by Jules Verne
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.
But the planet's last day has sounded. Everything crumbles, everything vanishes, night falls, and we are back in the Danish castle where the play began.
The back of the theater opens once more and we see, like an apotheosis, an interior corner of Notre Dame," then an immense cathedral that seems to rise to the very heavens.
There is a mystical note at the end. But M. Cleves's honor is saved. It can be said that, in order to make a success of this Journey Through the Impossible, he has attempted the impossible.
"Doctor Ox," A Journey to the Moon, and A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea, and M. Dennery has patched them together, the collaboration resulting in a salmagundi, pretty nearly headless and tailless, yet which must be acknowledged to be a triumph of stage carpentry, scene-painting, and costumery. This is the plot, if plot it can be called: in a little town of Denmark lives the Widow Traventhal, whose daughter is betrothed to young George Hatteras. George is a son of that famous Captain Hatteras whose voyage in search of the North Pole terminated fatally. His friends have always concealed the parentage: they feared lest the example of the father might tempt the child, but it is all in vain; no man can escape his destiny. The blood of the bold navigator courses through his veins; he thirsts after the unknown: he, lives in the midst of maps and charts and globes, and in his delirium dreams of explorations such as none other has ever imagined. He would attempt the impossible. "Quite mad!" say his fellowcitizens. "Certainly very sick!" reply Madame and Mademoiselle Traventhal, who forthwith send for Doctor Ox and ask him to prescribe. Now, Doctor Ox is an excellent scientist by repute, but Doctor Ox, instead of administering chloral or bromide of potassium, as assuredly would have done the eminent Dr. Charcot, the present authority in lunatic and nervous affections, works up the diseased brain of his patient, first, by revealing to him his connection with the deceased Arctic explorer; second, by the assurance that he can help him to realize his desire to become another Christopher Columbus. The doctor is a species of Mephistopheles; he, too, is in love with Heval- I write her name with an H this time, but your readers may suit themselves as to the orthography, about which there has been as much controversy among newspaper reporters as there was over the letter gamma in Gounod's "Tribut de Zamora,"' where many contended that this consonant ought to be doubled. The savant's scheme is truly diabolical; he administers an elixir which emancipates the youth from subjection to physical laws that hamper ordinary human beings, but his real object is to get rid of his rival by death or incurable madness. In vain does the organist Volsius try to snatch George from the sinister influence; he tries music, he tries argument, and he might as well have left both untried, for George persists, and then, with a noble spirit of self-sacrifice, he assures the disconsolate maiden that he, too, will share the perils of her lover's peregrinations. He will protect him, he swears, in spite of himself, and this he does in a series of avatars wherein he appears as Professor Lidenbrock, Captain Nemo, Michel Ardan, and an Altorian-this, I should explain, means a citizen of the planet Altor-whither the travelers go in a bombshell fired from a monster Columbiad situated in the garden of the Gun Club of Baltimore. You must understand that the struggle between the doctor and the musician is intended to illustrate the conflict between good and evil. But Heva is not altog
ether satisfied; she fears to trust her George to Volsius alone, and so she, too, and with her a friend of the family, one Tartelet,3 the dancing-master, takes a dose of the magic mixture, and in the twinkling of an eye Ox, George, Volsius, Heva, and the dancing-master are transported by an "electric current" to the foot of Mount Vesuvius, and then begins the dance.
The tourists, whose party is reinforced by a traveler from Sweden,4 whom they meet at Naples, Monsieur Valdemar by name, begin their excursions by a visit to the "entrails of the earth" in search of the "central fire." Three "entrails" are visited in this journey, of which a fissure in the volcano was the starting point; the first entrail is a rocky cavern; the second struck me as made of granite; in the third is represented a most fantastic subterranean vegetation, with the atmosphere rendered peculiarly luminous, giving to an underground rivulet extraordinary effects of light and color. These regions are inhabited by the Troglodytes, a degenerate class of beings, ugly, but picturesque, with long hair, mud-tinted faces, and silver hands, who, much struck by Heva's beauty, rush savagely at the intruder, and are calmed as suddenly by Professor Lidenbrock, by whom is executed, quite sweetly, an air on his pocket violin. At the first performance M. Joumard did something from the "Tribut de Zamorra;" at the sixth he selected something from Carmen.5
This [setting] is numbered six on the programme. In [set] seven the central furnace has been reached. I suppose that this reality may be qualified as a fourth and final entrail, as, after 50 or 60 lovely beings, attired in very dark blue with gold trimmings, gold helmets, and black kid gloves reaching above the elbows, have danced and capered, another company of white ladies representing fountains, dance frantically, and the curtain falls, thus giving it to be understood that, Earth having no more mysteries to reveal to G. H., he and his friends may try another kingdom.
