Théâtre, II by Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée (review)

This second volume of the theatre of Nivelle de La Chaussée (1692–1754) follows on not from Théâtre, tome I, but from a selection of his plays edited by Maria Grazia Porcelli and entitled Comédies larmoyantes (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014). That earlier collection of nine plays includes all of his best-known works, unsurprisingly given that he is most famous as the creator of this subgenre. Consequently, the present volume, the first of two that will include La Chaussée's remaining twelve plays, is well placed to fill a gap in our knowledge of the author, and the works it presents demonstrate the range of a writer who has too often been seen as a one-trick pony. These six works cover a wide range of genres and forms, beginning as far away as possible from the familiar La Chaussée with two relatively early tragedies: Maximien, which enjoyed a reasonable success in the public theatre, and the unperformed Palmire, reine d'Assyrie. Of the remaining pieces—La Princesse de Sidon, a verse tragicomedy in three acts with a spectacular prologue, and three much later comedies, Le Vieillard amoureux, La Rancune officieuse, and Le Véritable Père de famille, which, interestingly, is in vers libres—none were performed on the public stage, although some were staged in private theatres. To add further to the sense of novelty provoked by these unfamiliar works, both Palmire and Le Véritable Père de famille are published here for the first time. The title and content of the first volume of this complete edition might seem to suggest that the publishers shared Gustave Lanson's view that La Chaussée's comédies larmoyantes stand apart from the rest of his work, or even that they agreed with him that they are his only plays worthy of our attention, and hence that the decision to add two volumes to create a complete works was something of an afterthought. However, this is a view vigorously contested by Catherine François-Giappiconi, who, preferring the term comédie attendrissante to that used as the title for that first volume, convincingly stresses the unity of the whole of La Chaussée's output, showing how similar themes and techniques are to be found in all his plays, and convincingly arguing that all are worthy of our attention. Whilst recognizing the importance of Gustave Lanson for raising the profile of La Chaussée's work for the twentieth-century reader, François-Giappiconi takes issue not only with his overview of the writer, but with certain points of biographical detail in his study too, and in her detailed and scholarly introductions to individual plays often argues against Lanson's judgements of the quality of the texts, which tend to be damning in the case of any work he does not classify as comédie larmoyante. It is a pity, then, that the spirit of Lanson seems initially to have influenced the presentation of this edition: a chronological complete works would have better illustrated the range of La Chaussée's dramatic activity than the present arrangement, and supported François-Giappiconi's view of the unity of his output. Nevertheless, this excellently edited volume is very welcome.