FRENCH COMIC ACTORS.

THE two most entertaining actors in the world, and in their way the most perfect, are scarcely known at all in England, even by those of our countrymen who pretend to be acquainted with Paris and its theatres, and who talk of Talma as familiarly as if they were in the habit of taking tickets at his benefit. But the theatre these actors perform at is one which it is not the fashion for the English to attend; for no other reason, that I could ever discover, but that it is incomparably the most amusing theatre in Paris. Though another reason, why these admirable actors are not so much sought after by foreigners, may be, that they generally perform in pieces the comic effect of which chiefly depends on those local circumstances, or passing events of the day, about which foreigners can be expected to feel but little interest, and the drift of which is also conveyed in dialogue consisting of language almost entirely idiomatical, and filled with allusions and turns of expression that can be known to, and therefore thoroughly relished by, natives alone.

But even this reason is a very indifferent one; for (to say nothing of the witnessing of any one of these pieces being invaluable as a lesson in the language, and worth a score of the best that can be got in any other way for love or money) the actors I speak of are the one so miraculously true to nature, and the other so irresistibly comic in every tone, look, and motion, that it is scarcely necessary to understand what they say, to be infinitely amused and delighted with them. But our countrymen, being all "sage, grave men," choose to pay their eight or ten francs to be permitted to sleep away their evening over a solemn farce, yclept a tragedy, in a première loge of the Théatre Français, or in hearing, without listening to, that still less amusing enormity, a grand opera at the Académie de Musique,-when they might, for thirty sous, be laughing away three or four hours (for I defy them to help laughing, whether they understood or not) in the pit of the prettiest little theatre in Paris, witnessing as many different pieces, each unlike all the rest in character, and yet each as light as a feather, as lively as a jig, and as gay as a May-day garland; and each performed by actors most of whom are admirable in their respective lines, and two of them, in particular, absolutely unique. It is of these two that I am about to speak; and I must mention their names before the reader will know who I mean-which should not be the names and qualities of Brunet and Potier ought to be known every where, if it were only to place as a set-off against those of another set of French actors, not a tenth part so clever or respectable, with whose performances the stage of Europe is at present ringing from side to side. And to shew the just manner in which each set is appreciated in France, I may add, that the Parisians would scarcely consent to part with the former, even if, by so doing, they could get rid of the latter. Indeed, the farce of Potier and Brunet is almost capable of making them forget, if not forgive, that of Chateaubriand and Louis XVIII.: if it had not, I don't know what would have become of the Bourbons by this time!-Or rather, I do know.

Brunet and Potier are as unlike each other as they are unlike all other actors. Each is "himself alone," and dependent on nothing but

himself for support-not even on his character. And yet neither can be seen to the best advantage except when he is performing with the other;—which is singular, because there is evidently a spirit of rivalry between them, and each would, and in fact does, carry away the whole of the applause and attention at the moment he is speaking, and no part of the audience seem to feel that there is any other claimant before them, till he has done. But the moment he has done, and it comes to the other's turn to be heard, he (whichever it may be) is all in all, and his rival nothing. The way in which the ball of fun is thus kept up between them, for a whole scene, or even a whole piece, is as remarkable as it is amusing. I have gone to the Théâtre des Variétés night after night, for weeks together-solely to see these two actors perform; and without pretending to be familiar with half the turns of expression, or to understand half the allusions, on which the joke of the moment has depended, I have never been so much entertained by the performances of any other comic actors whatever—not even the best of our own which proves to me that it must depend almost entirely on the actors themselves, and not on any thing that they may have to deliver. If they happen to be performing a witty or a humourous part, you laugh at the wit and humour of the part, as well as at their performance of it. But if they have nothing to do, they make as much out of that as if it were ready made to their hands-provided the character they perform be not directly opposed to their different styles; —which, indeed, they take care shall never be the case; for they have the power, in this respect, all in their own hands. As a proof of their complete self-dependence, one of the pieces in which, when it was in vogue, they were the most irresistibly amusing, (Je fais mes Farces,) is the most absolute and unmixed nonsense, from beginning to end, that ever was penned;—if indeed it ever was penned; but to see these two actors perform in it, one would be tempted to suppose that their parts, at least, were left blank, and that they filled them up with any thing

that came into their heads at the moment.

On the other hand, (and this, more than any thing else, proves the rich and sterling talent they possess,) when by accident they have any thing to perform that really deserves the name of a character, they do it in the most rich, and yet the most chaste and unexaggerated manner.

