Journey Through the Impossible
Journey Through the Impossible (
The play opened in Paris at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin on 25 November 1882, and achieved a financially successful run of 97 performances. Contemporary critics gave the play mixed reviews; in general, the spectacular staging and the use of ideas from Verne's books were highly praised, while the symbolism and moral themes in the script were criticized and attributed to the collaboration of d'Ennery. The play was not published during Verne's lifetime and was presumed lost until 1978, when a single handwritten copy of the script was discovered; the text has since been published in both French and English. Recent scholars have discussed the play's exploration of the fantasy genre and of initiation myths, its use of characters and concepts from Verne's novels, and of the ambiguous treatment of scientific ambition in the play, marking a transition from optimism to pessimism in Verne's treatment of scientific themes.
Plot
About twenty years before the play begins, the Arctic explorer Captain John Hatteras became the first man to reach the North Pole, but went mad in the attempt (as described in Verne's novel The Adventures of Captain Hatteras). Upon his return to England, where he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital, his young son Georges was confided to the care of the aristocrat Madame de Traventhal, of Castle Andernak in Denmark.
At the start of the play, Georges is living with Madame de Traventhal and her granddaughter Eva, to whom he is engaged. He has never learned the identity of his father, but he dreams obsessively of travel and adventure, and wishes to follow in the footsteps of great explorers: Otto Lidenbrock (from
Doctor Ox, catching him alone, reveals Georges's true parentage, and persuades him to drink a magic potion that allows him to go beyond the limits of the probable and journey through the impossible. Eva, realizing what has happened, takes the potion and drinks some as well, so as not to desert Georges. A family friend, the dancing master Tartelet (from
During the voyages, Volsius reappears in the guise of Georges's heroes: Otto Lidenbrock at the center of the Earth, Captain Nemo on a journey on the
Through the magical intervention of Ox and Volsius, the travelers are brought back to Castle Andernak, where Georges is on the brink of death. Volsius persuades Ox to work together with him, resolving the tension between them by revealing that the world needs both symbolic figures—scientific knowledge and spiritual compassion—to work in harmony. Together, they bring Georges back to life and health. He renounces his obsessions and promises to live happily ever after with Eva.
Themes
The play's most prominent thematic inspiration is Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires series, which it freely invokes and refers to; in addition to plot elements taken from Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, From the Earth to the Moon, and Around the Moon, the character of Doctor Ox reappears from the short story "Dr. Ox's Experiment," Mr. Tartelet is derived from a character in The School for Robinsons, and the hero Georges is described as the son of Captain Hatteras from The Adventures of Captain Hatteras.[1] At the same time, the plot of the play sets it distinctly apart from the rest of Verne's work. While his novels are based on meticulously researched facts and plausible conjectures, and often end with an ultimate goal remaining unattainable, the play explores the potential of letting a character go beyond all plausible limits and carry out adventures in a domain of pure fantasy.[2]
Like many of Verne's novels, the play is deeply imbued with themes of
The play also features an ambiguous and multifaceted portrayal of scientific knowledge, celebrating it for its humanistic achievements and discoveries, but also warning that it can do immense harm when in the hands of the unethical or overambitious.[6] Given these themes, the play is likely Verne's most purely science-fictional work.[7] Structurally, the play evokes the three-part design of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann,[8] in which the hero must choose between love and art.[5] In Journey Through the Impossible, however, the choice is between positive ideals—love, goodness, happiness—and the unbounded scientific ambitions of the sinister Doctor Ox.[5]
The use of scientific themes mark the play's position at a major turning-point in Verne's ideology.[5] In Verne's earlier works, knowledgeable heroes aim to use their skills to change the world for the better; in his later novels, by contrast, scientists and engineers often apply their knowledge toward morally reprehensible projects. The play, by exploring science in both positive and negative lights, shows Verne in transition between the two points of view.[6]
Production
Since 1863, Verne had been under contract with the publisher
Verne began playing with the idea of bringing a mixed selection of Voyages Extraordinaires characters together on a new adventure in early 1875, when he considered writing a novel in which Samuel Fergusson from Five Weeks in a Balloon, Pierre Aronnax from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Phileas Fogg from Around the World in Eighty Days, Dr. Clawbonny from The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, and other characters would go around the world together in a heavier-than-air flying machine. Another novel featuring a similar trip around the world in a flying machine, Alphonse Brown's La Conquête de l'air, was published later that year, causing Verne to put the idea on hold.[11] The idea, in highly modified form, finally reemerged five years later as Journey Through the Impossible.[12]
Verne went to d'Ennery with the idea in February 1880, and they collaborated in Antibes for several weeks on two projects simultaneously: the dramatization of Michael Strogoff and the new play.[12] Journey Through the Impossible was the only one of their collaborations not based directly on a pre-existing Verne novel.[13] Modern scholarship has not been successful in determining how much of the play each of the collaborators wrote, but the Verne scholar Robert Pourvoyeur has suggested that the play is clearly founded on Verne's ideas and therefore can be treated as being mostly the work of Verne.[14]
