PLAY AND PLAYSCRIPT: DRAMATIC STRUCTURE IN SIX VOLTAIREAN TRAGEDIES (FRANCE)

Abstract

Known primarily as a playwright by his contemporaries, today Voltaire the dramatist is generally dismissed as inferior. This fact led to the hypothesis that for their dramatic value as theatre to surface, his texts must be considered as playscripts bound for completion in performance rather than as finite literary works. Therefore, six representative tragedies were chosen, Adela(\u27)ide du Guesclin (1734), Zulime (1740), Semiramis (1748), L\u27Orphelin de la Chine (1755), Tancrede (1760), and Le Triumvirat (1764). The plays were evaluated through analysis of dramatic structure in relationship to dramatic effectiveness. First, after extensive study of the playscript, a unifying principle was proposed to which all subsequent interpretive decisions were referred in order to ensure unity and consistency. Next, the dramatic structure was examined with a view toward answering four fundamental questions: (1) What structures are used to promote audience involvement and disengagement? (2) How might the actor enhance or detract from audience response? (3) What is specifically tragic about the dramatic structure he employed? (4) How do the nontraditional endings fit into this basic tragic structure? Assuming that the author\u27s goal is to interest an audience through manipulation of dramatic structure, the creation of sympathetic characters, suspense generated as to a situation\u27s outcome, and varying tempo, intensity, and levels of knowledge constitute the means to this end. Close playscript analysis reveals the importance of the actor\u27s contribution to dramatic effectiveness. The works\u27 tragic tone derives from the type of situation explored. Voltaire preferred personal rather than universal dilemmas--man against man or man against society, and, often, the hero is able to overcome the obstacle confronting him, allowing the tragedy to end happily. Overall dramatic structure shows marked variation and experimentation in the elaboration of plot and in the devices employed to provoke spectator response. These include the use of a late point of attack; progression, repetition, and juxtaposition of events; a balanced act structure; and action-filled entr\u27actes. All the essentially theatrical elements which contribute to performance--actors/physical properties/audience--combine with tragic tests structured to evoke maximum audience response to produce interesting, involving plays