Theatre and State in France, 1760-1905

Abstract

Relations between theatre and state were seldom more fraught in France than in the latter part of the eighteenth and during the nineteenth century. The unique attraction of the theatre, the sole source of mass entertainment over the period, accounts in part for this: successive governments could not ignore these large nightly gatherings, viewing them with distrust and attempting to control them by every kind of device, from censorship of plays to the licensing of playhouses. In his illuminating study, F. W. J. Hemmings traces the vicissitudes of this perennial conflict, which began with the rise of the small independent boulevard theatres in the 1760s and eventually petered out in 1905 with the abandonment of censorship by the state. There are separate chapters on the provincial theatre, while the French Revolution is given particularly detailed attention. This work, complementing his earlier book The Theatre Industry in Nineteenth-Century France, will be of interest to students of theatre history, French studies and European culture in general.

Sites of Performance and Circulation

“…The Comédie Française was seen to produce, so F. W. J. Hemmings argues, national 'products of superb craftsmanship' analogous to the productions of other State supported institutions such as the State Printing Office or the Sèvres and Gobelin manufactories. 23 However, this subsidy of the company by the French State (so often held up as a model of theatre practice in Britain) came with strings attached, including regulations governing the selection of new plays, and an erratic regime of state censorship. John McCormick comments wryly that 'Most of the time censorship was an ongoing nuisance, which probably had far more effect on the Comédie Française than it did on the popular theatres.…”

“…24 Censorship may have been negligible in practice, but it meant that the Comédie Française was uniquely tied to the politics of the French state at least until the calmer times of the Second Empire in the middle of the century, when the theatre was once again brought closely under government control. 25 Newey -Sites and Circulation of Performance 15 Before German nation-state unity in 1871, German developments were obviously less focused in a single national capital than in the federal system of city states, where city and Court theatres created their own national legitimation based on the 'internalization of Schiller's dictum of the theatre as a "moral institution"' as discussed above. 26 Heinrich also notes the number of theatres founded in the period across cities of German-speaking Europe, including Hamburg, Vienna, Munich, Mannheim, and Weimar, arguing that this network of increasingly State-subsidised or publicly funded civic theatres 'constituted the national theatre.'…”

The Transmission and Circulation of Western Opera in the Netherlands East Indies, 1835-1869: Preliminary Observations

“…The Chapelier Law of 1791 declared the liberation of theatres from a few privileged artists of the old regime. 26 Effectively, new theatres sprung up across France and put out new plays and operas. French acting was gaining a high reputation so much so that actors and actresses from England, Germany, Russia, and even America were now willing to endure arduous journeys to France and vied to perform in the theatre capital of the world.…”

The Pantomime Repertoire of the Théâtre des Funambules

“…The weakening of the Restoration was accompanied by widespread contemporary socio-political and moral criticism made more openly than before on Parisian stages. 25 Censors reacted strongly to the unruly provocations of Romantic writers; they were 'littéralement obsédés par l'esprit romantique naissant'. 26 In English and American popular drama, Ottoman despotism was equated with the suppression of emerging democracy.…”