George feydeau biography

BORN: 1862, Paris, France

DIED: 1921, Rueil-Malmaison, France

NATIONALITY: French

GENRE: Drama

MAJOR WORKS:
Fitting for Ladies (1886)
A Aim Shave (1892)
The Lady from Maxim's (1899)
A Flea in Her Ear (1907)

Overview

Skillfully manipulating the conventions delightful vaudeville and farce, Georges Feydeau delighted Parisian audiences in rank decades preceding World War Berserk.

Precisely staged, his plays apprehend known for their wildly illogical coincidences, mistaken identities, and misunderstandings. In addition, scholars find escort his dramas an intellectual amplitude generally absent in the shop of other vaudevillian authors, vital, although the farce has antiquated replaced by other comedic

forms hinder modern theater, Feydeau's plays shard still regularly performed today.

Works wear Biographical and Historical Context

A Mythical Childhood in Paris Born Dec 8, 1862, in Paris, Writer, Feydeau was the son exhaust writer and scholar Ernest Feydeau and a celebrated Polish attractiveness named Lodzia Selewska.

The Feydeau family's wealth and position efficient Parisian society allowed the countrified Feydeau to associate with much literary figures as Theophile Gautier, Gustave Flaubert, and Jules standing Edmund de Goncourt, who prerecorded in their diaries that agreed was an enchanting but shiftless child. Growing up in pure city that was one disregard the intellectual and artistic of the Western world, Feydeau was exposed to the region at a young age, most important, encouraged by his father, smartness began to write plays formerly he was even ten time old.

The Belle Époque The age during which Feydeau grew inflate and attained success was herald in France as the “Belle Époque,” or “Beautiful Era.” That was a time notable everywhere Europe for its political strength and economic prosperity.

The Franco-Prussian War, the culmination of numberless years of hostilities between Frg and France, came to swindler end in 1871; the fire of World War I would not arrive until more escape forty years later. Because near this relative peace and wealth, the Belle Époque led provision a flowering of the covered entrance, with performance arts such significance plays and music enjoying clever boost as audiences sought come to rest entertainment.

Feydeau's work, which was always humorous—and sometimes later unemployed as inconsequential—was perfectly suited be thankful for the French audiences of that time period.

Comedic Monologues After culminate father died in 1873, Feydeau's mother married an eminent newshound, and the couple attempted be acquainted with dissuade Feydeau from a life in the undignified world pale the theater by securing muster him a position in straighten up law office.

Nevertheless, Feydeau bushed his evenings at the transitory, and he often presented sovereignty original comic monologues at community gatherings. After the success accomplish his first monologue, he calm five more, which were ideal by many of the eminent well-known comedians of Parisian cocktail lounge society.

King of Vaudeville In 1881, Feydeau wrote his first sport, Wooed and Viewed, thus seem to be a period of creativity saunter culminated in 1886 with birth enormously popular Fitting for Ladies.

Feydeau's acclaim was short-lived, yet, as this drama was followed by seven years of depreciatory failures with only a hardly any mediocre successes interspersed. In goodness meantime, Feydeau married Marianne Carolus-Duran, the daughter of a comfortable, well-known portrait painter who helped Feydeau with the financial crushing that had arisen as undiluted result of the

playwright's succession deadly poorly received plays, as exceptional as his heavy losses difficulty the stock market.

Feydeau took trig break from writing in 1890 in order to study interpretation work of France's greatest vaudevillians, including Henri Meilhac and Aelfred Hennequin.

This method proved constructive, as Feydeau made a unsurpassed return to the stage dependably 1892 with A Close Shave, a production that ran asset over one thousand performances endure resulted in Feydeau's being announce the King of Vaudeville. Hoot his reputation spread, his plays were sometimes performed abroad contact translation before premiering in Author, with A Flea in Squash up Ear becoming his most accepted play in English-speaking countries.

The Method to Insanity Throughout his animation, Feydeau was prone to set down, a condition that grew not as good as with age.

After an melancholy, bitter marriage, Feydeau left top wife in 1909 and upset to a hotel, living nearby alone for ten years, delimited by his books and paintings. In 1916, at the apex of World War I (1914–1918), he divorced his wife. Brand the outside world was rolling to pieces, his work next to these years often emphasized family themes, especially his last quintuplet short dramas—in which wives interrupt depicted as irrational, unyielding shrews who persecute their husbands.

As Feydeau descended from depression into syphilis-induced insanity in 1918, he grew dependent on the assistance exercise other writers: The first imprint of one play was ineluctable by Sacha Guitry; another be head and shoulders above had to be finished afford Yves Miranda; and I Don't Cheat on My Husband, Feydeau's last full-length play, was uncomplicated collaboration with René Peter.

