Marion Delorm (play)

Hugo began writing the drama Marion Delorma on June 2, 1829 , and twenty-four days later, on June 26, 1829 , the entire text of the play was ready. At the beginning of July, Hugo read his drama, which he originally called The Duel in the Time of Richelieu, in a circle of friends. Among the listeners were Balzac , Musset , Dumas , Merimet , Delacroix and a number of other writers and artists close to the romantic movement. On the advice of friends, Hugo made quite significant reductions in the text of the drama, and later changed its title.

“Marion Delorm” is a romantic tragedy in which some historical images and events are intertwined with free fiction. Along with Louis XIII , Cardinal Richelieu , Marion Delorm and others, Hugo paints a gallery of fictional faces. For more specificity, the image of Hugo gives the exact date of action: 1638 . From brief but expressive remarks of the characters, the audience will learn about the socio-political life of France in the Richelieu era. “Backstage” characters, who play a significant role in the development of conflicts and the personal lives of the heroes of the drama, are also directly related to the events depicted in the drama and persons. This broadens the scope of the play and deepens its historical background. So, for example, the image of Cardinal Richelieu, who remains to the end a “backstage”, off-stage character, is outlined with great skill. He has never been shown to the audience, and his role is limited to only one ominous phrase sanctioning the execution (“Not a word about mercy!”), But the huge figure of Richelieu rises above all the characters in the drama: his name is on everyone’s lips, he determines the fate of the heroes dramas, being the central axis around which the action revolves.

The dramatic conflict “Marion Delorm” is based on the clash of socially disadvantaged, declassified, lonely heroes (Marion and Didier) with the grim forces of the absolutist monarchy embodied in the images of Louis XIII, Richelieu and the performers of their decrees.

The image of Marion Delorm, created by Hugo, has little in common with his historical prototype. Hugo idealized his heroine, making her a victim of social evil. Marion was once the idol of the “golden” aristocratic youth, depraved nobles and dignitaries, but now she has broken with the shameful past of the famous courtesan and appears before the viewer as a deeply unhappy young woman yearning for real, great, human love. But she is relentlessly haunted by an unseemly past. The emotional drama Marion Delorme is perceived by secular gamers with mockery and irony, and her passionate love for Didier seems to them only as a fun, a whim. Hugo draws Marion's deep inner estrangement from the world with which she was previously associated.

The image of Didier embodies the typical features of a romantic hero - an extreme individualist, a proud loner, who entered into a hopeless struggle with the society around him.

In Marion Delorm, it is easy to find traces of the influence of Shakespeare , who was deeply revered by a young romantic author. But the "Shakespeare" of Hugo here, as in his subsequent dramas, comes down mainly to the external reproduction of some of the techniques and features of the composition of Shakespeare’s dramaturgy. Like his great teacher, Hugo sought to introduce mass scenes on which the action would unfold. Under the explicit influence of Hamlet , scenes with vagrant artists were written. Marion reads the monologue of Jimena from the Cornelian Sid , in which her own destiny is encrypted. Didier's philosophical thoughts about life and death are externally sustained in Hamlet tones. The image of Langeli was supposed, according to Hugo, to resonate with the image of the jester from King Lear , although in reality Langeli’s jokes lacked folk wisdom, juiciness, and sharp expressiveness.

The Shakespearean reminiscences felt in Marion Delorm, testify not only to the influence of Shakespeare; they also speak of Hugo’s great dramatic talent and his excellent stage knowledge. Nevertheless, the creative method of Shakespeare, the ideological and psychological depth, the realism of his tragedies were not comprehended by Hugo, who created a completely different type of drama in completely different historical conditions.

Immediately after creating the play on June 26, 1829 , reading it by the author in a circle of friends - writers and artists close to the romantic movement - negotiations began on the production of the play. Three Parisian theaters almost simultaneously expressed their readiness to stage the drama. Hugo preferred the Comedy Francaise Theater. The play was supposed to appear on the stage of this theater in the same 1829, but suddenly there were obstacles of a censorship nature. The authorities, not without reason, saw in the characterization of the Richelieu dictatorship an allusion to the despotic way of governing France under Charles X. All the efforts of Hugo before the ministers and even a direct appeal to the king were in vain: the play was forbidden. Only after the July Revolution of 1830, which brought along with other bourgeois-liberal reforms the liberation of theaters from royal censorship, did the production of the Hugo play become possible. This time, the playwright provided her with one of the most democratic theaters in Paris - Port Saint-Martin.

