The Portland daily press., 1881-10-27
La Dame aux Camelias.

Trench Dramatists,-J. Brander Matthews'l
'sIt was the play of the Dame aux Camelias'
which began to free me from the slavery OF
debt and of the society to which owed botn
the debt and the success. promised myseH
not to ia II back either into debt or into this So
ciety, and 1 kept my promise even at the risk
of being called ungrateful." Written when
the author was but little older than Il, the
novel of the "Dame aux Camelias" had been
published with striking success just before the
revolution of 1S4S. 1t decked out afresh fig
ure of which the French seem prouder than
any other race. Manon Lescaut gave birth to
Marion Delorme, and Marion Delorme was the
mother of the Dame aux Camelias, who, IN
turn, may vainly deny her latest offspring, Ma
ma. Truly, it is an unsavory brood. The pop
ularity of the novel suggested its dramatiza-
ton. The elder Dumas thought i'll OF the pro-
ject, and it was not until melodramatlst
showed the author the scenario of black mel
odrama which he had taken from the novel
that, in sheer revolt at such treatment, M Du-
mas him self SET to work on 1t. In eight days
the play was finished, so the author tells us,
and the statement does not seem extravagant.
AS in the case of the "Supplice dune
Femme which he wrote later with extraor-
dinary rapidity, he had his material all under
his hand, and the play was not comedy, which
calls for slow incubation, but drama of SIM
pie passion, which could be struck off at white
heat In spite of the speed of its production,
the "Dame aux Cam elias, /" of all plays which
an author b as made out OF his novel, shows the
least traces of previous existence. One would
suppose that every stage door in Paris would
open wide to receive dramatlZat1on OF his sue
cessful novel by the son of one of the foremost
novelists and dramatists of France. But it was
more than three years before the play was
tried by the fire of the footllghts. Rejected
by nearly every theatre in Paris, it was at last
accepted at the Vaudeville only to be vetoed
by the censors. Patronized by the Duke OF
Morny, the Government interdict suppressed
it until after the bloody I'd OF December, 1851,
when the Duke himself entered the Ministry,
He believed in providing sensations for the
people of Paris, and if possible in diverting at
tention from politics to the playhouse. The
"Dame aux Camelas'' was brought out at the
Vaudeville Theatre, Paris February 2, 1862.
1t was an instant success, holding the stage Tor
a hundred nights or more. 1t has since been
revived in Paris half dozen times, and al
ways with the same success A mutllaJed and
innocuous alteration of it, prepared by Miss
Jean Davenport, (afterward the wife OF Gen.
Lander) was acted by her in America. 1t was
called 'Camllle; OF Lu6 Eato VI d 0Oquotto,
an absurd title, which shows how the story
suffered in the interest of Procustean morality.
Later the piece was taken up by Miss Matilda
Heron. An italian version of the play served
Signor Verdi as the book of his "Traviata,"
an opera of which the Lord Chamberlain per-
mitted the performance in London while pro-
hibiting the acting of the original French
play. The Dame aux Camelias" was at once
simple, pathetic and audacious. 1t emanci-
pated French comedy and gave it the right of
free speech. To judge it fairly one must con-
slider the comedies which held the
French stage before its coming. There
were Scribe and his collaborators, with
their conventional and machine-made works,
and there were Pensard and M. Augier, with
their plays, poetic in intent and finely polished
but as yet rejecting nothing vital and actual.
The great merit of the Dame aux Camelias"
is that it changed the face of modern French
comedy by pointing the path back to nature
and the existing conditions of society and by
showing that life should be studied as it was,
and not as it had been or as it might be. There
is no need to dwell on the character of the
play. As M. Montegut pointed out over twen-
ty years ago in the ReUue des deug Mondes,
the story Of a courtesan's love may be poetic
subject If treated realistically, adding that M.
Dumas has chosen middle course, and that
the result was little more thau vulgar melo-
drama.