{"id":384,"date":"2024-10-28T08:55:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T08:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/30\/?p=384"},"modified":"2024-12-11T15:23:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T15:23:00","slug":"victor-hugos-cromwell-in-its-entirety-a-world-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/30\/victor-hugos-cromwell-in-its-entirety-a-world-premiere\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Hugo\u2019s Cromwell<\/em> in its Entirety \u2013 A World Premi\u00e8re"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Willinger<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In August of this year Alice Tabart presented the world premi\u00e8re of Victor Hugo\u2019s first published play, Cromwell<\/font>. After waiting 197 years, this epic play, 6 hours long with over 50 characters, has finally been presented in a fascinating and ambitious production. Considered unproduceable all this time, it is revealed as a work of great interest with many compelling, vibrant scenes, a fascinating if historically inaccurate central character, written in a surprising style, redolent of the innovative Romantic movement, but retaining traces of Neo-Classicism and even foreshadowing such modern styles as Brecht\u2019s Epic Theatre. This show combines historical tragedy with broad farce and is performed inside and on the grounds of the site-specific S\u00e9v\u00e9rac-le-Ch\u00e2teau castle. Each of its five acts was directed by a different director in its own style.

Keywords: <\/strong>Victor Hugo, Romanticism, romanticist drama, French theatre, French romantic drama, epic plays<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hugo\u2019s first major play Cromwell<\/em> was published in 1827. The foreword he appended to it \u2013 the famous \u201cPreface to Cromwell<\/em>\u201d \u2013 laid down with rhetorical cunning the basic principles of the new school of French Romantic playwriting. \u201cThe Preface\u201d has survived as one of Romanticism\u2019s signature documents. Approximately four fifths of the way through his \u201cPreface,\u201d Hugo gets around to referring to the play itself, the first observation being that he \u201chas very little to say\u201d about it (43). Even as the \u201cPreface\u201d incited great controversy, few at the time read the play at all. Production of Cromwell<\/em> was out of the question, as it had been banned by the Censor. That ban was superfluous since Hugo had penned a work which defied realization on a contemporary stage, one requiring over fifty actors and a running time of seven hours. So this massive work by one of France\u2019s premi\u00e8re writers languished in obscurity all this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cromwell<\/em> had to wait 130 years for its first performance in 1957, and then in a drastically abridged form adapted by Alain Trutat and directed by Jean Serge with a running time of just two and a half hours out of the seven Hugo intended; this was followed up in 1971 by a version that ran two hours and forty-five minutes which played in the French provinces. Only in August 14-16, 2024 has it received a performance of the near-complete text in Toulouse, France. It was conceived and supervised by Alice Tabart, and staged by a set of six directors (M\u00e9lanie Vayssettes, Simon Le Floc\u2019h, Nathan Croquet, Ma\u00ebva Meunier, Victor Ginicis, and Th\u00e9odore Oliver), combining the resources of five different theatre companies from the region of Toulouse, and played in the site-specific castle, S\u00e9v\u00e9rac-le-Ch\u00e2teau.\u00a0This Cromwell<\/em> ran six hours of the intended seven, all of it in rhymed Alexandrine couplets, with extra time inserted for a dinner break.\u00a0Despite the complete sidelining and consignment to oblivion Hugo\u2019s first published play received, a reading of it today reveals a dramatic work with many strengths and attractions, one that already bears the signatures of Hugo\u2019s idiosyncratic dramatic approach.\u00a0The scholar Fran\u00e7oise Naugrette has argued convincingly that Cromwell<\/em> is eminently performable on the contemporary stage, citing such other massive spectacles in our times as Ariane Mnouchkine\u2019s works such as Sihanouk<\/em> and Peter Brook\u2019s Mahabarata<\/em>, and this recent provincial production proves her right (Naugrette, passim<\/em>.).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Eliot Saour, standing on wall. Photo: Philippe Jacquesson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Hugo\u2019s first published play eschews the temptation of depicting the hectic, eventful rise of Cromwell with his military victories in the Civil War or his role in the beheading of King Charles I.\u00a0Its central action conjures the critical point late in Cromwell\u2019s personal arc, only a year before his death, long after he had achieved a settled hegemonic position of Protector, at which point he toyed with the possibility of having himself crowned king, an inner debate centered in the core of the play from beginning to end.