CHAPTER XIV

ITALIAN COMEDY AND THE THEATRES OF THE FAIR

Humanity, like history, repeats itself in its recurring moods. Some years ago London playgoers went rather mad over what was a comparatively new thing to that period, the production of a delightful play without words, namely, MM. Carré and Wormser’s “L’Enfant Prodigue,” acted to perfection by a cast headed by Mlle. Jane May, as Pierrot, with Mlle. Zanfretta as Pierrette.

About two thousand years ago the playgoers of ancient Rome began to go mad about what was _then_ thought to be a really new thing--pantomime acting without words.

The two pantomimists, Bathyllus and Pylades, then set a standard in mimetic representation never achieved before. The two Roman actors were “dancers,” but it was because they were panto-mimes of such brilliant quality that they became famous. Had they been merely dancers they would hardly have made the impression they did.

The modern ballet-dancer--as we understand the word--knows, or should know, that dancing without the ability to mime is not enough to win the fame of a Taglioni, a Grisi, Génée or Karsavina, in ballet.

In opera a voice of the loveliest tone, together with an acquired technical excellence in the use of it, has not the power to move the hearers if _expression_ is lacking. _It is the art of the mime which gives expression and significance to the art of the dancer_; and it was as dancer-mimes that Pylades and Bathyllus moved their audience to something like worship.

It is, of course, a pretence, this doing without words. I say “pretence” because you cannot do away with words. You may have a “wordless” play, but behind the dumb-show there are still the words. It is so in life. Behind all things is--the Word. Things are only representative of thoughts; and thoughts are inconceivable without words. We may not always speak with tongue and voice; but, if we have the impulse to speak, the instrument matters not, and we may “speak” with our hands. So doing, a look or gesture becomes a word, a series of gestures a sentence.

Now, in ancient Roman days when the ordinary spoken comedy merged first into a sort of musical comedy, and then, at the dawn of the Christian era, into unspoken comedy or pantomime; and when, in addition, all the Greek plays and stories of the Greek and Latin myths were drawn upon for pantomime, some of the original characters stayed and others were incorporated in the general make-up of the purely wordless play as this form of entertainment grew increasingly popular; and among the new-comers was probably Mercury, who became a sort of Harlequin, with gift of invisibility and magic wand.

The _spoken_ comedy of ancient Rome becoming superseded, first by the pantomimes and secondly by the craze for the circus, finally died down with the fall of the Empire itself, and did not revive for some hundreds of years, until the world’s great reawakening, in the Middle Ages, to the wonders of the classic past. But it is more than probable that this dumb comedy, or _panto-mime_, any more than dancing, _did not die_.

In Sicily and Southern Italy more especially it would have survived; for expressive pantomime was always as much a means of speech among the Southern Latins as verbal language itself.

In the old Latin Comedy the same set of characters were often made to appear in other guises, and in different comic situations. Maccus, for instance, though still called so, would appear at one time as an old maid, at another as a raw soldier: Pappus would be a doting old husband, or father whose daughter was abducted: and he was usually outwitted whatever the situation he was in. These and various other types, and this custom of making them each a kind of “quick-change” artist, survived, or at least revived.

In Italy, as time went by, various local types were added to the original cast of the pantomime. The old man would be a Venetian; the Doctor, from Bologna, famous for its University and--poisons; the Clown would be a peasant-servant from Bergamo; the braggart soldier, a “Capitan,” would be from Spain; sometimes they would each speak in their own particular dialect, and fun would be made thereof. Throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries the fame of the Italian comedians spread throughout the world.

Troupes found their way to Paris and London, and no slight traces of their influence are to be found in Shakespeare and Molière. Pre-Shakespearean comedy in England was often impromptu and pantomimic; and the actors worked much as the Italian players had always done.

In 1611 a well-known Italian comedian, Flaminio Scala, printed a book of plays performed by his company. _There was no dialogue!_ They were simply something like what we know as “plots,” though the French word “_canevas_” expresses it better. It was merely the outline of the play, entrances, exits, “business” written on canvas and hung up in the wings as a reminder to the actors, who “gagged” the play throughout, each usually introducing his own stock tricks or business (_lazzi_ was the Italian word) as the play proceeded. In one of the Flaminio Scala’s plots we find a Pantalon, a Dottore or Doctor, a Captain (a braggart such as Pistol), a Pedrolino, later to become better known to us after various changes of spirit as Pierrot.

