Anthony Curtis on Golden Opportunites
This play which I have adapted for the Warehouse Theatre was all the rage when it was first performed in Paris at the Théâtre-Français in December 1827. So far as I can tell it has never before been performed in Great Britain. Eugène Scribe, its author was France’s leading playwright of the 19th century. Its French title was Le Mariage d’Argent (The Money Marriage)
It is a comedy set during the period of the Restoration of the monarchy in France after the end of the Napoleonic wars. In its fascinating account of winners and losers against a background of financial volatility, it seems to reflect the world we live in as much as that of Louis XVIII.
We enter the Paris mansion of an enormously rich French businessman. He is reunited with two friends from his college days, a painter and a penniless ex-army officer. He attempts to arrange a marriage between the latter and his young niece, also the possessor of a great wealth that he controls. The action takes place in a single day from early morning to late evening; in the course of it there are a series of twists and turns as the characters face the choice between passion plus poverty or wealth without passion. In crackling dialogue that is packed with laughs, Scribe penetrates deeply into their souls, but he is no mere cynic. As we reach the climax we find beneath our amusement at the plight of the leading characters we are moved to tears by the prospect before them.
Scribe has been called ‘the father of the well made-play’. This one with its strict observance of the classical unities of time, place and action is a fine example of his stagecraft. His comic armoury included everything from epigrammatic one-liners to pure farce. He came after Beaumarchais(there is a significant reference in Golden Opportunities to The Marriage of Figaro); he was succeeded by Sardou and Feydeau who continued the well-made tradition. In addition to plays that included historical as well as contemporary themes (one is set in the reign of Queen Anne in England) Scribe wrote librettos for Verdi, Bellini, Rossini and lesser-known opera-composers; and he wrote the book for the ballet of The Sleeping Beauty.
The plays of Scribe are an acquired taste but if you come to see Golden Opportunities it is one that I am sure you will not regret acquiring.
Anthony Curtis