Edward Nye

The Pantomime Repertoire of the Théâtre des Funambules

Many aspects of the Théâtre des Funambules and its star performer, Deburau, suggest that they deserve significant critical attention by modern scholars: not only their contemporary notoriety, but also Deburau’s subsequent influence on the history of mime. Yet the subject suffers from two difficulties: the lack of documentary evidence and the excessive attention Deburau has received at the expense of the theatre in general. This article seeks to tackle both these matters, first by considering manuscript sources scarcely used by scholars, and second by making a theatrical study rather than a biographical one revolving around Deburau. The article considers a short period of four years spanning the July 1830 Revolution, because the rapidly changing political landscape made more obvious the theatrical practices and aspirations of the Théâtre des Funambules. The article centres on three synopses of pantomimes which are representative of three distinct eras in the theatre’s existence: a ‘pantomime-arlequinade’ from the mute era before March 1828, a partly spoken pantomime from the subsequent hybrid era and a spoken and sung production from the era of freedom after the July Revolution in which only Deburau mimed.

Mime, Music and Drama on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: The Ballet d'Action

Dans la continuité de ses précédents travaux, Edward Nye éclaire le ballet pantomime non pas d’abord comme un phénomène chorégraphique, mais comme aboutissement d’une réflexion sur le langage et l’expression en général. La première partie de son ouvrage vise ainsi à inscrire la pantomime dans le contexte de la pensée du siècle. Selon lui, le ‘ballet d’action’ tel que le concevront Gasparo Angiolini et Jean-Georges Noverre, par sa volonté de raconter une histoire sans le recours des mots et en dehors du système d’un langage des signes, mais avec la même intelligibilité et la même adhésion du public, est en fait ‘logocentrique’ (p. 50). Il s’inscrit donc paradoxalement au cœur d’une redéfinition de la communication, tout en révélant, chez les adversaires du ballet, un conservatisme ‘phonocentré’ (d’après le terme de Derrida, p. 11). Cette idée est réaffirmée dans la conclusion, qui assimile le mime non à la danse mais bien au langage (p. 231). À cet égard, le chapitre quelque peu militant où Nye compare la conception du mime chez Noverre et Étienne Decroux, afin de montrer que le ballet d’action ‘deprioritised language’ (p. 100), ou, plus exactement, la voix, est le moins convaincant car il force le lien nécessairement anachronique entre les deux artistes. Toutefois, le chapitre consacré aux programmes souligne que l’on choisissait toujours des sujets bien connus, ou du moins extrêmement lisibles (p. 219), associés à des descriptions précises, de manière à en contrôler la réception et, partant, l’efficacité. Le processus était donc étroitement surveillé par le texte. La seconde partie resserre l’attention sur l’élaboration d’une dramaturgie pantomimique adossée à la musique, et s’attache donc aux œuvres elles-mêmes. En lien avec l’étude attentive de la partition, on regrettera que le ‘tableau’ ne soit pas davantage abordé: pourtant, son impact sensible, visuel et, ici, sonore, sur l’imagination, est crucial (comme le montre Pierre Frantz dans L’Esthétique du tableau dans le théâtre du

The Eighteenth-Century Ballet-Pantomime and Modern Mime

Histories of mime largely overlook one of the most remarkable theatrical phenomena of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century: the ballet-pantomime. In contrast, it is widely discussed in dance history circles, as if there were a tacit understanding that only one half of this hyphenated art mattered: the ballet rather than the pantomime. This article explores the mime component of the ballet-pantomime in order to compare and contrast it with modern mime, especially Etienne Decrouxs principles and practices. Through the works of Noverre particularly (since Decroux declares himself an admirer), but with reference also to other famous and less famous eighteenth-century choreographers and dancers, Edward Nye discusses five aspects of mime: use of the body, mime and dance, mime and language, objective and subjective mime, and pedagogy. He finds differences as well as similarities between modern and eighteenth-century mime, but overall argues that there is no reason to exclude the ballet-pantomime from histories of mime. Edward Nye is Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in French. He has published on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century subjects in French literature and the arts, notably Literary and Linguistic Theories in Eighteenth-Century France (OUP, 2000), and on the literary aesthetics of sports writing, in A Bicyclette (Les Belles Lettres, 2000), and of dance, in Danse et litterature; sur quel pied danser? (ed., Rodopi, 2003).

Dancing words: eighteenth-century ballet pantomime wordbooks as paratexts

Abstract One of the most difficult issues in the study of eighteenth century dance is what to make of the ‘wordbooks’ for ballets-pantomimes which contain long verbal descriptions of the action. These wordbooks are by far the most abundant vestige of an ephemeral art which has, by nature, left little trace. Ballets-pantomimes were not transcribed, unlike the ‘danse noble’ of court and theatre which is preserved in Beauchamp-Feuillet notation. Even if these wordbooks are easily accessible in libraries all over Europe, it is difficult to know how to interpret them. They offer little technical information on choreography or staging, and instead are mostly devoted to recounting the version of the mythological, historical, literary, or sometimes original story on which the performance is based. It is safe to assume that they correspond in some way to the stage action, but the nature of the correspondence is hard to judge.