Setting eight is the roadstead of Goa, with Indian pavilions on the right and left, and in the background the city and the sea. Here, Monsieur Valdemar, the funny man, does a monologue expressive of his satisfaction with the "diamond picked up 5,000 feet below the surface of the earth;" then the Nautilus, a cigar-shaped craft, steams in: the travelers go on board, and in the eleventh [setting] are seen seated around the hospitable table of Captain Nemo-the third incarnation of Volsius. In the twelfth [setting] the Nautilus has plunged, and her passengers walk out of their cabins into the magic city of the Atlantides, which, you know, was swallowed up ever so long ago by the angry floods. The citizens of this realm have a revolution; they want a king, and, having chosen one of themselves, are about to crown him, when Mademoiselle Patry,6 a very handsome person, combines with Doctor Ox and George to make a coup d'etat, which results in the selection of the hero and his immediate coronation, all serving as a pretext for more dancing, more marble staircases, porphyry columns, minarets, and properties in general, outdoing, perhaps, in splendor the brilliant display in the "Mille et Une Nuits." [Setting fourteen], The Gun Club of Baltimore, offers nothing especially interesting or original. The members amuse themselves by shooting pistols while the big gun is being made ready. A servant enters, and the columbiad is prepared. "Gentlemen," he announces, "will the intending travelers kindly take seats in the shell!" With the exception of Doctor Ox, the party get into the projectile-in the slips, for we never see the monster projectile-and, the scene changing, the huge mortar, "warranted to carry with the utmost precision 1,250 feet beyond the point aimed at," appears pointed toward the firmament. Just as the match is being applied, Monsieur Volsius rushes on the stage and insists on an excursion ticket, which is kindly granted by the Gun Club of Baltimore's committee. He gets in at the vent: an explosion is heard, and again the scene shifts to the planet Altor. The car has reached [its] destination in safety; they are met by Maitre Volsius as an Altorian in a long robe like a Jewish rabbi's crimson silk cap, a sort of caricature of Louis XI, to whom Messieurs Valdemar and Tartelet make a political speech in explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of parliamentarianism, while their companions admire the architectural beauties of a planet where a cottage has a golden roof and walls encrusted with precious stones. Another circumstance much impresses the party; the Altorians are favored with two suns-one for the day, the other for the night. Valdemar ingenuously remarks: "What a pity that there is not a third in case of an eclipse." This intensely witty joke is immensely applauded always. During their journey some of the travelers have changed their toilets. Heva looks very gorgeous in a gown with white satin, above which is a tunic of white merino, profusely embroidered and trimmed with green marabout feathers, and a corsage of currant-colored satin, with white jet and gauze sleeves.
It is on the marketplace of Altor that we are treated to the third and most magnificent ballet of the piece-palaces, terraces, colonnades, galleries; nothing is wanting to give effect to this spectacle, than which nothing more beautiful has been produced, even at the Academie Nationale de Musique. Suddenly, in the midst of mirth and joy, comes a terrible crash; a "meteoric comet" has struck the festive planet; everything crumbles away; the clouds gather, the thunder rolls, the lightning flashes, and Altor becomes a thing of the past. How the excursionists escape the cataclysm is not explained, but they do escape in some way or another; they get back to Earth, where, in the nineteenth [setting]-the "Castle of Andernach"-George, at first quite insane, recovers his reason, thanks to his betrothed, whose love triumphs over the jealous hate of the fatal doctor, after which comes the obligatory apotheosis in three transformations and the curtain falls definitively. And now, if you wish, an opinion of the merits of the "Journey Through the Impossible," I will say frankly that I have never seen anything more idiotically incoherent, or of which the dialogue is more pretentious. Under another name it is only a re-edition of "Pilules du Diable," the "Biche au Bois," the "Mille et Une Nuits," which again are only speaking versions of the old-fashioned pantomimes. George is Harlequin, Heva Columbine, Volsius the Good Genius, Valdemar a good-natured Clown, and Doctor Ox the Wicked Enchanter. These adventures and mishaps have been seen a hundred times before, and if the people did not talk they would be all the better liked. Yet, for all that, the piece is successful-an immense success and a success which will last for months, as panoramas nowadays are all the fashion. M. Paul Cleves has given proof of taste and of unrivaled prodigality, and I should not be surprised if the "Voyage a Travers l'Impossible" equaled in vogue the famous "Tour du Monde." Still, I think that it will prove to be M. Verne's "Song of the Swan"; That this will be the last trial of scientifico-fantastico-geographical dramas.