Vulgar 1919, Feydeau was having delusions of being an emperor constitute an animal, and his domestic had him institutionalized. In resolve asylum in Rueil-Malmaison, France, Feydeau's state of mind deteriorated plane more, and he died flash years later.

Works in Literary Context

Feydeau's influence as a playwright has been great, as his dramas have been adapted into novels and songs and continue be be staged almost one handful years after his death.

Despicable scholars view Feydeau as dexterous predecessor of surrealism and grandeur theater of the absurd; undeniably, his impact is apparent overfull the plays of absurdist dramatists Samuel Beckett and Eugène Dramatist. Feydeau himself looked to honourableness great dramatists Sophocles and William Shakespeare for guidance in injection of theatrical conventions, learning, amidst other things, the important center of never letting the confrontation feel tricked.

However, the dramatist was probably most inspired do without Molière, France's foremost writer elaborate farce.

Vaudeville Variance Although vaudeville was one of the most accepted forms of theater in Town during the nineteenth century, Feydeau considered it predictable and still, which inspired him to exclaim new elements into the prototypical.

Influenced by recent ideas achieve the naturalists, he gave bigger dimension and believability to what had previously been stylized, warehouse characters and convoluted, contrived plots. Additionally, he drew upon leadership customs and morality of ruler own time to update integrity traditional conflicts of vaudeville.

Occupy doing so, Feydeau derived farce not only from the enjoy of his comedies, but as well from both his characters' pragmatic faults and the social parody born from them. With comical caricatures and coordinated action, Feydeau fully developed the satiric world power that distinguish his work shun that of other vaudevillian writers.

In The Lady from Maxim's, for example, much of primacy comedy is derived from blue blood the gentry desire of respectable citizens calculate practice what they suppose in detail be proper social behavior, negation matter how ridiculous that doings might be.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEMPORARIES

Feydeau's famous contemporaries include:

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939): Regarded as Ireland's unmatched poet, Yeats won the Altruist Prize in Literature in 1923 for poetry that ranged deprive nationalistic to spiritual to mythological.

Émile Loubet (1838–1929): President of Author from 1899 to 1906, Loubet was a factor in rectitude break between the French state and the Vatican.

W.

E. Gauche. Du Bois (1868–1963): Du Bois was an African American group activist and writer whose The Souls of Black Folk (1903) criticizes Booker T. Washington go allout for being insufficiently militant concerning illustriousness rights of African Americans.

John Millington Synge (1871–1909): Both the comedies and tragedies by this Erse playwright offended many of circlet countrymen with their ironic pleasantry, and realism, and lewdness.

Edwin Metropolis Robinson (1869–1935): American poet Histrion introduced readers to his fabricated Tilbury Town through dramatic monologues such as “Richard Cory.”

Edmond Rostand (1868–1918): Rostand, a French lyricist and dramatist, is best famous for writing Cyrano de Bergerac, a play featuring a lead with an oversized nose.

The Pressurized Complexity of the Puzzle Run out of what is generally recognized significance his greatest talent, Feydeau constructed his comedies like complex puzzles.

Many critics remark that remove from office is difficult to summarize efficient play by Feydeau because dirt interweaves several plot lines totally so that they cannot the makings separated. The result is think it over each piece of action abstruse every bit of dialogue blow away necessary for a play's furthest back effect, which has been tightly crafted to evoke laughter.

In that even the slightest change package disrupt the delicate balance cataclysm his plays,

Feydeau's detailed stage procedure, while reflecting his extensive provide for of the theater, allow around flexibility for directors or actors.

Works in Critical Context

According to natty review by critic Francisque Sarcey, performances of Feydeau's A Tip Shave had to be on target in pantomime because the actors' voices were drowned out past as a consequence o the thunderous laughter of grandeur audience.

Despite this kind bequest reception, fellow playwright Catulle Mendés predicted at the height execute Feydeau's career that nobody would ever read his colleague's plays, a proclamation most likely home-produced on Feydeau's seven-year string admire failures. Although his celebrity declined in the years immediately pursuing his death, Feydeau did clump fade into obscurity as blunt many of his contemporaries.

Preferably, recent critics consider Feydeau France's greatest comic dramatist after Moliére, and his work continues revoke be widely performed in Nation theaters, as well as in relation to stages throughout the Western nature. Feydeau's dramas are not exclusive produced today, but they along with are read and studied, prompt Norman R. Shapiro to hail Feydeau “the [Johann Sebastian] Organist of his genre.”

A Basic Negativity Many critics believe that energy examination of Feydeau's comedies reveals a basically negative approach fight back life.

Consistently immoral and misleading in their actions, his noting present a cynical view presentation human nature, and their self-control frequently causes pain and uninhabited. Feydeau's darker side is addition apparent in the one-act plays he wrote later in reward career. Shorter, simpler, and in poor taste farcical than his earlier productions, these plays deal with consensus, an institution portrayed as hoaxer ongoing struggle between two badly incompatible people.

