There are more reasons than one to include a scene; sometimes buffoonery adds to horror.
Sarcey on the Mixing of Laughs and Tears
In his treatise on drama or Essai d’une Esthétique de Théâtre Francisque Sarcey wrote that he considered it a mistake to mix comedy and tragedy within a single play. This had been a matter of some controversy in the French theater in the 1900s, ever since Hugo and the Romantics broke that and other conventions of the classical French drama.
Sarcey’s comments have been posted here in both the original French (transcribed from an image-pdf available online of Sarcey’s collection of writings, Quarante Ans du Théâtre which was published in 1900) and in Brander Matthews’s 1916 translation (transcribed from the image-pdf edition at Google Books). In this essay, Sarcey mentions Victor Hugo’s Preface to his play Cromwell on mixing one particular bit of clowning, which Hugo claimed to be an historical fact. Here are the relevant passages from Sarcey, who disputes the opinion that ‘since comedy and tragedy mix in real life, it is appropriate to mix them on stage’ —
C’est cette vue fort simple que Victor Hugo, en son admirable préface de Cromwell, a développée dans ce style tout plein d’images qui lui est propre. Je préfère citer ce morceau éblouissant:
«Dans le drame, tel qu’on peut sinon l’exécuter, du moins le concevoir, tout s’enchaîne et se déduit ainsi que dans la réalité…
«Ainsi Cromwell dira: J’ai le parlement dans mon sac et le roi dans ma poche ou de la main qui signe l’arrêt de mort de Charles Ier, barbouillera d’encre le visage d’un régicide, qui le lui rendra en riant. Ainsi César dans le char de triomphe, aura peur de verser, car les hommes de génie, si grands qu’ils soient, ont toujours en eux leur bête qui parodie leur intelligence. C’est par là qu’ils touchent à l’humanité et c’est par là qu’ils sont dramatiques.
«Du sublime au ridicule, il n’y a qu’un pas, disait Napoléon quand il fut convaincu d’être homme, et cet éclair d’une âme de feu qui s’entr’ouvre illumine à fois l’art et l’histoire, ce cri d’angoisse est le résumé du drame de la vie.»
Voilà de superbe éloquence. Mais les grands poètes ne sont pas toujours des philosophes très exacts. La question est mal posée. Il ne s’agit pas du tout de savoir si dans la vie, le bouffon se mêle au terrible, en d’autres termes, si la trame des événements humains fournit, à ceux qui en sont ou les témoins ou les acteurs, de quoi rire et pleurer tour à tour, c’est là une vérité qui n’est pas contestable et qui n’a jamais été contestée.
Les données du problème sont tout autres.
Douze cents personnes sont réunie dans une même salle et forment un public de théâtre. Ces douze cents personnes sont-elles aptes à passer aisément des larmes au rire et du rire aux larmes? Est-on maître de transporter ce public d’une impression à l’autre, et ne risque-t-on pas de les affaiblir toutes les deux par ce contraste subit?
Par exemple, pour se renfermer dans les traits historiques que cite Victor Hugo, il ne s’agit pas du tout de savoir si Cromwell, après avoir signé l’arrêt de mort de Charles Ier, a ou n’a pas barbouillé d’encre le visage d’un de ses collègues; si cette plaisanterie grossière, a ou n’a pas excité un rire épais dans l’assemblée. Le fait est authentique; on ne saurait donc le contester. Ce qu’on demande (en art dramatique au moins); c’est uniquement si le fait jeté tel quel sur la scène a chance de plaire à douze cents personnes réunies.
Ces douze cents personnes sont tout occupées de la mort de Charles Ier, sur laquelle on a cherché à les apitoyer. Elles versent des larmes de sympathie et de tendresse. On leur met tout à coup, sous les yeux, un acte de bouffonnerie burlesque, en alléguant que, dans la réalité, le grotesque se mêle sans art au tragique. Riront-ils? et s’ils rient, éprouveront-ils une satisfaction véritable? ce rire ne leur gâtera-t-il pas la douleur à laquelle ils avaient plaisir à s’abandonner?
And in the translation by Brander Matthews —
It is this very simple view that Victor Hugo sets forth in his admirable preface to ‘Cromwell’ in that highly imaginative style which is so characteristic of him. I prefer to quote this brilliant passage:
“In drama, as one may conceive it, even tho he is unable to write it, everything is linkt together and everything follows in sequence as in real life…
Thus Cromwell will say: ‘I have Parliament in my bag and the king in my pocket,’ or with the hand which signs the death warrant of Charles I. he will smear with ink the face of a regicide who does the same to him laughingly. Thus Caesar in the triumphal chariot is afraid of upsetting; for men of genius however great they may be have in them an imp which parodies their intelligence. It is by this quality that they link themselves with humanity and it is by this that they are dramatic.
‘From the sublime to the ridiculous is only one step,’ said Napoleon when he was convicted of being human, and this flash from a fiery soul laid bare illumines at once art and history, this cry of anguish is the summing up of drama and of life.”
That is superb eloquence. But the great poets are not always very exact thinkers. The question is badly put. We are not at all concerned to know whether in real life the ludicrous is mingled with the terrible; in other words, whether the course of human events furnishes by turns to those who are either spectators or participants food for laughter and for tears. That is the one truth which no one questions and which has never been questioned. But the point at issue is altogether different. Twelve hundred persons are gathered together in the same room and form an audience. Are these twelve hundred persons likely to pass easily from tears to laughter and from laughter to tears? Is the playwright capable of transporting the audience from the one impression to the other? And does he not run the risk of enfeebling both impressions by this sudden contrast?