\u00a0Anticipating such a power grab, the forces from the side of his Cavalier opponents in the late Civil War start to band together with his Puritan supporters to form an insurrection, that would culminate in an assassination of the newly crowned king, analogous to that in Shakespeare\u2019s Julius Caesar<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cromwell discovers this incipient insurrection and has its many participants incarcerated, in preparation for their execution. Finally, in a surprise reversal, he determines that assuming the crown and scepter would paradoxically weaken him and make him vulnerable to removal, whereas by foregoing the crown, his power could become more absolute and perpetual. In one further reversal, Cromwell whose ruthlessness had earned him the nickname \u201cIronsides,\u201d uncharacteristically pardons all his adversaries and releases them, ironically further consolidating his power. All focus is on the concentrated moment after the strongman leader has arrived at the pinnacle of success. It should be asserted that such a cabal never took place in the actual history, but is Hugo\u2019s invention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chief innovation in this play which purports to deliver a serious theme is that so much of it is treated humoristically, thus violating the prescribed Neo-Classical Unity of Tone.\u00a0However, the duration of the fictional action is confined to about thirty-six hours, thus hewing closely to Unity of Time. It has also not departed from the Neo-Classical prescripts in that it is almost uniformly a verse drama, in rhymed Alexandrine couplets.\u00a0However, it often rises to an impression of an easy conversational tempo and is ruled by the thought being developed rather than being dominated by straitjacket rhymes.\u00a0Each act is set in a different locale, but only one, the first, is beyond the confines of Whitehall Palace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The large character groupings that frequently flood the stage (more frequently and in greater force in the text than the current production attempts) represent a march into new territory for the French theatre which had formerly strictly limited cast size to a very few aristocratic contenders recycled generally from Ancient Greek Mythology or drama.\u00a0They are sets of construction workers, who are erecting the dais and audience bleachers for Cromwell\u2019s coronation, and numerous ordinary people who assemble to witness the coronation.\u00a0In this historical drama, the masses, including lower class working people and middle-class burghers, have their say regarding the momentous events to which they are spectators if not participants.\u00a0It is made clear that they could potentiall<\/em>y become active participants, either in an armed insurrection or new civil war, should events take such a turn.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the signatures of the new Hugolien drama is an idiosyncratic sense of humor. This humor arises both from situation and character. Often a character harshly criticizing a leader with the power to demolish them or proposing to murder that person, is overheard or called to account in such a way that unmasks their frivolity or want of discretion. Likewise, there are frequent plot twists in which the person with power is made to overhear such harsh criticisms, points of view that clash with their own sense of themselves as impervious, unassailable, and above criticism. In this way, characters of high status have their outer shells punctured and egos deflated, often to comic effect. Unexpected characters or character groupings walk in on secret, forbidden proceedings, which while naturally increasing suspense, also immediately casts malign intentions in a new light and instantly causes defiant characters to shrink to timidity. Then there is the barbed verbal wit deployed at insulting silly, lightweight, or pompous contending parties. Humor also derives from characters who literally embody humor, notably uncensored court jesters, four madmen whose commentaries give fresh perspective and deflate the gravity of the situation. Another such is a randy old lady character of Cromwell\u2019s daughter\u2019s duenna, Dame Guggligoy, the like of which would have been unthinkable in the old Neo-Classical drama, but would be very at home in a romp by Gozzi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another essentially comic character is that of the sparkish, worldly courtier, Rochester, who transvests himself as a Puritan clergyman to insinuate himself into the court\u2019s inner circle, whom Cromwell unwittingly retains as his personal chaplain. A great deal of comic mileage is achieved as Rochester misquotes biblical passages, greatly impressing the devout Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell, in addition to cutting short the English royal line for the period of the Interregnum, is famous for banning all forms of private pleasure and public entertainment. A life of sobriety was enforced, so humor is not the first thing that comes to mind when contemplating the Lord Protector\u2019s historical person or trajectory; but that is just what Hugo finds in treating them.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sacherneka Anacassis and Arnaud Delheure. Photo: Philippe Jacquesson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In a different key, the character of the great poet John Milton, poet laureate under Cromwell and bard of Puritanism, gives off a kind of grotesque grandeur, as at this stage of his life he is blind; it will be remembered that one of the chief arguments of the \u201cPreface\u201d was for the inclusion of the grotesque to balance out unremitting beauty and sublime. Later in the play, setting up Cromwell\u2019s ceremonial entrance on the occasion of his supposed crowning, a fantastical character fashioned \u201cThe Champion of England,\u201d charges onstage and presents a rousing, extended publicity pitch for the Protector. In the Toulouse production, this anachronistic figure is escorted onstage on the back of a chugging motor bike, and played by an athletic Black woman, the versatile and dynamic Sacherneka Anacassis. With