Scribe Through The Eyes Of His Contemporaries
A god of the theatre
Scribe is not Molière [1622-73, greatest of France's comic playwrights]. He has however the theatrical authority of Moliere and he has in addition, more than any other playwright, inherited his robust common sense. Like Molière he reigned supreme over the stage for the whole of his career, a much longer one than Molière's. He has been the god of the theatre in France and in Europe, acknowledged and worshipped as such by several succeeding generations, regarded by them as superior to his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, in his achievement as a playwright...
I do not know if, since the time of Thespis until now, there has been any other playwright who has had more of the resources of the theatre at his disposal, has displayed more of its guile and its glamour, has so completely plumbed its potential.
No-one in any country at any period has had more ideas for plays or for scenes; Lope de Vega [1562-1635] and Calderon [1809-45, prolific Spanish playwrights] were hardly as fertile. No-one else has ever practised so convincingly the art of putting on stage what is in reality more the matter of romance than of the truth. No other French playwright has taken the pulse of ordinary life in France with such accuracy. None of his contemporaries has depicted in such a lively and authentic way what it meant to be French between 1820 and 1850, the French way of doing good and ill, of being weak, calculating, greedy, honest, virtuous, disinterested and devout.
Jean-Jacques Weiss (1827-91) from an article on Scribe in the Journal des Debats of which he was the dramatic critic, 10 December, 1883
Monsieur Scribe
Once in my life I had the good fortune to see Monsieur Scribe. I say ‘Monsieur’... and for good reason. The leader of his profession, a member of the Académie Française, a member of all the orders of honour, ‘master of himself as of the universe,’ author of many sensationally successful plays and theatrical triumphs, so many that he was able to compile an index of them going from A to Z, for which he wrote, La Xacarilla, Yelva and Zanetta, only because X,Y and Z were missing from the index. Finally, a rich man, the favoured son of his plays who derived millions of francs from them.
In completing the revolution begun by Beaumarchais [1732-99, author of The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville] of establishing the Society of Playwrights [la Societe des Auteurs dramatiques], thanks to which his colleagues were no longer deprived by the managements of a legitimate share in the fruits of their labours, Monsieur Scribe significantly improved the social and financial status of the playwright... It is thanks to him that playwrights, instead of having to repair their own shoes, like Corneille [1606-84] have become able to buy new shoes, make rich marriages, and are now considered the social equals of stationers and ironmongers. For this reason the author of La Camaraderie is ‘Monsieur’ Scribe because it is thanks to his efforts that we playwrights have become rich like everyone else.
Theodore de Banville (1823-1891), poet, playwright, man of letters in Mes Souvenirs (My Recollections) 1882.
Scribe and Figaro
Scribe is an original after his fashion. He took a dramatic form, then in its infancy, and he developed it to absolute perfection. Beaumarchais was the first playwright, in The Marriage of Figaro, to give such importance to a series of chance happenings. He handled them so smoothly and with such facility that he bestowed on them them an incandescense, a voice.
Scribe, Beaumarchais’ inferior in so many other ways, more important ones no doubt, takes the palm from Beaumarchais in this respect! Examined in this light The Marriage of Figaro does not stand up. The majority of the scenes suffer from innumerable objections. Figaro sends letters that are unnecessary; like a fool he permits himself to be constantly duped; he struggles for five acts to come to terms with an intrigue that continues around him irrespective of his efforts and is often diametricaly opposed to them.
Scribe is never guilty of such implausibility. The action of his plays are from start to finish examples of logical dexterity. How attentively one follows the plot! How cunningly he arouses a universal gasp in the audience at the entrance of this or that character! Each member of the cast is wholly implicated in the situation of the play. Through the artifice of construction, the plot depends on him or her at the moment when he or she makes an entrance, and we have no idea how he or she will extricate himself or herself from the dilemma that must be faced. But rely on Scribe to find the perfect way out!
In a rapid witty line of dialogue he reveals a fresh aspect of the situation, and the play moves forward, turning on a single speech, but one that develops logically out of the narrative.
Francisque Sarcey (1827-99), dramatic critic of Le Temps, in Quarante Ans de Théâtre (Forty Years of Theatre)