Accueil 
Etudes & articles The Compagnie des Quinze by Jane Baldwin
Etudes & articles The Compagnie des Quinze by Jane Baldwin | The Compagnie des Quinze by Jane Baldwin |
|
|
Page 4 sur 6 The lack of a permanent home was a perennial problem for the Quinze. Since Dullin's theatre was not yet ready to receive them, Saint-Denis arranged a Swiss tour. More significantly for Michel's career and the British theatre, an invitation to play London had been extended to them. The actors’ arduous schedule is typified by this tour. They played nine cities in eleven days in Switzerland, followed by two Paris performances, before departing for England. Fortunately, the production style of the Quinze lent itself to this mode of performance. They traveled with a lightweight, twentieth-century version of the trestle stage. The stage was collapsible and could be reassembled into three or four separate platforms if necessary. Surrounding the stage on three sides was a tent-like structure suspended from the flies by a ring. Its sides could be rolled up or draped to provide entrances. Practicable, adaptable, and deceptively simple, the company’s settings conjured up images of itinerant commedia dell'arte troupes. In London, they were booked into the Arts Theatre Club, a private playhouse, where they discovered a stage so minuscule there was barely space for Noah's ark. Opening night in London found the company highly agitated. How would they be received? How much would the audience comprehend? Prepared for the worst, the Quinze were amazed to discover they had triumphed. The reception they had hoped for in Paris was given them in London. At the play's end the audience was on its feet cheering as the cast took countless curtain calls. The next day’s reviews confirmed their conquest. Unlike the majority of Parisian critics and playgoers for whom the style and repertoire of the Quinze were too esoteric, British audiences were enchanted. The actors' youth, verve, and grace all contributed to a startlingly new concept of theatre. A Quinze production was, wrote Tyrone Guthrie, "like a delightful ballet, only that it had fifty times more content than any ballet ever had." Balletic and stylized it may have been, but English reviewers singled out the actors’ movement for its spontaneous and natural appearance. Held over an extra week at the Arts Theatre Club, the Quinze were in the unaccustomed position of turning away people. Every evening after the performance, theatre practitioners came backstage anxious to extend their congratulations. Among them was Bronson Albery who offered the Quinze a week's engagement at the Ambassador Theatre. Because of packed houses, the run was extended another six at the New Theatre. During this period Saint-Denis made contacts that proved invaluable. The troupe left London with an invitation to revisit which it did annually until disbanding four years later. In July of 1931 the Quinze returned to France to rehearse their second season, having negotiated another contract with the supportive Jean Tedesco. Accompanied by their families, the company gathered in a village in Touraine. Plans had called for them to rehearse at Madame Gompel's neighboring estate, but Obey's latest play was not ready. The ensuing period of forced inactivity gave rise to new strains. Creditors were threatening; the company’s their material situation was worsening. Despite the London conquest, funds were inadequate to pay off debts incurred at the Vieux-Colombier. The troupe was told Madame Gompel's patronage had definite limits and to prepare themselves to make sacrifices. Remembering their impoverished years in Burgundy, the actors were reluctant to take on further burdens. As an authority figure, Saint-Denis was under attack. A rebellion was launched, led by Villard and supported by Maistre, Boverio, and Marguerite Cavadaski, to restrict his authority. The resumption of work temporarily ended the revolt. Saint-Denis convinced Obey to dramatize the World War I battle of the Marne, a scenario the Copiaus had begun developing in Burgundy. While it was an historical event, the characters and plot were generalized to represent the suffering, violence, heroism, loss, and death of all war. Brecht was unknown to them, but the style of play and production was epic. As in the previous year, Saint-Denis intended to mount two presentations to be shown in repertory. Too short to sustain an evening, La Bataille de la Marne was preceded by a curtain raiser, La Vie en rose, a charming evocation of the belle époque. This bit of fluff contained numerous personages, necessitating the actors to double and even triple roles. Saint-Denis’s other production was a comedy by Jean Variot adapted from Plautus’s Menaechmi. La Mauvaise conduite (Bad behavior), offered the Quinze the opportunity to display their farcical