Identity and Transformation in the Plays of Alexis Piron (review)

Playwright Alexis Piron (1689–1773) was always dogged by the reception given to his playful but obscene Ode à Priape, which famously led to his being refused membership of the Académie française. As Derek Connon laments, Piron is perhaps best remembered nowadays for that exclusion, for his witty epigraph and for his mischievous satires on the proud young poet–playwright Voltaire. In this comprehensive study, Connon focuses on Piron the playwright, giving prominence to his versatility and to the remarkable exploration of questions of identity within his dramatic writings. Following reverse chronology, Connon traces Piron's career as it meanders between the French, Italian and Fair theatres of his day, from the remarkable début monologue-drama Arlequin-Deucalion, through plays for the Italians, four sharp parodies (including one of Voltaire's Mariamne), various comedies, just three tragedies and a plethora of opéra-comédies for the Théâtre de la foire. Each play is contextualized and dissected, to reveal the playwright's sparkling talent, wit and satire. Invariably, Piron offers internal subtexts that include literary criticism and, in general, he displays remarkable textual awareness. For example, in the chapter revisiting La Métromanie, Connon identifies the complex multi-layered nature of the dramatic text with its play within a play, internal commentaries on character, and even a humorous satire on the theatrical aside. This play turns on questions of manipulation of identity, on poses and illusions, and the problems caused by such identity constructs. Tradition has it that La Métromanie is based on Voltaire's love declaration to a charming female poet, later unmasked as a quite unremarkable, mediocre male poet. Delving into contemporary accounts of Voltaire's behaviour, Connon investigates the likelihood that Voltaire was the model for the upstart writer who displayed such a sexist reaction. However, he subtly suggests that the butt of the joke could equally well have been the Marquis Le Franc de Pompignan. This would accord with Voltaire's lifelong record of over-reaction to even the mildest form of criticism, whether of self or work. Connon further argues that much of the imagery surrounding the aspiring writer character in Piron's La Métromanie is actually self-referential and, in places, quite self-deprecating. Throughout all of Piron's plays, Connon detects symbols of appearance and reality from fake money-bags, to the ha-ha, or ice. All of these stand for something seemingly substantial, but then disintegrate on closer inspection, exactly as Piron's characters do when they reveal that they are not as they seemed. Those themes of identity and transformation naturally remind the reader of Piron's more well-known contemporaries, amongst them Marivaux and Lesage, but such contextualization is clearly the subject for a future study. This is a particularly good-looking book, with attractive hardcover, smart format, quality white paper and lovely typesetting. It boasts the kind of finish that just makes reading particularly pleasant, and all the more so when its content inspires one to return to a relatively forgotten playwright who clearly deserves more attention than his Villon-like epitaph irreverently suggests: 'Ci-gît Piron, qui ne fut rien,/Pas même académicien'.