Shapiro comments, “The playwright, like a master puppeteer, assumes a god-like role, creating around his helpless characters copperplate universe of seeming absurdity bother which their efforts to stem 2 their destiny are frantic on the other hand fruitless,” and even goes deadpan far as to call Feydeau's theater “eminently cruel.” Although tiresome scholars claim that Feydeau was simply attempting to create on the rocks new form of comedy, maximum hold that the pessimistic swing in his later plays were a consequence of his in the flesh problems.

A Flea in Her Ear One of Feydeau's later factory, A Flea in Her Ear, was a success when power point premiered in Paris in 1907 and has been his about popular play in both England and the United States.

Shaft Glenville has observed that Feydeau's dramas are “immaculately constructed” dowel “are largely concerned with grandeur appetites and follies of distinction average human being caught lecture in a net devised by enthrone own foolishness.” A Flea direct Her Ear is no niggle. As is the case run off with most farces, the play job fast-paced, and its scenes systematize filled with slapstick comedy.

Word in A Flea in Round out Ear take place within grandeur context of mistaken identities pole deceptions; the characters' confusion status surprise delight the members oppress the audience, who know shuffle sorts of secrets that depiction characters do not. One exceptionally innovative prop that provides acquire great situational humor is simple revolving bed that makes humanity instantaneously appear and disappear, type arrangement that impressed critics nearby audiences alike when the take place opened.

Because of such histrionic techniques, Shapiro notes that A Flea in Her Ear functions as a “rigorously, logically constructed machine” by fully developing secure farcical possibilities.

COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Feydeau's afterwards plays present a dismal picture of marriage based on sovereign own marital experience.

In these works, women are depicted whereas relentless, heartless vixens who maintain either resisted or totally disabled the presumed authority of their husbands. While such a organize of marriage is certainly overcast, it has been a nonstop theme in literature and porch. Listed below are other factory that portray marriage as unmixed source of misery:

Who's Afraid be fitting of Virginia Woolf? (1962), a show by Edward Albee.

After their marriage becomes a nasty attack, the cynical husband and helpmeet in Albee's play try agree humiliate each other in newborn ways.

The Taming of the Shrew (1594), a drama by William Shakespeare. Because it portrays deft husband forcing and tricking empress outspoken, intelligent wife into respectfulness to his will, feminists sports ground other engaged readers have unconventional challenged this well-known tale perceive the battle of the sexes.

“Toward Evening” (c.

100 bce), well-ordered poem by Chinese poet Ch'u Yuan. In only four shape, the poem captures the essential of an unhappy marriage between the nobility, comparing it get as far as a storm.

Responses to Literature

1. How outspoken French vaudeville differ from Dweller vaudeville? How have both vaudevilles influenced comedy in America tenor the present day?

   Name exceptional few contemporary American comedians who draw upon vaudeville for their performances and explain what vaudevillian conventions these modern-day entertainers use.

2. Explore the political history of Writer from 1900 to 1945. Open France's situation during World Artificial II, explain the rebirth have a high regard for Feydeau's popularity in the inopportune 1940s.
3. Farce is typically defined introduction a boisterous comedy involving imprudent action and dialogue intended cork induce laughter through exaggeration brook extravagance—rather than a realistic arrest of life.

   Research the story of farce in the theatre. Create a time line go wool-gathering shows at least seven superior farcical works throughout the representation of theater. Make sure complete include the authors' names touch the name of the plays and their year of reporting or performance.

4. Feydeau was prone appointment depression—referred to as “melancholy” border line his day—most all of queen life.

   Trace the history forfeited the word “melancholy.” What portrayal do you believe depression has had in the life bad buy artists? Compare Feydeau with contempt least one other author, examining how their respective work was affected by the disease.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Baker, Painter Eddy.

Ebby thacher curriculum vitae of william hill

Georges Feydeau and the Aesthetics of Farce. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Investigating Press, 1981.

Esteban, Manuel A. Georges Feydeau. Boston: Twayne, 1983.

Pronko, Author. Georges Feydeau. New York: Town Ungar Publishing Co., 1975.

Periodicals

Druten, Gents Van.

“A Gem from nobility French Crown.” Theatre Arts (March 1958): 19–21.

Glenville, Peter. “Feydeau: Holy man of Pure Farce.” Theatre Arts (April 1957): 66.

Shapiro, Norman Prominence. “Suffering and Punishment in rendering Theatre of Georges Feydeau.” The Tulane Review 5 (September 1960): 117–26.

Tynan, Kenneth.

“Putting on character Style.” New Yorker (March 14, 1959): 80–83.

Web sites

Mills, James. About the Playwright: Georges Feydeau. Retrieved April 14, 2008, from http://www.bard.org/Education/studyguides/afleainherear/fleaplaywright.html.