In Pursuit of the French Connection: Carlo Goldoni & Friends

David Begelman

If you imagine that French toast, Edith Piaf, vintage wines or haute cuisine are the most important products of that country across the Atlantic, think again. There’s more to it than that. If you could go back in time and ask Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, they’d agree wholeheartedly that France meant something more to America—much more.

 France was, after all, the country that originated new ideas about human rights that found their way into our Constitution. They were celebrated by figures like Montesquieu in “Spirit of the Laws.” The Frenchman propounded novel ideas about government that were to put vestiges of the older feudal system to a deserved rest. Among them was the abolition of slavery, the preservation of civil liberties, and the notion that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government should enjoy separate, but balanced jurisdictions. Sound familiar?

Newer thinking about human rights germinated in the eighteenth century, often dubbed “The Age of Reason” or “Age of Enlightenment.” The transition to them was not without cost. Bloody revolutions in France and colonial America were fought over issues inherent in the new philosophy. Ours took a turn for the better while France’s took one for the worse: the Reign of Terror. During it, heads rolled in what Charles Dickens once described as “The worst of times.”

French originators could have learned a thing or two from their American pupils.

The French Connection affected more than just political philosophy. Its influence colored areas of cultural interest you’d think were far afield from it, like theater.

Newer ideas in French theater coincided with the rise of the middle class, and a more democratic sensibility. Denis Diderot, a scientific, as well as theatrical theorist, inveighed against the drama of his day. He felt it had become too remote from the lives of ordinary people.

Yale Repertory Theatre’s newest production, “The Servant of Two Masters” was authored by Carlo Goldoni, an Italian who, like Thomas Jefferson, looked to France for fresh ideas. A prolific playwright, he was jaded on the formulaic structure of Italian drama, including the improvisational, yet conventional character of Commedia dell’Arte.

Commedia was a theatrical form involving “slapstick” humor, and a cast of stock characters like Arlecchino, Pantalone, Il Dottore, Inamorato, and others. Goldoni was a past master of the genre, as the current terrific Yale Rep production attests. It has you belly laughing yourself silly.

In Goldoni’s play, the lowly Truffaldino contrives to serve two separate masters. But the underbelly of his duplicity is a social reality: he is starving. By doubling his employment, he increases his wages, thereby ensuring a full stomach.

 Goldoni emigrated to—where else?—France, where he came under the influence of the renowned Molière. This French playwright put a more realistic, yet somber, spin on drama that nonetheless bore traces of the Commedia in his work. Goldoni followed suit, becoming more sympathetic to a theater that mirrored the plight of the common person—an eighteenth century idea that was later to culminate in realism on stage. 

Subsequently, Beaumarchais, who started out as a watchmaker, authored plays that later found their way into operas by Mozart (“The Marriage of Figaro”) and Rossini (“The Barber of Seville”). He was vilified for depicting the follies of a stratified society in plays so revolutionary, public performances of them were banned. Imbued with a spirit of freedom, he financed shipping supplies of ammunition to American colonialists!

So the winds of change in the Age of Enlightenment fanned the unrest of common folk who became increasingly aware of something better than their lowly lot in life.

Goodbye to feudal ways, and the lopsided apportionment of rights. Hello to their universality, especially in America where the Founding Fathers picked up the French ball and ran with it. Lucky us.