both feet planted on the ground, her svelte androgynous form squeezed into a running suit, and in a jargon worthy of late twentieth century Madison Avenue, we are suddenly transported to a theatre style reminiscent of a Meyerhold production of a constructivist Mayakovsky play, providing a startling and different modality of grotesquery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Toulouse production exploits the features of its castle setting without architectural alteration. With each of its acts, the textual play acquires a new locale, a flagrant breach of the Neo-Classical principle of Unity of Place, though tempered in that four out of five acts retain us in or around Whitehall Palace. The first Act in the Toulouse production, representing the Tavern of the Three Chicadees, is the only one to take place inside the Castle, set in its ruined ballroom. Large blacked out windows are plugged into the high stone walls at various levels. Basic lighting is provided by fluorescents hanging over the space, and the tavern is defined by a few Ikea-style wooden tables and benches loosely distributed. Whereas Hugo prescribes Charles I\u2019s coat of arms on all surfaces, the designer opts for two portraits of Oliver Cromwell (one only a head) leaning on the upstage right wall and a giant playing card King of Hearts, representing the beheaded Charles I lodged against the wall stage left. All the other acts are placed outside (although Hugo\u2019s stage directions denote Acts II, III, and V as interiors) in the castle\u2019s Cour d\u2019honneur. This is a wide-open space with the low castle wall topped by a high turret far upstage (with magnificent hills rolling away in the distance beyond), connecting to the imposing main building to the left, which is reached by a curving stone staircase. Other doors are set into it as well for less grand entrances. Downstage right is a rock outcropping on which the percussion set is perched. All areas are used at different points in the action, though each director has their own way of using the space.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Victor Ginicis (on table), Cl\u00e9mence Barbier, Sara Charrier and Yohann Villepastour. Photo: Philippe Jacquesson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Hugo\u2019s cast calls for some 55 roles plus multiple sets of extras, the which, with only three exceptions, are male. Here, in the live show, there are 22 actors, rebalanced equally between male and female, with certain women playing principal male roles. To account for the smaller ensemble, actors are doubled, a number of roles have been fused together, and certain endless monologues have been judiciously cropped. Importantly, the clich\u00e9d negative portrait of the conniving moneylender Jew, Manasseh, whose inclusion would have precluded producing the play entirely, has been reconfigured to be a female banker and astrologer of indeterminate provenance. The music consists mostly of the percussion which often punctuates speeches and physical action, but at some points there are haunting horn solos and other music as well, virtually all of which is played live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout, the actors aim for a relaxed, unpretentious approach to the verse, honoring the rhyming, but making it sound human and conversational. Certain actors, notably those playing the Cavalier, Lord Rochester (played by Yohann Villepastour), who perilously masquerades as Cromwell\u2019s chaplain to spy on him, Richard Cromwell (Oliver\u2019s ostensibly disloyal son, played by Victor Ginicis (who also directs)), and the Jesters at times manage to inject more life and embody their verse delivery to a higher degree. It is a testament to the ensemble that we tend to forget they are speaking verse at all and accept the show on the same level as we would a Shakespeare history play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The costumes are variously realized, ranging from simple culottes, some blouses with flowing sleeves for the Cavaliers, omnipresent black cloaks for the conspirator scenes, but very often just modern pants and tee shirts. The Jesters wear fanciful orange floppy wings (foolscaps) on their heads, which accentuate their zaniness as they cavort jaggedly around. Another source of grotesque frivolity interjected into the solemn dramatic armature, which is one of the touchstones of Hugo\u2019s innovation, is the character of the duenna, Dame Guggligoy, played here with the shrill offensiveness of a superannuated Commedia witch, enlivening Act III.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Eliot Saour, Clarice Boyriven and Yoan Charles. Photo: Philippe Jacquesson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At one point in Act II, the dialogue stops short, and Cromwell silently strides away from us (humanity) to the low Upstage wall, and looks out at all the nature beyond as the sun sets, his pose suggesting Caspar David Friedrich\u2019s painting, \u201cWanderer Above a Sea of Fog\u201d \u2013 an essential icon of the Romanticist movement. He instantly transforms to the essential solitary, inwardly troubled Romantic hero in confrontation with all-consuming Nature, a sense of the character that the verbiage masks. But, Romanticism, chiefly identified with a certain dense atmosphere of subjectivity, is most vividly conjured up throughout Acts IV (directed by Victor Ginicis) and V (directed by Th\u00e9odore Oliver).