In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Paris the Italian players had a sensational success, being honoured by Louis XIV and his successor; and were regularly introduced into the lighter operas, were copied by the players in the Paris Fair Theatres, and were often the subject of the brush of Watteau and other artists.

In a little volume I have, _Le Théâtre Italien_ (published 1695), by the famous actor, Evariste Gherardi, the author explains that “the reader must not expect to find in this book entire comedies, because the Italian plays could not be printed, for the simple reason that the players learn nothing by rote, and it suffices for them merely to have seen the subject of the comedy a moment before stepping on the stage.” He says that “the charm of the pieces is inseparable from the action, and their success depends wholly on the actors, who _play from imagination rather than from memory, and compose their comedy while playing_.”

Among the titles of the plays we find: “Arlequin, Emperor in the Moon”; “Colombine, Advocate”; “Arlequin Proteus”; “Arlequin Jason”; “The Cause of Woman”; “Divorce”; and “Arlequin, Man of Fortune.” In most we find Arlequin assuming various disguises--“_Arlequin en More_,” “_Arlequin deguisé en Baron_,” “_Arlequin deguisé en Comtesse_” being among stage directions, for instance, to “The Cause of Woman.”

By the early eighteenth century the leading characters had become Arlequin, Pantalon, Punchinello, the Doctor, the Captain, Scaramouche, Scapin, Leandre, and Mezzetin; and women had become incorporated in the generally enlarged cast, the chief being Isabelle, Octavie and Colombine.

Reference has already been made to the Duchesse du Maine, who in 1708 revived the art of pure pantomime by producing an act of Corneille’s “Horace,” which was performed entirely in dumb show by the dancer-mimes, Mdlle. Prévôt and Monsieur Ballon, to music by Mouret.

Soon after, Nivelon, and other dancers who were also mimes, such as Sallé, began to come to London; and in the early eighteenth century was seen the birth of the first real English _pantomime_, which bore some resemblance to that of ancient Rome, owed something to the Italian comedy and to the more recent French theatre, with certain new ideas of its own--especially in the way of costume and elaborate staging. This was due to the enterprise of John Rich.

By Rich’s time Arlequin had become the all-important character of the French comedy-stage, and he followed a then recent custom (also the ancient Latin custom) of placing one character in various sets of circumstances. His first production at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in 1717 was “Harlequin Sorcerer,” which was followed by several others with Harlequin as the hero. Their form was always much the same. A serious, classic or fabulous story, such as one from Ovid, was the basis of the work; while between the serious scenes, and partly woven into them, ran a lighter story, consisting mainly of Harlequin’s courtship of Columbine, with interference from other characters, on whom in turn Harlequin played tricks with his magic wand. Rich played Harlequin, and made him dumb, for the simple reason that, though a clever actor, he could not speak well enough for the stage. Thus he gave us once again the ancient classic art of pantomime, which now became the true wordless English Harlequinade; and he taught his players of the other parts, Pantaloon, Pierrot, Clown, Columbine, an art of wordless acting equal to his own. He realised the value of fine mounting, and his productions were gorgeously staged and almost invariably successful.

It would be interesting, of course, to trace with some detail the history of Italian comedy and its influence on the French and English stage; indeed, to go fully into the vexed question of its origin. Certain modern scholars, such as Miss Winifred Smith in her extremely able and interesting volume on the _Commedia dell’ Arte_, issued by the Columbia University of America, holds the view that it was _not_ derived from the classic stage at all, but was a spontaneous growth of fifteenth-century Italy.

Another view is that there was an unbroken thread of tradition from Greece, through Sicily and the Greek settlements in south-eastern Italy, and that when the _Commedia_ attained its great vogue in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, spreading through Italy and thence through western Europe, the charm and complexity of its texture was due to the numerous strands that had been gathered up from various localities in the progress of years.

Yet another possibility is, that this central idea of pantomime, or dumb acting, may merely have occurred again and again through the centuries, as a “new” idea, without direct impulse from tradition.

