United States or Turks and Caicos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the play of Vautrin, the main character, instead of appearing sublime, becomes absurd, and the action is utterly destitute of that plausibility and coherence which should make the most improbable incidents of a play hang together with logical sequence. Balzac in the Resources of Quinola merely reproduces David Sechard, though he places him in the reign of Philip the Second of Spain.
At last, one of them, who seemed the most rational, induced the rest to agree that Lope should be allowed to stake the tail against a quarter of the ass at a game of quinola. So said, so done. Lope won the first game; the loser was piqued and staked another quarter, which went the way of the first; and in two more games the whole ass was gone.
True, their production aroused condemnation on the part of many contemporary dramatic critics, and were the source of much annoyance and little financial gain to their creator. But this is certainly no criterion for their workmanship. Balzac defied many tenets. He even had the hardihood to dispense with the claqueurs at the first night of Les Ressources de Quinola.
Even the element of humor is wanting in his portrayal of Quinola who is a combination of the slave in a Latin comedy and the fool, or Touchstone of Shakespeare. This play is, however, ingenious, powerful and interesting in many passages. Pamela Giraud is fantastic and painful in its plot.
Before the first performance, Balzac was just as sanguine about the result as he had been with Vautrin. It followed several pieces, Felix Pyat's Cedric the Norwegian, Dumas' Lorenzino, and Scribe's Chaine, which had been coldly received. What if his Quinola should be the great attraction of the season! And his mind was filled visions of overflowing houses and showers of gold.
"Superb!" and "Sublime!" at every sentence, and by singing comic couplets, such as: C'est M. Balzac, Qu'a fait tout ce mic-mac! During the intervals. However, after two scenes had been entirely cut out, and several others suppressed, "Quinola" ran for nineteen nights. Many years afterwards, in 1863, it was acted at the Vaudeville, and was a great success.
Petersburg it was essential that he should first achieve a triumph, brief, brilliant and complete. He decided once again to make a bold attempt at the theatre, and the scene of battle was to be the Odeon. He offered The Resources of Quinola to the manager, Lireux, who accepted it with enthusiasm.
For those readers who now make the acquaintance of the dramas, we would say briefly that the Balzac Theatre comprises five plays Vautrin, Les Ressources de Quinola, Pamela Giraud, La Maratre, and Mercadet. These plays are in prose.
References to projected plays, to the difficulty he found in writing them, and to his hope of finally freeing himself from debt by producing a masterpiece at the theatre, occur constantly in his letters. "Marie Touchet" and "Philippe le Reserve" afterwards to become "Les Ressources de Quinola" were the names of some of the plays he intended to write.
However, he was now full of happy anticipations, and it was with the greatest enthusiasm that he looked forward to the appearance of "Les Ressources de Quinola," which had been accepted by the Odeon, and on which he founded the most extravagant hopes.
Word Of The Day