skills and to portray the kind of broad comic characters they had developed in Burgundy. In the program Saint-Denis explained that the company was attracted by the play's "frank and vulgar tone" as well as the opportunities it presented for "comic invention." Since Roman comedy was the influence for the production style, the actors wore full masks. Unfortunately, the masks were not completed until the première, which caused considerable apprehension. Rehearsing without the masks, it was impossible to know whether the actors’ speech would be understandable. And their use was essential for character development, since a masked character is established from externals. But whether a more ideal rehearsal situation would have resulted in a better production, thereby modifying critical and audience reaction, is moot. La Mauvaise conduite opened the season on November 5, 1931 and played to moderately good houses, although some Paris audiences were put off by those very qualities that had attracted the company to it, finding the characters grotesque and crude. Certain critics again criticized the Quinze for their excesses. For example, the Comoedia critic complained that he was "bothered by the masks worn by the interpreters in imitation of the classical theatre." Nevertheless, the same reviewer praised the strong ensemble and Saint-Denis’s direction. Popular success continued to elude the Quinze in Paris. La Bataille de la Marne was awarded the prestigious Prix Brieux, but it too encountered mixed reactions, in part because of its theme. Several reviews reflected their authors' political positions, and in 1931, Obey's point of view was too chauvinistic for a number of critics. Obey and the Quinze found themselves in the uncomfortable position of being championed by conservatives. Benjamin Crémieux, observing the company's work for the first time in a year, felt they showed considerable growth: One is in the presence of a flexible, yet homogeneous troupe whose common style does not curb individual abilities . . . Already, Monsieur Saint-Denis has asserted himself as a strong ensemble actor, Madame Marie-Hélène Dasté as a young leading lady, capable of expressing both ardor and purity, while remaining very much a sensual woman. He had specific reservations about the play whose style he found at once sensationalist and medieval. A strong supporter emerged in Antoine who, in an article written for L'Information, conferred on the Quinze the task of saving the theatre. Their three-month engagement at the Vieux-Colombier terminated, the troupe left on tour for Lyon, Belgium, and England. The second season had been more profitable than the first, and had not Tedesco's film season been arranged in advance, business would have warranted a continuation. They returned to London hailed as celebrities; Albery booked them into the New Theatre, where they performed their stock of plays in repertory. The London season was successful, but less remunerative than the previous one. Audiences were sizeable, but the Quinze were no longer turning away patrons. La Bataille de la Marne, a drama celebrating the courage and sufferings of the French populace during World War I, was not a subject designed to appeal to British audiences. Perhaps the novelty of the Quinze had begun to wane for the general public. If so, they still remained the toast of the theatrical and critical professions. The reviewers’ unstinting praise presents a contrast to the begrudging approval of the French critics for whom the Quinze were more rarefied than a rarity. In Time and Tide, Rebecca West reported that La Bataille de la Marne was electrifying and "as beautiful and pure as a Romanesque church." James Agate's description of the opening of La Bataille de la Marne evokes the imaginative anti-illusionistic style of the Quinze that enthralled audiences: On the stage nothing save a few dun hangings veiling the bare theatre walls, and the floor artificially raked to enable the actors to move on different planes. Off the stage an immense distance away a military band is playing, and in the wings armies of France go by. We see them through the eyes of five or six peasant women clothed in black and grouped as you may see them in the fields of France or the canvases of Millet . . . The whole cast played with a perfection of understanding and a mastery of ensemble beyond praise. This is great, perhaps the greatest acting, since on a bare stage the actors recreated not the passion of one or two, but the agony of a nation. After every performance the actors’ dressing rooms were filled with visitors. Invitations to parties and country weekends abounded⎯invitations they were unable to reciprocate. They were celebrities living in penury. Their financial situation continued to deteriorate, resulting in further disaffection. |
||||||||