Personally I feel that acting _without_ words implies a greater technical advance in the art of representation than acting _with_ them, for it makes the actor more than merely repeater, or even interpreter, of an author; _it makes him partly creator, or author_. It is impossible, however, to go fully now into the question of the origin of the art of pantomime. Whatsoever diverse theories students may hold, the fact remains that it _was_ known in classic days, and that the form of it which we know under the Italian title of the _Commedia dell’ Arte_ flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and certainly had its influence on the French and English stage, literature and art, and also on Ballet.

The Duchesse du Maine in her pantomime production of Corneille’s “Horace” was deliberately harking back to a form of entertainment which she believed had held the classic stage; and the production was not without effect on the history of Ballet. The appearance of Italian pantomime actors in Paris had additional influence.

Look at some of the pictures of Watteau, Lancret and Fragonard. You will see there the types of the Italian Comedy; turn to the scores of the opera-ballets of the early eighteenth century and you will note that, more often than not, the Italian players were introduced; just as we to-day, in our _revues_, have introduced Russian dancers, or English players impersonating, or parodying, the Russians--simply because the Russians have in recent years attained a vogue similar to that attained by Italian singers in the ’forties of last century, and to that attained by the Italian comedy troupes of two centuries ago. These things are introduced into current dramatic productions just because they have their vogue, just because they are “topical.” Equally they influence art and literature.

Even the French critics seem hardly to have realised the extent to which French art of the early eighteenth century was influenced by the contemporary stage. All can see, of course, that it _was_ influenced, to the extent of introducing the types of Italian comedy. One has only to glance at Watteau’s “L’Amour au Théâtre Italien” to see that patent fact. But the fact also that, except for his earlier landscapes and camp scenes, several of Watteau’s pictures were, in all probability, _derived from ballets actually seen_ on the French stage seem to have been overlooked.

One of the earlier works attributed to Watteau is a picture representing the “Departure of the Italian Comedians.” The engraving of it by L. Jacob in the wonderful Jullienne collection of engravings from Watteau’s works plainly gives the date of the incident as 1697. Watteau, however, did not arrive from Valenciennes to take up his abode in Paris until after 1702, when he came to reside and work with Claude Gillot, the engraver.

So either this seems a mistake on Jullienne’s part, or the picture is not by Watteau, but is worked up from sketches and descriptions by Gillot or some other person who was an eyewitness of the incident; for it is quite obvious that Watteau cannot have seen what took place in Paris before he arrived there, and when he was only thirteen years old, as he would have been in 1697.

Let us turn aside for a while from this minor problem and consider who, exactly, were these Italian comedians. From the sixteenth century, in 1570 as a fact, when Catherine de Medici invited a company of Italian players to Paris, there had been several troupes arriving from time to time, under Court patronage. One of the earliest of importance came in 1576, and were known as _Gli Gelosi_, _Les Jaloux_, that is, according to one authority, folk jealous of pleasing; though they may also have been so called from the fact that they achieved their success first in a comedy of that name, _Gli Gelosi_, or _Les Jaloux_.

Nearer the dates which are our concern was Fiorelli’s troupe, which in 1660 was properly established at the Palais Royal, where they played alternately with Molière’s company, and received the title of “_Comédiens du Roi de la troupe Italienne_.”

In 1684 it was established by order of the Dauphin that the troupe should always be composed of twelve members, four women and eight men, made up as follows: two women for “serious _rôles_,” two for comic, two men for lovers, two for comic parts, two “_pour conduire l’intrigue_,” and two to play fathers and old men generally. These kept the traditional names respectively of: Isabelle, Eularia; Columbine, Marinette; Octave, Cinthio; Scaramouche, Arlequin; Mezzetin, Pascariel; Pantalon, and the Doctor.

In 1697, however, the Italian comedians, who by now had begun to develop, from the _Commedia dell’ Arte_, or purely improvised dumb show play of an earlier period into a more or less written “literary” comedy, had the audacity to produce under the title of “La Fausse Prude,” a play, the title of which seemed to suggest foundation on a novel (published in Holland) which had attacked the King’s mistress, Madame de Maintenon. For this they were banished, and were not recalled to Royal favour until 1716.

