Journey Through the Impossible (22 page)

The second review was published in the New York Times,
December 19, 1882 (page 2, column 1). The author, who is unknown,
was probably the Paris correspondent for the Times. This review was
written in English on December 4, 1882.

JOURNEY THROUGH
THE I1vPOSSIBLE

this play had been abandoned by its authors several times, taken up
again, then abandoned once more. It must have been tempting to use
M. Verne's most popular novels and the most important of his
extraordinary and curious short stories, which have brought pleasure
to children the world over, to borrow an episode here and a character
there and turn it all into a kind of serious fairy tale in which rondeaus
and couplets would be replaced by soliloquies and lectures, but d'Ennery, with that profound knowledge of the theater that is one of his
greatest strengths, had acknowledged at first that it could not be done.
What made him change his mind, I cannot say. The fact remains that
last spring he finally promised to give M. Cleves the long-desired play.

I must point out first of all that the manager of the Porte-SaintMartin staged a very lavish production of the play, that he provided
d'Ennery and Verne with everything they needed to make it a success,
and that, all in all, the production is very beautiful and very elegant.

My one criticism of the production is that it lacks imagination, novelty, and ingenuity. The sets are lovely, but we are familiar with them all
because we have seen them countless times in countless stage plays. The
costumes are dazzling, often graceful, but they lack originality. The ballets are brilliant, danced by pretty girls as scantily clad as possible. They
must have cost M. Cleves a pretty penny. He has never done anything
better and never spent more, but the little poetic note, so essential to
ballets, even in fairy tales, is totally absent. In short, a great deal of
money went into this production, but very few ideas.

ACT I: THE EARTH

Act I opens as a private drama, in the immense hall of a castle, with
high vaulted ceilings. It must surely not be easy to heat that room.
Note that we are in Denmark.

Following the announcement, "Doctor Ox!" a low whispering is
heard among the spectators, who have possibly not forgotten Dupuis
in the operetta by Offenbach.

It is not Dupuis who comes on stage, however, but Taillade,4 as
Doctor Miracle, dressed all in black, sombre and diabolical, as befits
a character who is to portray the Evil Genie for an entire evening.

To oppose him, Joumard, looking the perfect clergyman, is the
incarnation of the Good Genie.

In the cheery old fairy tales of our fathers' time, these two genies
were invariably portrayed by two little women with no talent whatsoever, pleasant-looking creatures who kept the show moving along by
holding out their magic wands. Mlle Mariani, Mlle Delval, and many
others became specialists in this genre. Is it not time, perhaps, to
return to that practice?

There is an organ in the play at the Porte-Saint-Martin, as there
is in the one at the Ambigu.5 This is a luxury that the popular theaters
have not often indulged in. While Joumard pretends to be eliciting
dulcet tones from the instrument, a celestial apparition lights up the
backstage area. It is the archangel Michael overthrowing the Devil.
The effect is somewhat poetic, except that the wires supporting the
good and evil angels seem to me to be too heavy. It destroys the illusion, but it is more prudent, and besides, it puts the lie to the proverb
"No one is obliged to do the impossible."

At the end of the first scene, all the characters drink a potion,
which instantly transports them to Naples.

This is referred to in the hall as the "express-train beverage." Is
there a sleeping-car in the bottle?

No sooner are we in Naples than the journey begins. The heroes
descend to the center of the earth through the crater of Vesuvius. And
Dailly6 is a member of the exploration party-thank God!

My goodness, if I am ever in grave danger, if I am about to be
shipwrecked at sea, in a carriage drawn by a terrified horse, or in a balloon with the gas escaping through a fatal tear, I hope-and this is a
very selfish wish on my part-I hope Dailly will be nearby. I will look
at his round, honest, constantly beaming face, his cheerful mouth, to
which fear is powerless to bring a scowl, and come what may, I will
laugh. I will keep laughing, and if I sink beneath the waves, if I crash
onto the cobblestones, I will go down laughing. Anything can be
endured, if Dailly is there.

The descent to the center of the earth occurs in a very uncomplicated manner. For a moment Taillade and young Volny can be seen
painfully making their way along a rock that looks like a bridge across the abyss. Then the sets begin to rise, not only the backstage tapestries, but the framework and all the scenery. This rise, which simulates
a descent, is extremely well contrived, and is a fine tribute to M.
Courbois, the Porte-Saint-Martin's highly skilled set designer.

We travel through diamond country, where-wonder of wonders,
and very difficult to explain in a play that claims to be scientific!-the
diamonds are found already cut. I would encourage the set designer, M.
Poisson, to examine the tremendous difference between a cut diamond
and a rough one. Then we reach the region of stalactites, reminiscent
of the interior of the cave in Monceau Park,7 but on a larger scale.

Enter the degenerate creatures, the inhabitants of the center of
the earth. They are clothed in ash-colored rags, their long hair is dirty
gray, and their faces are green and deathly pale. These citizens of the
earth's entrails appear to be very ill indeed.

"Their bowels must ache from living in the bowels of the earth,"
said someone sitting close to me.

Joumard takes up his violin and plays them a tune by M.
Lagoanere,8 and the degenerate creatures, charmed and ecstatic,
withdraw, seeming to murmur "encore."

