Eugène Marin Labiche facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Eugène Marin Labiche
Portrait of Eugène Marin labiche by Marcellin Desboutin
Born	(1815-05-06)6 May 1815 Paris, French Empire
Died	22 January 1888(1888-01-22) (aged 72) Paris, France
Resting place	Cimetière de Montmartre
Genre	Dramaturgy
Notable works	The Italian Straw Hat

Eugène Marin Labiche (born May 6, 1815 – died January 22, 1888) was a famous French writer of plays. He is best known for his funny plays called vaudevilles. These plays often included songs and dances. He also wrote pochades, which are short, funny sketches.

In the 1860s, Labiche became very successful. Some of his popular plays from this time include Le Voyage de M. Perrichon (1860) and La Cagnotte (1864). He also worked with Jacques Offenbach, a famous composer. Together, they wrote stories for operettas and comic operas.

One of his most famous plays is the 1851 comedy The Italian Straw Hat. He wrote this play with Marc-Michel. It has been performed many times on stage and made into movies.

Early Life and First Steps in Writing

Eugène Labiche grew up in a well-off family. He studied law, but his real passion was writing. When he was twenty, he wrote a short story for a magazine. It was called "The most beautiful are the most fake." He wrote a few more stories, but they did not become popular.

Labiche's Career as a Playwright

Labiche first tried writing reviews about plays. In 1838, he wrote and showed two of his own plays. A small theater in Paris put on his play L'Avocat Loubet. It was quite popular. He also wrote a vaudeville play called Monsieur de Coyllin. This play helped a new actor named Grassot become famous in Paris.

Around this time, Labiche also wrote a romance novel. But his publisher went out of business soon after. This unexpected event made him focus more on writing for the stage. It turned out to be a good thing for his career. When he got married, he promised his wife's parents he would stop writing plays. At the time, writing was not always seen as a serious job. But a year later, his wife allowed him to continue. He later thanked her for this when he published his collected works.

Labiche worked with other writers like Charles Varin and Marc-Michel. They wrote funny plays with songs for different theaters in Paris. He was seen as a good writer, but not yet a star. That changed in 1851 when he teamed up with Marc-Michel again. They wrote the five-act comedy Un Chapeau de paille d'Italie (The Italian Straw Hat). This play was a huge success! It is a great example of an "imbroglio" play. In these plays, someone is looking for something, but only finds it at the very end.

For the next 25 years, Labiche kept writing successful comedies and vaudevilles. His plays were always well-planned and full of funny observations about life. He once said he liked to write about ordinary people. He saw them as "half-way between the hero and the scoundrel."

Later in his career, Labiche worked with writers like Alfred Delacour. People said that the best parts of Labiche's plays were always there, no matter who he worked with. He also had a special working relationship with the actor Jean Marie Geoffroy. Geoffroy was great at playing the proud and fussy characters Labiche created. Many of Labiche's roles were written just for him. Some of Labiche's most important plays include Célimare le bien-aimé (1863) and La Cagnotte (1864).

Retirement and Later Life

In 1877, Eugène Labiche stopped writing for the stage. He moved to his country home in Sologne. There, he spent his time working on his farm and improving the land. His good friend, Émile Augier, visited him and told him to publish all his plays. Labiche was not sure at first. But in 1878 and 1879, he published his plays in ten books. People loved them!

Many had thought that Labiche's plays were popular only because of the actors. But after reading the plays, they realized the writing itself was very funny and clever. Because of this new appreciation for his work, Labiche was chosen to join the Académie française in 1880. This is a very important group that protects the French language.

Eugène Labiche died in Paris and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre.

What Made His Plays Special?

Some people have even compared Labiche to Molière, another famous French playwright. Labiche's plays are often more complex and less rude than other French comedies. Love stories are almost never the main focus in his plays. He usually showed women as either old maids who thought too much of themselves or silly young ladies. He made fun of marriage, but in a kind and friendly way.

Plays

Film Adaptations

Many of Labiche's plays have been made into movies over the years. Here are some of them:

• L'Affaire de la rue de Lourcine, directed by Henri Diamant-Berger (France, 1923)
• La Fille bien gardée, directed by Louis Feuillade (France, 1924)
• The Italian Straw Hat, directed by René Clair (France, 1928)
• Two Timid Souls, directed by René Clair (France, 1928)
• L'Affaire de la rue de Lourcine, directed by Marcel Dumont (France, 1932, short film)
• Le Voyage de monsieur Perrichon, directed by Jean Tarride (France, 1934)
• The Leghorn Hat, directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner (Germany, 1939)
• Ma tante dictateur [fr], directed by René Pujol (France, 1939)
• Un chapeau de paille d'Italie, directed by Maurice Cammage (France, 1941)
• Two Timid Souls, directed by Yves Allégret (France, 1943)
• Il viaggio del signor Perrichon [it], directed by Paolo Moffa (Italy, 1943)
• Die tolle Susanne [de], directed by Géza von Bolváry (Germany, 1945), an unfinished film
• My Niece Susanne, directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner (West Germany, 1950)
• Trois jours de bringue à Paris [fr], directed by Émile Couzinet (France, 1954)
• Matrimonios juveniles, directed by José Díaz Morales (Mexico, 1961)
• Straw Hat, directed by Oldřich Lipský (Czechoslovakia, 1971)
• The Straw Hat, directed by Leonid Kvinikhidze (The Soviet Union, 1974)
• Doit-on le dire ?, directed by Jean-Laurent Cochet (France, 1980, a live recording of a play)
• The Voyage of Monsieur Perrichon / Путешествие мсье Перришона, directed by Margarita Mikaelyan / Маргари́та Микаэля́н (The Soviet Union, 1986)

Images for kids

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  Statue of Eugène Labiche in Souvigny-en-Sologne, France

See also

In Spanish: Eugène Labiche para niños