Maurice Donnay

Charles Maurice Donnay , born with Paris the October 12th 1859 and dead the March 31st 1945, is a French dramatic author.

Biography

Wire of an engineer to the railroad of North, he undertook to follow the paternal way and entered to the central École of arts and manufactures in 1882. He worked then like “draftsman of metal frames”. But it quickly gave up industry to be devoted to the literature. “Donnay, written Jules Fox, was draftsman at Duclos. When it released the drawing, its family was sorry. It was even scrambled with her. Today, it gives him tickets of theater…”

With Alphonse Allais, it initially composed of the songs for the famous cabaret of the black Chat. Then, it turned to the theater. In 1892, its first part, Lysistrata , took as a starting point the comedy éponyme of Aristophane and was created by Réjane in the role titrates.

It was the beginning of a long career of author of boulevard, during which Donnay often gained great successes with parts like the Lovers (1895), regarded as his best part and that Jules Lemaitre did not hesitate to describe as Bérénice of the modern theater, Painful the (1897) or the Torrent (1899). It had as interpreters of the famous actors like Cécile Sorel, Réjane and Lucien Guitry.

The parts of Maurice Donnay, beyond their lightness, reveal ideas progressists with regard to the relations between the two sexes, and connect it unconcern with which the dialogs are made up makes it possible the author to return in a convincing way the spoken language.

The author was as merry as his comedies. “A mouth lippue, faunesquement funny, written Yvette Guilbert; the eye laughing, semi-sparkling of mischievousness, the hair crisp with African. He had devil, the spirit which burns and flames. One never met it without hearing a rocket of merry spirit leave his lips. They was backfires of funny words rather than major; it was gavroche, it was kid, it was Boulevard, it was Montmartre, it was Paris! How it was charming! ”

“Ingenuous and charming Donnay, written Jules Fox in his Newspaper , it seems always to begin. It does not have the arrogance of success, nor even of the failure. ”

He was elected with the French Academy, on February 14th 1907, with the armchair of Albert Sorel.

Works

Insane Company (1894)
Boarding house (1894)
Accessory (1895), in collaboration with Mr. Groselande
Lovers (1895)
Painful the (1897)
Freed the (1898)
Georgette Lemeunier (1898)
the Torrent (1899), created with the Comédie-Française
Education of prince (1900)
the Clearing (1900)
Birds of passage (1904), in collaboration with Lucien Descaves
the Rocker (Igor)
the Other danger , with the Comédie-Française (1902)
the Return of Jerusalem (1903)
the Climbing (1904)
To appear (1906)
Around the black Cat , memories (1926)

External bond

Biographical note of the French Academy

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