At last we come to the region of fire, the eternal red backdrop,
with copper lame, gold sequins, and strips of golden gauze.

Now comes the ballet of the Salamanders, which I personally did
not much care for, but which produced a tremendous effect. It is a
hodge-podge of leotards representing silver coats of mail, with steel
fittings and steel sequins, costumes of fiery red and golden yellow, diamonds, pearls, a whole host of shining, glittering, shimmering,
flashing things, a quantity of costly accessories, all lit up by a garish
light, to which is added, toward the end, the red glow of Bengal lights.
It is the ultimate in gaudiness.

There is nothing artistic whatsoever about the end of this act, but
it was a hit this evening and will probably be a hit in the days to
come-which, for M. Cleves, is all that matters.

ACT II: THE SEA

All the sets for the second act are the work of M. Rube9 and M. Chap-
eron,10 and I can assure you that they are recognizable as such. From
a decorative point of view, this second act is absolutely remarkable,
and I deeply regret the cuts that it was considered necessary to make
since yesterday's dress rehearsal. It is impossible to imagine, for
example, anything prettier, warmer, or better depicted than the
harbor of Goa where the action of the first scene takes place.

In this scene, Dailly, haggling with the Indian over the price of his
diamond, was supposed to say to him, "My friend, you are a goa-
illeur"! 11

But he decided against it. That would come later.

An admirably painted backdrop depicts the open sea, with the
Nautilus plowing the waves like a gigantic whale. M. Lagoanere's
music imitates the roaring of the waves. Then, in a very short scene,
we see Taillade standing on the Nautilus, which now creates the illusion of a rock in mid-ocean. Taillade has obviously thought very carefully about the impression he will make. To see him here, one might
think he was Chateaubriand12 at Saint-Malo.13

Now we are inside the Nautilus, with Joumard disguised as Captain Nemo. This excellent actor had put on the expressive and
friendly face of Jules Verne, but since the audience might have
thought the author of the Voyages extraordinaires was coming on stage
to stop the performance, Joumard was requested to abandon that tack.

The scene changes. Yesterday, at the dress rehearsal, we were at
the bottom of the sea. It was a second edition of the aquarium from
Peau d'ane, marvellously reworked by Rube and Chaperon. The coral
reefs formed huge rocks on which grew anemones (those living
flowers), madrepores, the whole gamut of underwater vegetation, so
beautiful, so colorful, and so interesting that one never grows tired of
admiring it. Fish were playing about in the clear water. Sturgeons
swam quickly by, gilt-heads dived and came back up, fat gurnards
wriggled along, followed by enormous crabs and octopuses with phosphorescent eyes.

One octopus was almost a personal enemy to Dailly. At one point it wrapped its tentacles around him and raised him to a considerable
height, hanging upside down. Needless to say, the effect on this excellent actor's digestion was somewhat negative, to say nothing of the
fact that the tentacles were scraping the skin off his fingers.

"I never did like octopus," said Dailly, "and today I despise it."

Fortunately for him, the octopus was no longer on stage when the
act came to an abrupt end with the resurrection of the city of
Atlantis-still at the bottom of the sea. The set designers and costume
designers, having no documents to guide them, decided to create a
scene that is a mixture of Egyptian, Indian, Syrian, Roman, Greek,
and Arabic. But it is beautifully colored and very luxurious. There are
many magnificent processions, and great quantities of jewels, expensive props, golden helmets, silver shields, banners, palm leaves, fans.
Note that there are a dozen horses on stage (sea horses, no doubt) and
that their riders suddenly begin to play, for no particular reason, the
war march from Michel Strogoff. The overall effect is pleasant,
although we are not quite sure what we have just seen.

ACT III: THE SKY

The authors begin by ushering us into the Gun Club, that amusing
and witty invention found in From the Earth to the Moon. M. Barbicane
is in the chair and calls for silence by repeatedly firing his revolver.

Joumard appears in a new incarnation, this time as Michel Ardan,
with the red moustache, jacket, and familiar gray hat of M. Nadar.14

The second scene of this act, painted by Poisson, is charming. It
is a terrace from which one has a bird's eye view of the city and part
of the Columbiad, the colossal cannon that will send some of the
play's characters, not to the Moon, but much farther, to the planet
Altor.

All roads to Altor are open!

The cannon goes off and our friends suddenly find themselves
among the Altorians. You understand, of course, that the only reason
for going so far is to watch a ballet, the ballet of the Altorians, the
prettiest of the three.

The costumes for this ballet are a little short on fantasy, but they
are adorable, charmingly made, exquisite in color, and very varied.
There are bird-catchers with their caged birds of paradise; flower vendors bending under the weight of multicolored roses; newlywed couples with lively bouquets of orange blossoms; pearl divers (both men
and women) carrying large golden nets and, on their backs, golden
baskets full of fine stones; dancing girls clad in fish skin and others covered with pearls; and finally, the Altorian boaters, the men looking very
naughty, with an ornament resembling a change purse strangely placed
at one of the most conspicuous parts of their costume. The men and
women in the boats conclude by forming an immense boat with banners, flag-covered masts, and golden oars. It is really very pretty.