Though Potier must, I believe, be considered as the greater favourite of the two,-if a distinction of this kind must be made,-yet Brunet deserves the first particular mention, on account of his long standing, as well as the class of his performances-inasmuch as the ability to give a pure and simple imitation of nature, is a more rare and valuable talent, than that of originating the most ludicrously extravagant exaggerations-whether of nature or of manners.

Brunet's person, though perfectly well-formed, is diminutive to a remarkable degree; and though he is at present advanced considerably beyond middle age, there is a youthful and even child-like simplicity in his expression and voice, that is admirably adapted to the rather limited range of characters he adopts. These are, generally speaking, the Jocrisses of the French comedy and farce-the simple, truth-telling, untaught, unteachable valets and serving-men-the antitheses of the Frontins of the same race-the cunning, lying, clever, intriguing ones; or the gentle, bashful, backward, betrayed village lovers-the pro

tegés of the old folks, and the cloaks and butts of the young ones-in opposition to the bold, handsome, enterprising, and successful suitors the favourites of the fair; or, lastly, the mild, meek, submissive, milk and water husbands-horned, hen-pecked, and abused by virago wives and intriguing rake-hells.

These are the general lines of characters that Brunet adopts. But many of his principal parts do not rank among any of these; and his most successful ones are perhaps those in which he is made the subject of some ludicrous equivoque, kept up through the whole piece, and the fun of which arises out of his being thrown into circumstances and situations of all others the most unfitted for his mild, simple, and gentle nature. Such, for instance, as Jocrisse chef des bands Noirs-where, simple country youth as he is, travelling through a forest on his af fairs, he is mistaken by a band of robbers for their new chief, who is to meet them there about that time, and who has been elected to the office by another part of the band; and he is installed into his new honours whether he will or no-they mistaking his reluctance for modesty, and his protestations to the contrary for an innocent deceit put in practice to try them. This piece was got up here; but it did not succeed, even though Liston played the part; for no actor at present living has the slightest pretensions to rival Brunet in his own line.

As I have hinted above, the characteristic qualities of Brunet's acting are its absolute naturalness-its exquisitely unconscious naïvetéits perfect simplicity-and, throughout all these, a mildness and kindliness, both of voice, look, and manner, that amount to the pathetic. In fact, to speak after the fashion of the times, paradoxically, Brunet is the most comic of actors, in consequence of having nothing in the slightest degree comic about him, either natural or acquired either in his person, his voice, his manner, or his mode of dressing his characters. His performances are chaste, and true to nature, in a degree that was perhaps never attained by any other actor; or rather, which no other actor ever had the courage or the taste to keep himself within the limits of. He never 66 exaggerates his voice" beyond the pitch of common speaking; he never makes a movement or a tone of expression that would attract particular attention in the intercourse of common life; and as for a grimace, or any thing approaching to it, I believe it never enters into his thoughts as a means of heightening the effects he aims at; and if it did, his bland and gentle features are incapable of it. If it should be asked, how is it that, under these circumstances, he succeeds in producing comic effects? I believe it must be answered that, in fact, he does not, by his acting, produce any-that all that produces is sensations pleasing and delightful in the highest degree, but not such as can truly be called comic—and that when these latter arise from his performances, as they perpetually do, it is in consequence of the ludicrous contrasts and associations that are made to take place from character, situation, turns of phrase, &c.; and the effects of which do, in fact, greatly depend on this very absence of any thing laughable or ridiculous in the actor. I believe this to be susceptible of a more lengthened and interesting developement and explanation than my limits permit me to attempt; especially when another person, equally gifted with the above, is waiting to be noticed.

