Eugène Brieux (January 19, 1858 – December 6, 1932),
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
dramatist, was born in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
of poor parents.
A one-act play,
Bernard Palissy, written in collaboration with M. Gaston Salandri, was produced in 1879, but he had to wait eleven years before he obtained another hearing, his
Ménage d'artistes being produced by
AntoineAndré Antoine André Antoine André Antoine (31 January 1858, Limoges (Haute-Vienne) - 19 October 1943, Le Pouliguen (Loire-Atlantique), French actor, theatre manager, film director, author, and critic who is considered the inventor of modern mise en scène in France.-Biography:...
at the Théâtre Libre in 1890.
His plays are essentially didactic, being aimed at some weakness or iniquity of the social system.
Eugène Brieux (January 19, 1858 – December 6, 1932),
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
dramatist, was born in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
of poor parents.
A one-act play,
Bernard Palissy, written in collaboration with M. Gaston Salandri, was produced in 1879, but he had to wait eleven years before he obtained another hearing, his
Ménage d'artistes being produced by
AntoineAndré Antoine André Antoine André Antoine (31 January 1858, Limoges (Haute-Vienne) - 19 October 1943, Le Pouliguen (Loire-Atlantique), French actor, theatre manager, film director, author, and critic who is considered the inventor of modern mise en scène in France.-Biography:...
at the Théâtre Libre in 1890.
His plays are essentially didactic, being aimed at some weakness or iniquity of the social system.
Blanchette (1892) pointed out the civic results of education of girls of the working classes;
Monsieur de Réboval (1892) was directed against pharisaism;
L'Engrenage (1894) against corruption in politics;
Les Bienfaiteurs (1896) against the frivolity of fashionable charity; and
L'Évasion (1896) satirized an indiscriminate belief in the doctrine of
heredityHeredity is the passing of traits to offspring . This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause a species to evolve...
.
Les trois filles de M. Dupont (1897) is a powerful, somewhat brutal, study of the miseries imposed on poor middle-class girls by the French system of
dowryA dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage. Compare bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both dowry...
;
Le Résultat des courses (1898) shows the evil results of betting among the Parisian workmen;
La Robe rouge (1900) was directed against the injustices of the law;
Les Remplaçantes (1901) against the practice of putting children out to nurse.
Les Avariés (1901), forbidden by the censor, on account of its medical details, was read privately by the author at the Théâtre Antoine; and
Petite amie (1902) describes the life of a Parisian shop-girl.
Later plays are
La Couvée (1903, acted privately at Rouen in 1893),
Maternité (1904),
La Déserteuse (1904), in collaboration with M. Jean Sigaux, and
Les Hannetons, a comedy in three acts (1906).
Camille Saint-SaënsCharles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist, known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre, Samson and Delilah, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, and his Symphony No...
wrote
incidental musicIncidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack."...
for
La Foi in 1909. It was presented in
Monte CarloMonte Carlo is one of Monaco's administrative areas, sometimes erroneously believed to be a town or the country's capital, just as Monaco-Ville...
on 10 April, and at Her Majesty's Theatre,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, on 20 September.
Eugène Brieux died in 1932 and was interred in the
Cimetière du Grand JasThe Cimetière du Grand Jas is located at 205 avenue de Grasse in Cannes on the French Riviera. The nine hectare terraced cemetery began operations in 1866 and is known for its landscaped architecture with rich floral decorations and statuary.Its "English square" or Cimetière Anglais, is the final...
in
CannesCannes France, is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. The population was 70,400 as of the 2007 census. Cannes is the home of numerous luxurious houses and mansions as well as many high-end gated communities...
on the
French RivieraThe Côte d'Azur, often known in English as the French Riviera, is the Mediterranean coastline of the south eastern corner of France, extending from Menton near the Italian border in the east to either Hyères or Cassis in the west....
.