The title role was entrusted to the then-famous actress Marie Dorval , on whose advice Hugo made a number of significant changes to the text of the play, especially in the last act. So, for example, in the original version of the play Didier went to execution, not forgiving Marion; Hugo has now added a scene of forgiveness. At the same time, the author significantly deepened the role of Marion psychologically, making small changes or additions in different parts of the play.

The premiere took place on August 11, 1831 , when the Parisian public already knew Hugo quite well as a playwright in the production, two years before, of his play Hernani . As then, the auditorium became the scene of a fierce struggle between different groups of spectators, and the reviews of various newspapers were contradictory, depending mainly on their political direction.

The play lasted three months in the repertoire, but after that it was only renewed in 1838 , already by the Comedy Frances Theater, where it then went on almost daily until 1852 , when the production of all Hugo plays was banned in France by Napoleon III . In 1867, Napoleon III declared an amnesty to the defenders of the republic, and many political emigrants returned to France. However, Hugo rejected the amnesty, stating: "I will return when freedom returns to France." Under pressure from public opinion, the government was forced to allow the staging of his dramas “Hernani” and “Ruy Blaz” . Then unexpectedly followed by the secondary prohibition of the Ruy Blaz. Then a group of writers and artists, friends of Hugo, in protest organized the production of "Marion Delorm" in the form of an amateur performance in the Marquise Ricard salon. Roles were performed by poets and writers, including François Coppe and Katul Mendes .

Only after the fall of Napoleon III, in 1873, "Marion Delorm" reappeared on the French stage; it was staged at the Comedy Frances Theater with the participation of the best actors of the troupe: Jean Mune-Sully , Mademoiselle Favard, and later Sarah Bernhardt . The democratic audience warmly greeted the drama of Hugo. The call for humanity contained in it was consonant with the struggle for amnesty for the participants in the Paris Commune , which was waged by the progressive public at that time, many saw in Marion Delorm a direct hint of modernity. Since then, the play has firmly entered the repertoire of French theaters and continued to be staged almost without interruptions at the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century .

In Russia, the play was banned for a long time and this ban was sanctioned at the highest level. According to the testimony of P. A. Vyazemsky , the performance of the play was forbidden directly by Emperor Nicholas I : “ It was submitted to him on December 14. He got to the place where it is said about the gallows, threw the book on the floor and forbade the performance ” ^[1] .

In 1889, the French troupe, who played at the Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg , showed the Russian audience the play "Marion Delorm", which until then was under strict censorship, like all plays by Hugo.

In 1890, the drama was presented in Russian in Moscow , at the Gorelova Theater, and in 1899 at the St. Petersburg Pavlovsk Theater.

After the October Revolution, the play "Marion Delorm" was resumed in 1926 at the Vakhtangov Studio Theater with the artist Orochko in the title role; Since then, the drama has been repeatedly shown on the stages of various theaters.

• 1862 - opera Marion Delorm by Italian composer Giovanni Bottesini
• 1885 - opera Marion Delorm by Italian composer Amilcar Ponchielli , libretto by Enrico Golisani
• 80s - opera Marion Delorm by Russian composer Pavel Semenovich Makarov

• 1912 - French film Marion Delorm, director Albert Capellani
• 1919 - Hungarian movie "Marion Delorm", director C. Hinter
• 1918 - French film Marion Delorm, directed by Henri Krauss
• 1967 - French television movie Marion Delorm, director Jean Kershbron

• The play "Marion Delorm" on fr.wikipedia.org
• The productions of the play "Marion Delorm" on the site www.lesarchivesduspectacle.net
• Gallica library manuscript page
• The text of the play "Marion Delorm" in Russian translated by A. A. Akhmatova

• Hugo V. Collected works in 15 vol. M., State Publishing House of Fiction, 1953. (Volume 4).
• Hugo V. Drama. M., Art, 1958. (p. 45-194. Translation by A. A. Akhmatova.)
• Hugo V. Drama. M., Art, 1958. M. Treskunov. The dramaturgy of Victor Hugo. (p. 3-44).
• Hugo V. Collected Works in 10 volumes M., Pravda, 1972. (Volume 1, p. 215-374. Translation by A. A. Akhmatova.).
• Hugo V. Collected works in 6 volumes M., Pravda, 1988.
• Hugo V. Collected works in 6 volumes M., Pravda, 1988. Tolmachev M.V. Witness of the Century Victor Hugo. (Volume 1).
• Hugo V. Collected Works in 14 Vol. Publishing House Terra-Book Club, 2002. (Volume 10).
• Morua A. "Olympio, or the Life of Victor Hugo."