Augustin Eugène Scribe

Born Dec. 25, 1791, in Paris; died there Feb. 21, 1861. French playwright. Member of the Académie Française (1834).

Scribe’s plays, which number approximately 150, made up the basic comedic repertoire of the 19th-century French theater. His witty and mockingly humorous vaudevilles and comedies are characterized by artfully constructed plots and lively dialogue. Praising common sense, practicality, and bourgeois virtues, they appealed to bourgeois audiences, who were touched by the “office heroism and the poetry of the shop” and who recognized “themselves and their ideals in Scribe’s heroes” (A. I. Herzen, Sobr. soch, vol. 5, 1955, p. 34). The plays Le Manage d’argent (1827), Le Mariage de raison (1828), and Une Chaî ne (1841) are typical examples. Despite Scribe’s conservative social views, his best plays are topical and bitingly satirical, for example, La Camaraderie ou la courte-échelle (1837). Some plays, for example, Le Verre d’eau (1840) and Adrienne Lecouvreur (1849), are loosely based on historical events.

Scribe wrote most of his plays in collaboration with other playwrights, including G. Delavigne, E. Legouvé, and E. Mazères. He wrote librettos for operas by G. Meyerbeer, D. F. E. Auber, J. Halévy, and other composers. He also wrote prose works. Approximately 130 of Scribe’s plays and approximately 20 of his opera librettos have been translated into Russian. Prominent Russian and Soviet actors have performed in Scribe’s plays, which have been well known in Russia since the 1820’s.