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“A Constructive Promise”: Jacques Copeau in New York, 1917–1919

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

John Harrop
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Extract

On April 7, 1919, almost exactly two years after the United States had entered World War I, the Vieux-Colombier theatre gave its final performance in New York, where it had spent the last eighteen months of the war presenting two seasons of repertory. The rather surprising presence of Jacques Copeau's troupe in New York at this time can be largely attributed to the war itself. Copeau had first been dispatched on a lecture tour in January of 1917 by the French Ministry of Fine Arts, with the aim of “countering German propaganda in the realm of culture,” strengthening ties between France and the United States, and stemming the tide of pro-German feeling then running in America. Though Copeau had already performed a similar task in Switzerland and was aware of the significance of his brief, his approach was subtle. Clayton Hamilton tells us that in the six lectures he delivered Copeau “talked to us of art and Molière, and said no word about the war … talked to us only about Truth and Beauty in the midst of many things succumbing momentarily to death. We welcomed Jacques Copeau because he wore the face of Dante.…”

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , November 1971 , pp. 104 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1971

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References

Notes

1. Doisy, Marcel, Jacques Copeau ou l'Absolu dans L'Art (Paris, 1954), p. 81.Google Scholar

2. Hamilton, Clayton, Seen on the Stage (New York, 1920), p. 94Google Scholar.

3. Hamilton, Clayton, “The Arts and Crafts Theatre,” Theatre Magazine, xxv (06 1917), 332Google Scholar.

4. Ibid. Belasco's remark also gives some indication of the disapproving viewtaken of the new movement by the Broadway professional.

5. Woollcott, Alexander, New York Times, March 11, 1917, p. 11Google Scholar.

6. New York Times, May 2, 1917, p. 9. Names included: H.R. Winthrop, Cornelius Vanderbilt, T. Roosevelt, Jr.

7. New York Times, May 16, 1917, p. 13. Among those on the Council were Mrs. W.K. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, Mrs. Egerton Winthrop.

8. New York Times, July 15, 1917, p. 4.

9. Copeau, Jacques, Souvenirs du Vieux-Colombier (Paris, 1931), p. 78Google Scholar.

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11. New York Times, 05 20, 1917, viii, p. 6Google Scholar.

12. The economic facts of New York theatre were such that, to succeed, any non-commercial venture had to appeal to the moneyed socialites whose subscription tickets provided the necessary financial subsidy.

13. Kurtz, M., Jacques Copeau. Biographic d'un Theâtre (Paris, 1950), p. 80. All translations from the French are mineGoogle Scholar.

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28. Quoted by Kurtz, p. 90.

29. Doisy, p.86.

30. In his Critiques d'un Autre Temps (Paris, 1923), p. 239Google Scholar, Copeau said: “The public we propose to reach at first … will be in our own neighbourhood, among the cultured elite, students, writers, artists, foreign intellectuals who live in the old Latin Quarter.” His guiding principle was not to conform to the “uncertain demands” of the public, but to create his own public around his own carefully considered ideal. Yet, in New York, he was confronted by just those rich philistines from whose conventional attitudes he was trying to rescue the theatre.

31. Copeau, Jacques, Les Cahiers Du Vieux-Colombier, No. 1 (Paris, 1920), p. 23Google Scholar.

32. Ibid.., p. 13.

33. Seligmann, Herbert, “The Play: Two Comedies at a French Theatre,” Globe and Commercial Advertiser, March 5, 1918, p. 12Google Scholar.

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35. New York Times, March 17, 1918, p. 5.

36. The Nation, CXVI, (04 18, 1918), 487. John Corbin confirmed, in the New York Times of March 16, 1918, this steadily increasing audience of truebelievers, and attributed the decision to stay for a second season to thisGoogle Scholar.

37. Copeau, , Les Cahiers du Vieux-Colombier, No. 2 (Paris, 1921), p. 35Google Scholar.

38. Copeau, , Souvenirs …, p. 79Google Scholar.

39. A list of both seasons' repertory appears in an appendix to the essay.

40. Spiers, p. 643.

41. Theatre Magazine, XXVIII (11 1918), 292Google Scholar.

42. Doisy, p. 87.

43. Copeau, , Souvenirs …, p. 80Google Scholar.

44. New York Evening Journal, October 16, 1918, p. 16.

45. New York Times, November 19, 1918, p. 13.

46. New York Times, January 14, 1919, p. 9.

47. New York World, November 12, 1918, p. 12.

48. New York Times, February 11, 1919, p. 11. The production of Les Caprices de Marianne suffered from similar obtuseness, the critic of Theatre Magazine (December 1918) condemning it for action happening “everywhere and nowhere.” A more hopeful comment by the New York Times (October 29, 1918) compared Blanchette favorably with previous American productions of Brieux, and attributed this to Copeau's direction.

49. Copeau, , Souvenirs …, p. 80Google Scholar.

50. Mason, Hamilton, French Theatre in New York (New York, 1940), p. 27. Apart from a brief introduction, Mason's book is simply a listing of plays performedGoogle Scholar.

51. Ibid..

52. Dramatic Mirror, October 19, 1918, p. 579.

53. New York Times, October 13, 1918, p. 3.

54. New York American, March 18, 1919, p. 10.

55. New York Times, April 8, 1919, p. 8.

56. Copeau, , Souvenirs …, p. 78Google Scholar.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid., p. 82.

59. The Garrick had seated 550 people after Copeau's renovations and, as Wallis Eaton said in his The Theatre Guild (New York, 1929), p. 32, “It was impossible to make much money in it”Google Scholar.

60. Copeau, , Cahiers …, No. 1, p. 28Google Scholar.

61. Ibid., p. 30.

62. Ibid., p. 36.

63. Ibid., p. 28.

64. Copeau, , Souvenirs …, p. 83Google Scholar.

65. Ibid., p. 80.

66. Copeau's propaganda function was obviated by America's entrance into the war, and most French cultural reviews and magazines (such as La Nouvelle Revue Française) which would have covered Copeau's visit, had ceased publication for the war's duration.

67. The Nation, CVIII (03 29, 1919), p. 482Google Scholar.

68. Kurtz, p. 93.

69. Eaton, , The Theatre Guild, p. 34Google Scholar.

70. Clurman, Harold, The Fervent Years (New York, 1945), p. 5Google Scholar.

71. Ibid., p. 15.

72. Quoted by Kurtz, p. 214.

73. Macgowan, Kenneth, Theatre Arts Magazine, III (01 1919), 89Google Scholar.

74. Macgowan, Kenneth, The Theatre of Tomorrow (New York, 1921), p. 84Google Scholar.

75. Simonson indicated his enthusiasm for Copeau's concept of staging in The Art of Scene Design (New York, 1950), pp. 46–47Google Scholar.

76. Peters, Rollo, “To Jacques Copeau”, Theatre Arts Magazine, III (03 1919), 84Google Scholar.

77. The repertory is drawn from Mason, passim.