Potier is, I should judge, still a young man-his person exceedingly

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spare and thin-his face long, lean, and cadaverous-and his whole appearance indicative of any thing rather than self-enjoyment, or the faculty of creating it in others. Even his voice is more like the croak of the bird of evil omen, than one that is come to announce glad tidings to all who hear it. And yet, you cannot help feeling, every time you look at and listen to him, that the slightest change in any quality belonging to him must be for the worse-in so extraordinary a manner does he adapt them all to his purposes, and make them work usefully together; or rather, so completely does he change their nature, by making the rich comedy of his mind shine through and blend with them all. In this respect he performs a miracle similar to that of Cervantes in creating Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. These two persons in name, are in fact but one in the mind of the reader. But for this, they would never produce any thing like the effect they do. The Knight of the Woeful Countenance would be a piece of pure pathos, from beginning to end, if he had not been allied, body and soul, with the Squire of the Comic Countenance. I will venture to say that no reader ever And thus it is with thought of one without the other. It cannot be. They are Sancho and Quixote joined the mind and person of Potier. in one; the qualities of the latter being not merely merged in the former, but their nature changed to a conformity with that. And, as I have said that Brunet is exquisitely comic, precisely on account of there being nothing in the slightest degree comic about him, so it might be added, in the same paradoxical spirit, that Potier produces the most comic effect that any actor ever did, not in spite of, but in consequence of, his personal qualities being emblems of all that is sad and sorrowful. I believe that Potier's style is not to be described-or described in no other way than by saying that it is perfectly original, unique, and nondescript. It has nothing natural about it, except in particular in stances; and yet it is not in the least degree artificial or constrained. Every thing flows from him as easily and unconsciously as it does from Brunet; but it seems to pass through a peculiar medium which changes it all, whatever it may have been before, into the most rich and extravagant drollery. It is impossible to conceive of any thing, however serious or however insipid, that would not become droll, in passing through the lips of Potier. And this takes place without any appearance of effort, without any extravagance or affectation of tone or manYou cannot perceive how it ner, and without any grimace whatever. is done, or what constitutes the difference between this actor's perAnd yet, there is formance of a particular character and any other's. scarcely a character he performs that would not be intolerable in any other hands afterwards.

I have said that Potier can be as chaste an actor as any, when he pleases, and when the part he has to perform seems to deserve it. His "ci-devant Juene homme". —a character resembling our Lord Oglebyis the most purely natural as well as the most exquisitely finished performance of the kind I have ever seen; and I have seen all that England has to shew in the same class. Potier, in fact, can be chaste; but it is very seldom his cue to be so: for rare indeed must be the wit, and rich the character, that should not give way to his own irresistible farcing. Where he is present, nature, wit, character, and every thing else, must yield to nonsense-nonsense the most extravagant and un

definable in its character, and yet the most universal and irresistible in its effects. I never knew even a Frenchman that could give any reasonable account of his liking for Potier, and yet I never knew one that did not secretly like him better than any other actor they have: I say secretly, for the critical spirit is even more prevalent there than it is here, and I believe very few Frenchmen would dare openly to go so far as I do in my admiration of this actor. His most characteristic and attractive performances are mere nonsense, they say—he is a mere "farceur:" as if mere nonsense were not, occasionally, better than mere sense, or mere wisdom, or mere any thing else. The truth is, they cant with their lips about his being inferior to some of their actors of the old school; but they make amends, both to him and themselves, by going to see him six times where they go once to any of the others: and this is doing him the best kind of justice, and giving him the best of all possible fames. And what fame, after all, is, or can be, like an actor's, as far as regards the personal gratification it brings with it? What effect is the imagination of all the immortality in the world of the Future capable of producing in the human mind, compared with the actual and present enjoyment experienced by a favourite actor before a favouring audience? This indeed" comes home to the bosom" in a way that nothing else can-for under no other circumstances is actual, tangible applause offered in so immediate and so unequivocal a manner with so little delay-with so lavish a hand-and in connexion with such heightening and inspiring associations.

To be a favourite preacher, must be something-to be a favourite author, not a little to be a favourite speaker in a popular assembly, much; but to be a favourite actor must be-every thing. In proof of this, nobody runs away from home to turn preacher, or writer, or speaker-or to follow any other pursuit to which his friends may have insurmountable objections. But how many run away from home to turn actors! The very imagination of the thing (for these clandestine ones seldom reach to more than that) is enough to compensate for all the thousand disadvantages attending such a step. I have often wondered why it is that actors are so very solicitous about what the critics will say of them the next day in the newspapers. What should they, whose ears are ringing with the acclaim of a thousand voluntary voices or the thunder of a thousand hands, care for the scribbling of one paid pen? It is a strange instance of the perversity of poor human nature, It is the "splendid shilling" that the miser is expectant of possessing, and that, until it becomes his, he looks at with an eye of greater favour, and values more, than all his previous hoard. In fact, what we have, is nothing what we want, is every thing. Possession had need be "nine points of the law;" for while it almost gives us the right to a thing, it almost takes away the faculty of enjoying it. But, notwithstanding his sensitiveness to criticism, a favourite actor is an enviable person. Whatever we may say or think to the contrary, we would none of us, if we were put to the proof, give up our own identity for that of any other person. But if I were compelled to part with mineto "change my humanity" with any one-it should certainly be with either France's Potier, or our own Kean: for I had rather be Potier than Talma, or Kean than either.

Z.