively seeking to affect the outcome of the action, or undergoing successive shocks as others act for or against him, or merely looking on as others struggle (as a prelude, of course, to more direct action later on). The act usually ends on a definite shift in the fortunes of a main character and often has as its purpose the preparation of that shift.

One of the most obvious areas of structural variation is in the number, length, importance, and relationship to the main plot of the sub-plots. Most plays have at least one sub-plot, and there may be as many as seven, usually quite solidly linked to the main plot. In Le Verre d'eau, for example, the love-plot of Masham and Abigail and the plot of Bolingbroke to return to power become interdependent as the three characters work together to obtain their several ends. In other plays, the sub-plot is more parallel than dependent (in Les Trois Maupin the rise of Henri in society and in the military, due to the protection of amorous ladies at

court, is independent of his sister's rise to fortune while masquerading as a famous

singer, also at Versailles, though their contemporaneous presence there does lead to some exciting complications in the action). The importance of the sub-plot varies from negligible to virtual equality with the main plot. Even though the plots generally stretch from the first act to the last, they can start anywhere and end

anywhere. They do have to end, for a stable situation must be established before the final curtain; a "lady or the tiger?" ending is not permitted in a well-made

play. The denouement must first of all be swift, often taking place in the last scene.

There are several ways of bringing about the final reversal; by whatever means, it usually comes at the moment when all hope seems lost, when a solution seems either impossible or too late to prevent the catastrophe. The reversal must be

unpredictable, and much of the art of the well-made play lies in the preparation of its elements in such a way that the audience will not be able to put them

880 FRENCH REVIEW

THE WELL-MADE PLAY OF EUGENE SCRIBE

together before the right moment, but will quickly recognize the logic of the solution once it is presented to them.

While this summary of general tendencies, common practices, and even a few rules offers a kind of portrait robot of Scribe's plays, the many exceptions and variations emphasize their irreducibility, and the aesthetic choices implied by the characteristics cited indicate that the well-made play as developed by Scribe is as much a philosophy as it is a form. As Ferdinand Brunetiere pointed out, Scribe practices the theatrical equivalent of "l'art pour l'art," treating the theater as the Parnassians treated poetry.6 Unlike them, however, a primary principle of his philosophy is a concern for pleasing his audience, which he saw as the general public, not an elite.

In the speech he delivered at his reception into the Acad6mie FranSaise, Scribe

expressed a part of that philosophy:

Vous courez au theatre, non pour vous instruire ou vous corriger, mais pour vous distraire et vous divertir. Or, ce qui vous divertit le mieux, ce n'est pas la v6rite, c'est la fiction. Vous retracer ce que vous avez chaque jour sous les yeux n'est pas le moyen de vous plaire: mais ce qui ne se presente point a vous dans la vie habituelle, l'extraordinaire, le romanesque, voila ce qui vous charme, c'est la ce qu'on s'empresse de vous offrir.7

Scribe's own plays show that this statement cannot be accepted literally, but with minor emendations it can be made to fit them with reasonable accuracy. It is apparent that he sought above all to entertain rather than to instruct or to correct his audience, which explains in large part the reaction against him by Dumas fils and the other writers of the piece a these. Though there is a lesson in most of his plays, it is treated lightly and with good humor (La Calomnie is the exception among plays labeled "com6die"), so that the spectator has no sense of being preached to. There are also no lessons that his audience would not agree with, at least when applied to someone else. The primacy of entertainment is the root of Scribe's philosophy of the theater, from which grow the principles that he observed almost without exception. He himself indicated some of these principles in his preface to the Theatre de J.-F. Bayard:

C'etait la gaiete, la verve, la rapidite, l'entrain dramatique! L'action une fois engagee ne languissait pas! Le spectateur, entraine et pour ainsi dire emporte par ce mouvement de la scene, arrivait joyeusement et comme en chemin de fer, au but indique par l'auteur, sans qu'il lui fiut permis de s'arreter pour reflechir ou pour critiquer ....

Le faux et le larmoyant sont faciles; c'est avec cela que l'on fabrique du drame! voila pourquoi nous en voyons tant! La verite et la gaiete sont choses rares! La comedie en est faite! voila pourquoi nous en voyons si peu!

Peu d'auteurs ont possede a un degre aussi elev6 que lui, l'entente du theatre, la connaissance de la scene et toutes les ressources de l'art dramatique! Sujet

6 "Scribe et Musset," Les Epoques du theatre francais (1636-1850) (Conferences de 1'Odeon) (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1899), p. 353.

