Marie Dorval: France’s Theatrical Wonder Chiasma 21 General Editor Michael Bishop Editorial Committee Adelaide Russo, Michael Sheringham, Steven Winspur, Sonya Stephens, Michael Brophy, Anja Pearre Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007 Marie Dorval: France’s Theatrical Wonder A Book for Actors Bettina Knapp Cover illustration: engraving by Vigneron, 1829. Cover design: Pier Post The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of ‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence’. Le papier sur lequel le présent ouvrage est imprimé remplit les prescriptions de "ISO 9706:1994, Information et documentation - Papier pour documents - Prescriptions pour la permanence". ISBN-10: 90-420-2132-2 ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2132-7 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007 Printed in The Netherlands EDITOR’S PREFACE Chiasma seeks to foster urgent critical assessments focusing upon joinings and criss-crossings, single, triangular, multiple, in the realm of modern French literature. Studies may be of an interdisciplinary nature, developing connections with art, philosophy, linguistics and beyond, or display intertextual or other plurivocal concerns of varying order. * To trace the life of Marie Dorval through the turbulences and exhilarations of her epoch is to engage not just with the genesis and the full flowering of a rare theatrical genius but also with the teeming literary, emotional, economic and material dramas in which such a genius is implacably embroiled. Dumas, Vigny, Hugo, Sand, Gautier and many others mingle their creative and affective energies with Dorval’s in a ceaseless dynamic interplay. But to read Bettina Knapp’s exceptional story is to realize too the so easily overlooked backcloth to life in Marie Dorval’s times: poverty, the need to will one’s survival, unimaginably trying circumstances in which theatre is performed, whether in the provinces or in Paris. And the account that follows further seeks, upon this at once intimate and societal canvas, to give us some real insight into the uniqueness of Dorval’s acting techniques, simultaneously instinctive, viscerally natural, and learned, studied, though more from life than instruction. A book for actors, indeed; but a book, too, for lovers of the theatre and, beyond that, of the sheer improbable drama of existence. Michael Bishop and Anja Pearre Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada June 2006 This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Editors Preface ..............................................................................5 Contents .........................................................................................7 Foreword .......................................................................................9 Chapter 1 .......................................................................................11 Chapter 2 .......................................................................................27 Chaper 3 ........................................................................................51 Chapter 4 .......................................................................................83 Chapter 5 .......................................................................................93 Chapter 6 .......................................................................................123 Chapter 7 .......................................................................................149 Chapter 8 .......................................................................................169 Chapter 9 .......................................................................................191 Chapter 10 .....................................................................................209 Chapter 11 .....................................................................................215 Chapter 12 .....................................................................................225 Bibliography ..................................................................................231 This page intentionally left blank FOREWORD Illusion has always been implicit in the human lot. It was and is a way of life. Instrumental in war and in peace, it is crucial to the arts and to the sciences as well. It drives people to achieve and to sorrow, to dream and to create, to love and to hate. It is the byword of the actor, the dramatist, and the audience! Paris: 1820. Melodrama is the rage. While official theaters remain virtually empty, crowds flood Paris’ left bank Théâtre de L’Ambigu and Théâtre Porte Saint-Martin, where blood-curdling melodramas, replete with comedy farce, mime, burlesque, opera, as well as unidentifiable extravaganzas, assuage the appetites of the famished. Paris: 1945. The film director Marcel Carné creates one of France’s screen greats, The Children of Paradise, featuring such outstanding actors as Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Maria Casarès, and Pierre Renoir. Arletty plays the role of the seductive and brilliant actress, Garance, whose wiles, be they on or off stage, magnetize those around her. This mysterious stage personality was none other than Marie Dorval, whose real life dramas we are about to unravel.