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Act IV, the Protector dresses up as a common sentry guard, so he can eavesdrop on the conspirators who would rise up against and assassinate him were he to accept the crown. Hugo structures these scenes as segments of the conspirators\u2019 dialogue in counterpoint to Cromwell\u2019s asides. Here, the pattern of call and response accrues a mesmeric cadence. Darkness has set in, and the world has become oneiric; it\u2019s as though his opponents are spirits or presences within his head. Groupings representing the masses also move in, providing Cromwell with a window into how his ordinary subjects feel about him. The scene rises to a crisis when Cromwell\u2019s son Richard who had joined the conspiracy reverses his position and comes to his father\u2019s defense when the others propose resorting to assassination; the Protector unmasks himself and confronts them all. The conspirators\u2019 arrest is depicted obliquely as they are encircled and escorted off by three motor bikes, reinforcing the atmospheric strangeness. The Act concludes with wild commentaries on what has just transpired by the four mad Jesters, who finally are stumped by the confounding developments, and having no other recourse, resolve to storm the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Actor grouping on darkened stage. Photo: Philippe Jacquesson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

By Act V, Cromwell\u2019s early project for crowning himself king is taking palpable shape in the form of bleachers being erected for the august occasion. A stomp dance of workers on the gleaming aluminum structure substitutes for literal construction work. As an outsized orange neon crucifix rises into the night sky, the workers\u2019 giant shadows on the castle walls replicate their pure white-clad figures. The stage is then bathed in a purple wash, which makes it difficult to distinguish human forms. Yet it is clear that the remaining conspirators, in black, are swarming, each carrying their cellphone flashlight. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Christian Mouteli\u00e8re, Quentin Quignon as Cromwell, Ma\u00ebva Meunier, filming live. Photo: Philippe Jacquesson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Though we see no faces throughout the long scene, the ebb and flow of bodies is as though we\u2019re in some sort of inferno peopled by diaphanous spirits. As common people also make bold comments from the audience and Cromwell\u2019s retinue makes use of the stone staircase, the stage feels filled and formed in all its volume in a new way, with groups seething, forming and evaporating as well as \u2013 for the first time \u2013 using close-up projections of Cromwell rippling over the castle walls. There is the sense of a complete society represented for the moment of high historical import, as well as a mediatic dimension magnifying it. The costumes in this act are suddenly more colorful, so reenforcing the pomp and circumstance of the processions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should also be remarked that a reading of the play gave me a sense of its modernity due to the central character Cromwell\u2019s maintenance of a generally cool, detached stance toward himself and events. Quentin Quignon, the actor valiantly playing this vast role through six demanding hours, belies my admittedly personal reading, as he often rants and paces, evoking a different, passionately engaged sort of Romanticism. I feel the other approach would have been more daring and iconoclastic; the road taken here reenforces the recognizably traditional tirade of the classical French theatre, which Hugo denounces in his \u201cPreface,\u201d in place of which Hugo has concocted an approach that verges on Brechtian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, this production is an undertaking of historical proportions that took daring and enterprise on its creators\u2019 parts, as well as the acuity to recognize the innate greatness of this sprawling, neglected work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bibliography<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Hugo, Victor. \u201cPr\u00e9face\u201d de Cromwell<\/em>. \u0152uvres compl\u00e8tes<\/em><\/a>: Cromwell, Hernani<\/em>, vol. 23. Th\u00e9\u00e2tre,<\/em> Tome I. Librairie Ollendorff, 1912, pp. 7-51. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naugrette, Florence. \u201cPublier Cromwell <\/em>et sa Pr\u00e9face: une provocation fondatrice,\u201d Address to Colloquium on \u201cImpossible Theatres.\u201d University of Grenoble, 11-13 June 2001. Accessed 20 Sept. 2024. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>David Willinger<\/strong> is the author of Ivo Van Hove Onstage<\/em>, published by Routledge, and eight other books on Belgian drama which feature his many translations, including Four Millenial Plays from Belgium<\/em>. His many articles have been published in Plays International<\/em>, The Drama Review<\/em>, Modern Drama<\/em>, Western European Stages<\/em>, Symposium<\/em>, etc. He is Professor Emeritus of Theatre at City College and the Graduate Center, CUNY and has been awarded the Prix de Rayonnement by the Belgian government. He is also a playwright, lyricist, and director with more than 60 productions to his credit. His latest play was Bring Them Back<\/em>, a mixed media play about the return of the dead, was seen at Theater for the New City. He is currently preparing a new book, Victor Hugo\u2019s \u201cLucretia Borgia<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2024 David Willinger
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em>, #30, Dec. 2024
e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Creative<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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