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Theater and the Ancien Régime

Theater and the Ancien Régime. Pre-revolutionary attitudes and practices. Status of actors Antitheatrical polemic spearheaded by Church Pre-revolutionary dramatic theory “metamorphic performances” Revolution in performance theory begun by François Riccoboni.

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Theater and the Ancien Régime

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  1. Theater and the Ancien Régime

  2. Pre-revolutionary attitudes and practices • Status of actors • Antitheatrical polemic spearheaded by Church • Pre-revolutionary dramatic theory “metamorphic performances” • Revolution in performance theory begun by François Riccoboni

  3. Voices from the theatrical polemic Jacques-Benigne Bossuet,bishop: “I ask you what an actor does when he wants to play a passion naturally: as much as he can, he recalls the passions that he has felt and that, as a Christian, he would have drowned in tears of penitence so that they might never return.” Abbé, 1754: “Theater.. Leads to nothing less than rendering the sufffering and death of J.C. useless; in other words, it directly attacks the point of incarnation” F. Riccoboni, 1750: “I am far from ever having shared this opinion, which is almost universally held, and it has always seemed evident to me that if one is unfortunate enough actually to feel that which one is trying to express, then one is not acting.”

  4. Inventing the Spectator: The Fourth Wall

  5. Pre-revolutionary Practices of Performance and Spectatorship • Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, Lettre sur les spectacles (Essay on the Theater) “One sometimes wasn’t sure if the young gentleman who was in the process of taking his seat wasn’t the love interest of the play who had just finished performing his part. [This situation] gave rise to the phrase: We were waiting for Pyrrhus: but some jackass appeared instead!! The actor always missed his entrance; he appeared either too early or too late; emerging from amongst the spectators like some ghost, he disappeared in the same manner, without one even noticing that he’d left.”

  6. Practical innovations in theater create a new spectator • 1759 -- spectator benches removed from the stage • 1759-1778 -- lighting changes: from chandeliers to spotlights precluded audience voyeurism and self-display • 1793 -- spectator boxes removed from stage • 1760’s-1770’s -- Proliferation of Diderot’s “fourth wall” • Greater emphasis on costume and scenery to create realistic illusion

  7. Three artists against absolutism?The Marriage of Figaro • Napoleon: “already the revolution in action” • Pierre Beaumarchais showed play to Louis XVI in 1782 • First performed 27 April 1784 • Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote libretto at Mozart’s behest: persuaded Emperor Joseph II of Austria • Opera performed 1 May 1786 -- 9 runs

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