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, or The Mountebank and His Wife (1851) a romantic by Thomas Higgie (1808?-1893) and Thomas Hailes Lacy (1809-1873); Belphegor the Mountebank, or Pride of Bath by Benjamin Nottingham Webster (1797-1882); Belphegor the Mountebank, or Woman's Constancy (1856) by C. Webb; and The Acrobat by Wilson Barrett.

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

Sources

D.C. Boonzaier. 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.

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