Paillasse

Paillasse (or La Paillasse in some sources, i.e. "Clown" or "The Clown") is a French drama in five acts by Adolphe d' Ennery (1811-1899)[2] and Marc Fournier (1818-1879)

Not to be confused with the opera Pagliacci (known as Paillasse'' in French and The Players in English) by Ruggero Leoncavallo.

The original text
Featuring a clown named "Belphégor" (see also Belphegor), it was a great success and became the source for a number of English adaptations by various authors. It was first performed in Paris at the Théâtre de la Gaité, on 9 November 1850. Published in Paris by Dondey-Dupré, 1850 and in Volume 17 of Magasin théâtral illustré by J. A. Lelong, Brussels, in 1850.

Translations and adaptations
The play immediately became the source for a number of English adaptations or derivative works by various authors produced in the 1850's and later.

Among the most notable are:

Belphegor the Itinerant (or Belphegor, or The Mountebank and His Wife,1851) by John Courtney; Belphegor, or The Mountebank and His Wife (or Belphegor, the Buffoon, or The Robbers of the Revolution,1851) by Thomas Higgie and Thomas Hailes Lacy; Belphegor the Mountebank, or Pride of Bath (1851) by Benjamin Nottingham Webster; Belphegor the Mountebank, or Woman's Constancy (1856) by C. Webb; and The Acrobat (1891) by Wilson Barrett.

Belphegor (1889) by J. Wilton Jones and Belphegor by L. S. Buckingham are possibly also derivatives of the French play.

Webb's 1856 version was used as the basis for the 1921 British silent film called Belphegor the Mountebank, directed by Bert Wynne and starring Milton Rosmer, Kathleen Vaughan and Warwick Ward. (In some editions Charles Dillon is also mentioned as an author.)

Performance history in South Africa
Though no French performances of the orginal Ennery and Fournier play have so far been identified in South Africa, a number of the derivative English plays have been done in the country.

See for example the entries on Belphegor, or The Mountebank and His Wife (Courtney) and Belphegor the Mountebank, or Woman's Constancy (Webb).

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