Hence the problem of deciding Watteau’s connection with the painting of an incident that occurred in 1697, five years before he _can_ have reached Paris; and also of “placing” the rest of his avowedly theatrical pictures, when apparently the Italian comedians were not to be seen, or if seen, _not until 1716_; thus giving Watteau only five years before his death in 1721 to account for the fairly extensive collection of works dealing expressly with these stage types.

Speaking of the period shortly after Watteau arrived in Paris, one critic has declared (though it in no way lessens the value of his decisions concerning Watteau’s art): “Indeed, during these early years Watteau could have had no opportunity of studying the Italian comedy, otherwise than through the works of his new preceptor and friend”: this “preceptor and friend” being, of course, Gillot, by whose enthusiasm for the stage Antoine’s own was unquestionably awakened.

The same writer goes on to say: “It can hardly be doubted that from him--and not, as legend has it, from the stage itself--Watteau obtained his first peep into the strange realms of the _Commedia dell’ Arte_.”

But the plain fact is that there was every opportunity, despite this earlier banishment of the Royal troupe of Italian comedians, for Watteau to have obtained not only his first peep into the realms of the _Commedia dell’ Arte_ and to have been influenced throughout his Paris life, especially by Ballet.

From the time Antoine reached the city in 1702 until his death in 1721 there were four marked opportunities for stage influence, namely, the legitimate and royally patronised French comedians; the Opera, still flushed with Lulli’s magic, and not despicably illumined by Campra; the Ballet, then finding wings to soar; and finally, the Theatres of the Fair, which, with their gay quarrel against authority, with their reckless parodies and splendid spectacles, have been strangely neglected by Watteau’s biographers as a contributory influence on his choice of subject.

Let us consider first the Theatres of the Fairs. The fairs themselves, of St. Germain and St. Laurent, were of ancient institution, and from early times they had their side-shows of tumblers, rope-dancers, trained animals, such as performing bears, monkeys, and white mice, as well as balladists and marionettes, which were the chief attraction by the middle of the seventeenth century.

Towards the end of the century each Fair had one or more troupes of actors, especially Italian, who played improvised pieces in dumb-show, as well as written farces, vaudevilles and parodies in Italian, French, and sometimes a mixture of both languages. These troupes were quite apart from those which from time to time had been brought from Italy by special invitation from the French Court.

It was the Royal Troupe _only_ that was expelled in 1697, for its performance of “La Fausse Prude”; and it was really their expulsion which aroused the Theatres of the Fair to a new and more vigorous life.

The Fair of St. Germain was open from February 3rd to Easter Sunday; the Fair of St. Laurent began at the end of June and closed in October, so that for the greater part of the year both offered opportunities for amusement of a less expensive and more popular sort than did the aristocratic Comédie Française and Comédie Italienne; in fact, so popular were they that, on suppression of the Comédie Italienne, the aristocracy themselves patronised the foreign troupes of the Theatres of the Fair.

From the dawn of the eighteenth century, however, this very popularity became a source of worry to the managers of the troupes at the Fairs, for it involved the jealousy of the Comédie Française and the still youthful Opera; and the attempts of grandiose Authority to smother these minor theatres (which had public sympathy wholly on their side) and the amazing resource shown by their managers in meeting each fresh legal thunderbolt by some new and more hilarious evasion, is a veritable comedy in itself, but must not detain us now. All we need to consider at the moment is that, despite attempts to suppress them there _were_ these troupes, at the Theatres of the Fair, from before 1702, when Watteau came to Paris, until after 1721, the date of his death.

There was the troupe of Madame Jeanne Godefroy, widow of Maurice Von der Beck, from 1694 to 1709; that of Christopher Selles, from 1701 to 1709; that of Louis Nivelon (who, by the way, was a theatrical visitor to London), from 1707 to 1771; that of Saint-Edmé from 1711 to 1718; and, most important of all, that of Constantini, known as Octave, from 1712 to 1716.

Thus from the time he arrived in Paris Watteau could, for a few pence, have seen any of these companies, and in view of the fact that the first thing any young man up from the country usually does is to see the “sights” of the town, and more especially in view of the fact that soon after his arrival Watteau was in the studio of Gillot--popular engraver of such popular subjects, and himself a lover of the stage--what was more probable than that Antoine _did_ include the Theatres of the Fair among the sights he saw, and so was influenced to choose, as some of the earlier subjects of his brush, the Italian players he _could_ see there.