7 Acad6mie francaise, Recueil des discours, 1830-1839 (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1841), p. 325.

881

presente et developp6 avec adresse, action serr6e et rapide, p6ripeties soudaines, obstacles crees et franchis avec bonheur, d6nouiment inattendu, quoique savam- ment prepar6, tout ce que l'exp6rience et 1'etude peuvent donner venait en aide chez lui a ce qui vient de Dieu seul et de la nature, l'inspiration, l'esprit, la verve et cette qualit6 la plus rare de toutes au theatre: l'imagination, qui invente sans cesse du nouveau ou qui cree encore, meme en imitant.8

Scribe was talking about Bayard, but the qualities he picks out and the values he reveals in expressing them represent as much a portrait of himself as a description of his colleague and collaborator. The first paragraph expresses the goal; the last indicates the means. Both are exemplified by Scribe's plays.

The reference to truth apparently contradicts the insistence on fiction in the

passage cited earlier, but a careful reading of his plays clearly reveals that it is a certain combination of truth and fiction that is intended. Scribe's concept of truth is related to audience acceptance, or plausibility, a concern of most playwrights, but a special problem for Scribe, with his emphasis on the fictional, the extraor-

dinary, and thus upon plot and the maintenance of suspense. This required characters that the audience can identify with and care about and, even more

important, a basic situation and events that develop it and that are interesting. This means that they must be uncommon, for as Scribe pointed out in the passage quoted above, what one sees every day is not entertaining; but at the same time

they must not be impossible, for then the spectator ceases to believe and loses interest. The same result follows a too-great consciousness of the fact that the

playwright is in complete control, which can be caused by events that are too

predictable or too capricious. The response to the danger of predictability leads Pierre Voltz to begin his definition of the "piece bien faite" by calling it "une

piece oi la part du hasard reste grande, puisque les 6evnements passent au

premier plan et doivent faire naitre l'int6ret par leur imprevu."9 The other extreme is avoided by the careful preparation that precedes the coincidences and other

apparent interventions of chance, so that the audience accepts them as perfectly justified or even natural. Indeed it could be argued that the primary and most consistent characteristic of the well-made play is the thoroughness with which

every action, every event, even every entrance and exit is prepared, explained, justified.

Another part of the solution is to imbue the fictions with an aura of reality, a

process that leads Scribe to introduce a new degree of realism in the theater, and some critics, at least, have seen a definite resemblance between the world he

portrays and contemporary France. Stendhal praises him for being "le seul homme de ce siecle qui ait eu l'audace de peindre, en esquisse il est vrai, les moeurs qu'il rencontre dans le monde."'0 The characters, the setting, the problems are all taken

(except in his historical plays, and some would say even in them) from the society of his time. It is only the plot and certain situations that are manifestly fictional,

8 Theatre de Jean-Francois Bayard precede d'une notice par M. Eugene Scribe (Paris: Hachette, 1855), I, vi, vii-viii.

9 La Comedie (Paris: Armand Colin, 1964), p. 136. 'o Memoires d'un touriste (Paris: Honor6 Champion, 1932), I, 449.

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THE WELL-MADE PLAY OF EUGENE SCRIBE

and it is only there that one finds any substantial amount of "l'extraordinaire, le romanesque" of which Scribe spoke. Real life is not quite so full of happy endings, of coincidences, of elections-as Stendhal noted in the sequence of the passage quoted above-that are made in twenty-four hours, and not quite so many millions belong to unattached heiresses or handsome young men. The structure of Scribe's plays is thus totally artificial-while it may be flexible to fit the individual situation, it is still a kind of abstraction, imposed from the outset and designed to meet dramatic needs rather than to duplicate "real life." To hide this artificial skeleton, in addition to the measures described above and generally the suspense-building devices of which he makes such skillful use, he fleshes out his plays with many details chosen from reality; hence, the use of contemporary manners, life-style, and surroundings and the presence and especially the manip- ulation of an abundance of stage properties, which are, to all appearances, real, and whose significance in the action and variety of uses represent an important innovation in stagecraft. Even his much-criticized style, by corresponding closely to the actual spoken language of the day, is part of the reality he transfers to the stage to help maintain the plausibility of his plots and thus to permit him to hold the interest of the spectator.

