Dramatic and Epic in the Play (Eugène Scribe, Alexander Ostrovsky)

The author points out the large role of the plot conflict, which is successfully resolved in the final in the play “Comradeship, or the Ladder of Glory” (1837) of Eugène Scribe. A different trend can be traced in the plays of Alexander Ostrovsky, remarkable for their characterology: the playwright introduces a lot of “extra” characters, his plays introduce dialogues on topics that are not directly related to the main plot.

“Sardoodledom” on the English Stage: T. W. Robertson and the Assimilation of Well-Made Play into the English Theatre

The article discusses a vital figure in the development of modern English theatre, Thomas William Robertson, in the context of his borrowings, inspirations, translations and adaptations of the French dramatic formula pièce bien faite (well-made play). The paper gives the definition and enumerates features of the formula created with great success by the French dramatist Eugène Scribe. Presenting the figure of Thomas William Robertson, the father of theatre management and realism in Victorian theatre, the focus is placed on his adaptations of French plays and his incorporation of the formula of the well-made play and its conventional dramatic devices into his original, and most successful, plays, Society and Caste. The paper also examines the critical response to the well-made play in England and dramatists who use its formula, especially from the point of view of George Bernard Shaw, who famously called the French plays of Scribe and Victorien Sardou—“Sardoodledom.”

How to Catch the Devil? Performance Materiality and Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable

Stage machinery enters the historical narrative often enough through mishaps and interruptions. This article takes as its starting point a report of the Paris opera director Véron in order to think about the role of materiality in the analysis of past performances. The occasion, depicted in the report, is the opening night of Robert le Diable, written by Eugène Scribe and composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The article discusses two key questions on the historiographic value of the report as a source for performance analysis. (1) How can we unfold the performativity of a past performance through archival documents? (2) What is the impact of the materiality of machinery, bodies and space in the theatrical interplay?