ACKNOWLEDGI"ENTS
1. Edward Baxter's translations of Jules Verne are Family without a Name (Toronto: NC Press, 1982), The Fur Country (Toronto, NC Press, 1987), [The] Invasion of the Sea (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2001), The Humbug-The American Way of Life (in: The Jules Verne Encyclopedia, edited by Brian Taves and Stephen Michaluk Jr. [Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996], pp. 73-85).
INTRODUCTION
1. Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Paris: Hetzel, 1869-1870).
2. De la Tee a la lone (Paris: Hetzel, 1865).
3. A complete bibliography of Verne's works (novels, short stories, plays, etc.) can be found at www.jv.gilead.org.il/biblio/.
4. The most important French publisher of the nineteenth century, Pierre Jules Hetzel (1814-1886) published Alphonse Daudet, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Theophile Gautier, and Jules Verne. His illustrators were, among many others, Leon Benett, Emile Bayard, Georges Bertall, Gustave Dore, Eugene Froment, Tony Johannot, and Ernest Messonier. In 1873, he turned the management of the publishing company over to his son, Louis-Jules Hetzel, who eventually sold it to Hachette in 1914.
5. Le Sphinx des glaces (Paris: Hetzel, 1897).
6. Astounding Stories 16, no. 6 (February 1936): 8-32; 17, no. 1 (March 1936): 125-55; 17, no. 2 (April 1936): 132-50.
7. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1838.
8. Voyages extraordinaires. This title was given to the collection of Verne's novels by Hetzel after
the publication of the first four novels. In the introduction to the first volume (Hatteras), Hetzel wrote, "The goal of the series is, in fact, to outline all the geographical, geological, physical, and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format that is his own, the history of the universe" (translated by Arthur B. Evans).
9. "Jules Verne at Home," Temple Bar no. 129 (June 1904): 664-71.
10. Adolphe Philippe (1811-1899), known as Adolphe d'Ennery, was a French playwright whose best-known piece, Les Deux orphelines (The Two Orphans), was performed on Broadway in 1874, 1904, and 1926. His wife's collection of oriental art (belonging to the State) can still be visited today in Paris (Musee d'Ennery).
11. Cinq sernaines en ballon (Paris: Hetzel, 1863).
12. Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingtsjours (Paris: Hetzel, 1873).
13. Michel Strogoff (Paris: Hetzel, 1876).
14. Les Enfants du capitaine Grant (Paris: Hetzel, 1867-1868).
15. Les Voyages an theatre (Paris: Hetzel, 1881).
16. Barbara M. Barker, ed., Bolossy Kira: Creator of Great Musical Spectacles (An Autobiography) (Ann Arbor & London: UMI Research Press, 1988).
17. Alexandre Dumas pere (1802-1870), a French novelist and playwright of the romantic period. He is best remembered for his historical novels The Three Musketeers (Les trois mousquetaires, 1844) and The Count of Monte-Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, 1844). He sponsored Jules Verne at the beginning of the young writer's literary career.
18. Theater built by Alexandre Dumas in 1846 and opened in 1847. His plays as well as those of Shakespeare, Goethe, Calderon, Schiller, and others, were performed until 1850 when the theater went bankrupt.
19. Les Pailles rompues (Paris: Beck, 1850). Performed June 12, 1850.