According to contemporary rumors, Verne and d'Ennery came to difficulties over the treatment of science in the play, with d'Ennery wanting to condemn scientific research and Verne advocating a more science-friendly and hopeful approach. Verne reportedly cut some especially negative lines out of the script, and protested when d'Ennery had them reinserted for the production.[15] Journey Through the Impossible would be their last collaboration.[10] The play is also Verne's only contribution to the féerie genre.[16]
Joseph-François Dailly, the first actor to play the role of
Reception
The play, advertised as une pièce fantastique en trois actes,
The Parisian critic Arnold Mortier, in a long review of the play, described it as "beautiful" and "elegant", and highly praised Dailly's performance as Valdemar, but believed the staging lacked originality: "a great deal of money went into this production, but very few ideas." Like Sarcey, he commented with some asperity on the metaphorical use of Volsius and Ox as symbols of Good and Evil, rather than attractive young women playing Good and Bad Fairies: "Is it not time, perhaps, to return to that practice?"[20] An anonymous reviewer for The New York Times said of the play: "I have never seen anything more idiotically incoherent, or of which the dialogue is more pretentious," but predicted that it would be a success because of its spectacular production values.[21] Henri de Bornier gave the play a brief but highly positive notice in La Nouvelle revue, highlighting the elegance of the decor and commenting Verne and d'Ennery had done humankind a "true service" by exploring impossible domains on the stage.[22]
Journey Through the Impossible ran for 97 performances,[18] and contributed to the ongoing fame of both Verne and d'Ennery.[14] In 1904, the pioneering director Georges Méliès freely adapted the play into a film, The Impossible Voyage.[19]
Rediscovery
The play was not published in Verne's lifetime and was presumed
Since its rediscovery, the play has been studied and analyzed by scholars interested in its place in Verne's oeuvre, though it remains relatively little-known among his works.[32] The American Verne scholar Arthur B. Evans has called it "delightful," saying it "shows [Verne] at his most whimsically science-fictional."[31] The Swiss-American Verne scholar Jean-Michel Margot has described it as "one of the most intriguing, surprising, and important later works by Jules Verne."[7]
See also
Notes
References
- ^ a b Theodoropoulou 2009, p. 20
- ^ Margot 2005, pp. 154–5
- ^ Theodoropoulou 2009, pp. 41–42
- ^ Theodoropoulou 2009, pp. 92, 47
- ^ a b c d Margot 2005, p. 155
- ^ a b Margot, Jean-Michel (2003), "Introduction", in Verne, Jules (ed.), Journey Through the Impossible, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, pp. 11–19
- ^ a b Margot 2005, p. 156
- ^ Theodoropoulou 2009, p. 11
- ^ Margot 2005, p. 153
- ^ a b c Margot 2005, p. 154
- ^ Verne, Jules; Hetzel, Pierre-Jules; Dumas, Olivier; Gondolo della Riva, Piero; Dehs, Volker (1999), Correspondance inédite de Jules Verne et de Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1863-1886), vol. II, Geneva: Slatkine, p. 52
- ^ a b Butcher, William (2008), Jules Verne: The Definitive Biography (revised ed.), Hong Kong: Acadien, p. 289
- ^ a b c d e Lottmann, Herbert R. (1996), Jules Verne: an exploratory biography, New York: St. Martin's Press, pp. 233–234
- ^ a b c d Theodoropoulou 2009, p. 5
- ^ a b Ginisty, Paul (1910), La Féerie, Paris: Louis-Michaud, pp. 214–215, retrieved 10 March 2014
- ^ Theodoropoulou 2009, p. 9
- ^ Margot, Jean-Michel (2003), "Notes", in Verne, Jules (ed.), Journey Through the Impossible, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, pp. 161–180
- ^ a b c d Margot 2005, p. 161
- ^ ISBN 9780853234685
- ^ Mortier, Arnold (2003), "Evenings in Paris in 1882: Journey Through the Impossible", in Verne, Jules (ed.), Journey Through the Impossible, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, pp. 147–153
- ^ "A Jules Verne Piece", The New York Times, 19 December 1889, reprinted in Verne, Jules (2003), Journey Through the Impossible, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, pp. 155–160
- ^ de Bornier, Henri (15 December 1882), "Revue du Théâtre: Drame et comédie", La Nouvelle revue, 19 (4): 926, retrieved 25 November 2014
- Le Monde Illustré, no. 1340. Reproduced online at the German Jules Verne Club's European Jules-Verne-Portal Archived 2015-01-05 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 25 November 2014.
- ^ Sayigny (2 December 1882), "Le Voyage à travers l'impossible", L'Illustration, vol. LXXX, no. 2075. Reproduced online at the German Jules Verne Club's European Jules-Verne-Portal Archived 2015-01-05 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 25 November 2014.
- L'Univers Illustré. Reproduced online at the German Jules Verne Club's European Jules-Verne-Portal Archived 2015-01-05 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 25 November 2014.
- ^ Vitu, Auguste (1885), "Voyage à travers l'impossible", Les milles et une nuits du théâtre, vol. 8, Paris: Ollendorff, pp. 498–504, retrieved 25 November 2014
- Revue politique et littéraire, 3 (23): 732, 2 December 1882, retrieved 25 November 2014
- ^ "Chronique et bulletin bibliographique", Revue Britannique, 6: 559, December 1882, retrieved 25 November 2014
- ^ Fournel, Victor (25 December 1882), "Les Œuvres et les Hommes", Le Correspondant: 1183, retrieved 25 November 2014
- ^ Heulhard, Arthur (7 December 1882), "Art dramatique", Chronique de l'Art (49): 581–582, retrieved 25 November 2014
- ^ a b Evans, Arthur B (November 2004), "Books in Review: Verne on Stage", Science Fiction Studies, 3, XXXI (94): 479–80, retrieved 10 February 2013
- ^ a b Theodoropoulou 2009, p. 6
Citations
- Margot, Jean-Michel (March 2005), "Jules Verne, playwright", Science Fiction Studies, 1, XXXII (95): 150–162, retrieved 11 February 2013
- Theodoropoulou, Athanasia (2009), Stories of initiation for the modern age: explorations of textual and theatrical fantasy in Jules Verne's Voyage à travers l'impossible and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (PhD thesis), University of Edinburgh, hdl:1842/4294, retrieved 8 September 2014
External links
- Music inspired by the play from the North American Jules Verne Society
- A scenic model from the original production at the Bibliothèque nationale de France