HISTORY
According to the unity of time I'm only supposed to describe to you the events which occurred in one 24 hour period, but that makes this way too hard, so the Academy is just going to have to forgive me this once...(don't worry you'll get that later- and you'll laugh...a lot).
In the sixteenth century, France was in turmoil. During the same time, Spain and England were prospering, as both countries were unifying under their rulers, making the Renaissance in each country similar. The Renaissance in France began in a different way than in countries at peace. In France there was a civil war between Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants). This civil unrest lasted until 1594 when Henri IV converted to Catholicism and issued a proclamation insuring the equality of the Protestants (a little thing called the Edict of Nantes). There was finally stability in the seventeenth century under rulers like Louis XIV and this stability allowed the Renaissance to enter France in full swing.
IN THE BEGINNING...
Instead of adopting theatre techniques from England or Spain, France had an Italian flair to their Renaissance. The Renaissance in France is often referred to as French Neoclassicism because they wanted to revive the classical ideals of the Romans and Greeks. There are multiple reasons for the Italian influence on French theatre:
► A very powerful Italian family, the Medicis, married French royalty.
► Cardinal Mazarin (also an Italian) ruled the country while Louis XIV was still too young.
► Italian Commedia troupes traveled to France.
► Italian scenic designer Giacomo Torelli was called to France to update French theatres.
As with other European countries, the birth of theatre in the Renaissance was not a result of spontaneous generation or immaculate conception. There was a lot leading up to and influencing neoclassical drama.
►In 1402 the Confrerie de la Passion was formed. They performed religious plays throughout France and in 1548 built the Hotel de Bourgogne, a permanent theatre. Before the completion of the building religious drama was banned in Paris and the Confrerie was forced to rent their theatre to other troupes.
►In the sixteenth century the literary group Pleiade published plays. They were not as innovative as they were blatant reworkings of classical plays.
►Court entertainments in the late sixteenth century involved elaborate costumes and spectacle but lacked the plot development of conventional drama.
►Alexandre Hardy began writing at the end of the sixteenth century and was the first professional playwright in France. His plays did not, however, follow the neoclassical rules.
NEOCLASSICISM
In 1636 Cardinal Richelieu wanted to establish guidelines for the arts. He gave a group of French intellectuals a charter to become an academy (based on Italian academies), and so the French Academy as born. If there was ever a question about whether a play followed the rules of neoclassicism, the Academy would evaluate the play and announce their decision.
Plays had to follow these rules:
Decorum: Characters had to act in a way that was appropriate based on their social status, wealth, race, etc. and in a way morally acceptable
Verisimilitude: Action had to be representative of everyday life (no supernatural elements)
Unity of Time: Action of the entire play takes place within one 24 hour period
Unity of Place: Action took place in one locale, which was open to some interpretation
Unity of Action: No more than one plot with few characters
Genre: Tragedy and Comedy should never be mixed, every play's purpose was to teach a lesson
Under neoclassical rules many elements used in plays in the past were forbidden:
The Academy could critically attack a play for its rejection of neo-classicism, but this didn't necessarily mean that the play was a failure. One famous example is of The Cid written by Corneille. This play opened with huge success but the Academy and certain critics attacked it. Corneille tried to force the action of his play into 24 hours, but it was not believable. He mixed tragedy and comedy and characters did not act according to decorum. Corneille was so insulted he refused to write any more dramas.
(Next time your professor tells you your paper has good content, but needs some work, tell him/her that you are outraged and proceed to vow never to write again. It worked for Corneille maybe it could work for you too...)
THEATRE BUILDINGS
The first public theatre in France was the Hotel de Bourgogne in Paris, completed in 1548.
Model of Hotel de Bourgogne
Christa Williford
University of Warwick and Bryn Mawr College, 2006 (click to link)
As you can see from the image, the theatre was long and narrow. The pit was an area for standing on the floor. Along the walls there are galleries and boxes which were for wealthier people, even though the sight lines were not very good. The third level of galleries became known as paradis (heaven). On the far left of the diagram there is extra ampitheatre seating above the entrance.
If acting troupes wanted to perform they would have to go to the Hotel de Bourgogne, or use a temporary theatre. To create temporary theatres, tennis courts were modified. Tennis courts were long narrow buildings similar to the Hotel de Bourgogne and they already had built-in seating. In 1634 one of these converted tennis courts became Theatre du Marais, permanently opened in 1634.
In 1641 another important theatre was built, this time by Cardinal Richelieu. He named it Palais Cardinal and it was the first proscenium-arch theatre in France. It also employed scene-shifting machinery (see below).
These theatres sat about 1500, with about the same about of people in the galleries as in the pit. About fifty spectators could actually sit on the stage as well. The right to this "awesome" view went to rich noblemen. The capacity and audience-size differed however, as only around 400 people attended the most popular theatres in any given night.
The Comedie Francaise was home to the French national theatre in 1680. It was also a converted tennis court, but the seating curved in the back so that no one sat in the corners. This change allowed for much better sight lines than past theatres.
DESIGN
Until the seventeenth century, scenic design was still based on Medieval practices. Around mid-century the Italian designer Giacomo Torelli was brought to France, and he influenced the growth of theatre design. Torelli would go to theatres like Palais-Royal and install his pole-and-chariot system of scene change and to accommodate the machinery he often needed to enlarge the playing space. The stage was built to be six feet high, 49 feet wide and 48 feet deep. There were individual panels on the sides of the stage, and each of these panels was painted with scenery, called wing-and-shutter scenery.
This kind of paneled scenery was too elaborate to move by hand in the middle of a performance and so the Italians invented this system to facilitate. They attached poles to these panels which ran under the stage. These poles were then attached to small "chariots", wheeled machinery on tracks. When the flats needed to be changed, turning a crank could move a series of chariots at once and easily glide these flats on and off stage. Slowly all the popular theatres in France updated their systems based on Italian scenic innovations.
ACTING COMPANIES
►Sharing plan with actors (societaires) as share holders and additional actors (called pensionnaires) contracted as needed
►8-12 performers (this number grew after 1650)
►Women could act and were shareholders
►Playwright or lead actor supervised rehearsals
►Repertory of up to 70 plays which could be revived at short notice
►Most performed three times/week
►Shareholders provided their own costumes
►In 1673 there were five government-supported companies:
-The Opera
-Italian commedia dell'arte troupe
-Hotel de Bougogne
-Theatre du Marais
-Moliere's troupe
By 1680 some troupes were combined or gone entirely until the Bougogne, Moliere, and Marais troupes were all united with a monopoly on drama in France, making it the first national theatre in the world!
THE END...or just a change
In 1683 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, casting thousands of Jews out of France. This decrease in population had a serious effect on culture and the economy. People could afford to attend the theatre less and less, and by 1700 the church was strongly opposed to the theatre again. Louis XIV even stopped attending the theatre which is exemplary of France's new conservative period.