- Born:
- May 5, 1815, Paris, France
- Died:
- Jan. 23, 1888, Paris (aged 72)
Eugène-Marin Labiche
Eugène-Marin Labiche (born May 5, 1815, Paris, Franceâdied Jan. 23, 1888, Paris) was a comic playwright who wrote many of the most popular and amusing light comedies of the 19th-century French stage.
Born into the bourgeois class that was to provide him with the social setting for most of his works, Labiche read for the bar and then briefly worked as a journalist before turning to writing fiction. In 1838 he published a novel, La Clef des champs (âThe Key to the Fieldsâ). Of his early plays, Monsieur de Coislin (1838), written in collaboration with Marc Michel, was his first great success. A long series of hilarious full-length and one-act plays followed. Written together with other authors, these works were presented mostly at the Palais-Royal, the home of light comedy. Typically, the plays are based on an improbable incident evolving into an imbroglio that brings out the folly and frailty of the characters. The best of his works include Le Chapeau de paille dâItalie (1851; The Italian Straw Hat), which inspired RenĂŠ Clairâs classic film of the same name (1927); Le Misanthrope et lâAuvergnat (1852); Le Voyage de M. Perrichon (1860; The Journey of Mr. Perrichon); and La Poudre aux yeux (1861; âThe Bluffâ).
Though full of dramatic devices, Labicheâs plays nonetheless show real insight into human nature. When his plays were first presented, the exaggerated and slapstick style of his favourite actorsâsuch as Jean Geoffroy, for whom many of the parts were writtenâsomewhat obscured the delightfully precise delineations of character. With the publication of his ThÊâtre complet, 10 vol. (1878â83) while he was in retirement, Labiche was engulfed by renewed acclaim and success, including election to the AcadĂŠmie Française in 1880. Sound and entertaining, his works raised the lowly farce to a much higher level of literary accomplishment.