For example, to confine ourselves to the historic incidents cited by Victor Hugo, it does not at all concern us to know whether Cromwell after having signed the death warrant of Charles I. did or did not smear with ink the face of one of his colleags; whether this coarse pleasantry did or did not give rise to a coarse laugh in the assembly. The fact is authentic; we do not attempt to question it. The only thing we ask (in dramatic art, at least) is whether the fact, if placed on the stage just as it happened, is likely to please the twelve hundred persons in the audience.
These twelve hundred persons are entirely occupied with the death of Charles I. concerning which the author has sought to stir their pity. They are shedding tears of sympathy and tenderness. Suddenly the author places before them an act of broad buffoonery, alleging that in reality the grotesque mingles artlessly with the tragic. Do they laugh? And if they laugh do they experience a genuine satisfaction? Does not this laughter spoil the grief to which they found pleasure in abandoning themselves?
Contrasts Emphasize
It is not my task here to put words in the mouth of the great M. Hugo. Nor do I wish to argue against M. Sarcey on terms other than those he chose. All I want to do is to use this example to look deeper into the matter of why and how a talesman might justify including in his tale the ink on Cromwell’s face.
First (to stick to the topic of comedy vs. tragedy) we must say that opposites, in building stark contrast, can redouble each other’s effects. If Hugo gets his audience to laugh at the ink on Cromwell’s face, and then feel guilty about it, he turns them into accomplices in the regicide, and deepens their grief and horror at the unfortunate king’s fate. They may well feel more pity for the king, if they feel they have taken part in acceding to his execution.
Laughter is not all One
Then there is the matter of what sort of laughter the scene evokes — and what sort of laughter it paints. It can be a wholesome belly-laugh, which indeed is the only kind of laugh that Sarcey seems to indicate. But it could also be a nervous laughter, both on the part of the audience and the characters. It could be the clowning serves as a distraction both to the audience and to Parliament, away from the act they contemplate, and have authorized. Not all laughter is wholesome, and not all laughter comes from mirth. Sometimes we laugh because we can no longer bear the tension of something terrible.
Character and Distance
There is also another matter, for if we the audience fail to find the clowning funny, we then remove our sympathies with the clowns. Humor often joins us with the humorist; if he makes us laugh, he brings us to his side. But if he fails, he ‘dies’ on stage. And any audience that does not find the ink on Cromwell’s face to be funny, will at once step apart from him, and look upon him, his partner, and the whole Parliament, from the outside, and disapprovingly.
Character and Buffoonery
Now let’s go back to M. Hugo’s assertion that the scene is historically accurate, that it actually took place. M. Sarcey does not dispute this; I myself have no idea one way or the other. But let us say that it is true. Then we have something that bears intently upon the character of Cromwell. If Hugo in his play wanted to show who Cromwell really was (that ambition is at odds with everything Hugo stood for as a poet, but it would bear upon what many historical talesmen seek to achieve) then this ‘crowning’ act of his career, this pivotal point in British history, the execution of Charles I, must be examined as one of the keys to who Cromwell (or at least Hugo’s idea of Cromwell) really was.
Very well: M. Hugo finds in his research this odd and jarring note: upon signing the king’s death-warrant, Cromwell and his aide daub each other’s faces with the ink from the warrant, and both laugh. The image is striking, and would certainly strike M. Hugo, for Hugo adored contrasts; pitching the sublime against the ridiculous was in some ways the essence of Romanticism and Hugo’s art. Hugo would not be able to get the image out of his head; he then would not be able to resist including it in his play. For Hugo, the ink on Cromwell’s face somehow touches on the very nerve of Cromwell’s character. What sort of man is it, who could indulge in this bit of buffoonery at such a moment, and then heartily laugh at the result? This is who M. Hugo’s Cromwell is. This is what M. Hugo’s Protestants were; such is the character of these men in this time.
Clowns and the Art of Seduction
Finally, we look at the martial strategies of the talesman. Here we regard the talesman as the puppet-master and us the audience are his puppets. M. Hugo paints us a scene that will frighten us, make us uneasy. (We must remember that the French theatergoers of the 1900s bore the execution of their own monarch in the Revolution as almost current events; the Revolution split France into two camps that waged war for over a century, the Right that stuck to kings, church, and authoritarian rule by the elites, and the Left that clamored for equal rights for all, civil government, and even communism. M. Hugo surely would have written his Cromwell both as historical piece and with an eye toward his own country’s past. In the same way his audience would have been moved to recall the death of the unfortunate Louis alongside that of the unfortunate Charles.)
What can M. Hugo the talesman do to relieve us of our unquiet, to make us hate Cromwell a little bit less? He can make Cromwell laugh, at a bit of foolery such as any boy would love. He can make us all laugh with him.
The laugh is the clown’s sure path to the boudoir of his sought-after lady love.
It is also his path into the hearts of his audience.
One Scene Many Uses
I have spoken out of both sides of my mouth here. I have said the scene is useful because it makes us laugh; I have said it is useful because it leaves us cold. I have said it wins us to Cromwell’s side; I have said it sets us apart from him and makes us dislike and mistrust him more.
Well, which is it?
That depends upon the talesman. No talesman but the highest genius could hope to win both opposite effects at once; it may be doubted whether even the highest genius could do it. But a master talesman could pick one or the other, and use that to his purpose, depending on his aims for the tale as a whole.
So we can say that, while setting aside M. Hugo’s argument that ‘because it happened, I must include it’ as weak, and agreeing with M. Sarcey that it is the effect that plays in the house that matters to the 1200 souls who have bought the night’s tickets, we can all the same state that there are several legitimate and forceful uses the ink on Cromwell’s face could be put to, and any one of them demands its inclusion.
(Composed on keyboard Thursday, April 24, 2008)
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