To hold the interest of the spectator requires, of course, more than plausibility, and the study of Scribe's statements and plays shows us how he chose to go about it. He offered his audience involvement and excitement while they were in the theater and a sense of satisfaction to savor on the way home. Since audiences always love romance, every play has a love interest. Sometimes it is primary, but often it supports, by eliciting greater audience sympathy and involvement, a main plot that carries a social or moral message, or even, in a few plays, political commentary (Bertrand et Raton, L'Ambitieux). He avoided ideas, events, or characters that would shock or displease and sought those with which the audience could most easily identify. In part because of that identification and also perhaps due to an innate gentleness and "gaiete," the comic elements in his plays arise from situation or language rather than from serious character flaws or farcical action. He enlivened his plays with a wide variety of characters, with amusing as well as admirable traits, but seldom is a character subject to ridicule. There are few real villains, and punishments for misdeeds are seldom cruel. The problems are real, or at least realistic, but the solutions are simpler than in real life, less painful, for the purpose is to distract the spectator from his problems, not to force him to confront them. The plot takes precedence over the message, and also over character development, a choice deplored by critics but apparently not regretted by audiences. Scribe kept them concentrating on the action, wondering how the play would end and how it would get there. He appreciated the visual as well as the verbal nature of drama, as can be seen in his emphasis on sets, on movements and stage business, and especially on the multiplicity of stage properties. His expositions are thorough, so that the action will be easy to follow and the motivations of the characters clear. He made the audience privy to most of the secrets, so that they would have a feeling of complicity with the author, but reserved some ingenious surprises, to avoid the boredom that would result from

883

excessive predictability. The final surprise, of course, is the manner of producing the reversal that precipitates the denouement that, in addition to being logical and credible, is complete, with no loose ends left dangling. It is also the ending the audience has come to desire, including the achievement of justice and the marriage of the two-or four-most sympathetic young people (exceptions: Adrienne Lecouvreur and the atypical melodrama Les Freres invisibles, which end in murder and suicide, respectively). Coincidences are frequent-often to simplify and expedite the development of the plot-but plausibly justified. Scribe scrupulously, even ruthlessly, eliminated non-essentials so that nothing slows down the action or diverts attention from it and exploited fully the dramatic potential of each situation and action. This extreme dramatic efficiency results in the use of the fewest possible characters: in a complex plot, they will often play multiple roles. Masham, for example, is the lover of Abigail, the object of the rivalry between the queen and the duchess, and the killer (in a duel) of Bolingbroke's cousin (Le Verre d'eau).

If these principles seem familiar-and they should-that is a measure of Scribe's success through the years, for they do not permit us to distinguish him from many of his successors, but they do differentiate him from his predecessors; though some followed a few of these principles, none adopted them all, and the new combination reveals his originality, as does his ability to use appropriately and imaginatively all the techniques, all the tricks and devices available to the playwright, impressive in their variety and their complexity. Attempts to reduce them to common factors only serve to emphasize this, as can be seen in the case of Michael Kaufmann,11 whose long list of devices, situations, and actions that are repeated in Scribe's plays includes scarcely any items repeated more than a few times; and when one looks at the examples listed and at their contexts, it becomes apparent that the general circumstances, the significance, the importance, the types of characters involved, and often even the effect are so different that the various instances can be said to be repetitions only in the most superficial sense. Thus in the end Kaufmann brings new evidence of Scribe's ability to renew constantly the means at his disposal. He did not invent new ones, but as Gustave Larroumet said, "des ses premi&res pieces, la fa:on dont le sujet est con:u, developpe, conduit au denouement, denote un inventeur, et a un tel degre, que cette invention est du genie."12 His philosophy of the theater led him to choose a form that was "d6nue de poesie, de lyrisme, . . . de naturel," precisely because it resulted in a greater degree "de verite, de naturel," according to his own definition and, apparently, that of his audience. It is not the mechanical application of a formula, but the deliberate choice of the elemental aspects of drama, developed with unusual imagination and skill, and a finely-honed sense of how to involve and satisfy an audience that constitute the well-made play of Eugene Scribe.

SALEM COLLEGE (N.C.)

1 Zur Technik der Komodien von Eugene Scribe (Hamburg: Lutke und Wulff, 1911). 12 "Le Centenaire de Scribe," Pref., in Edouard Noel and Edmond Stoullig, Les Annales du Theatre

et de la musique, 17' annee (Paris: Charpentier, 1891), p. vii.

884 FRENCH REVIEW