Adolphe Philippe Dennery
Adolphe Philippe Dennery was a prolific French playwright born in 1811 in Paris to Jewish parents of modest means. Throughout his career, he wrote or collaborated on more than 250 plays, primarily in the melodrama genre, which garnered significant popularity among working-class audiences despite facing critical disdain. Dennery played a crucial role in the theatrical landscape of his time, often working as a collaborator, or "script doctor," helping aspiring playwrights enhance their works. Notable figures like Honoré de Balzac and Delphine Gay de Girardin sought his expertise to enhance their productions.
His notable works included adaptations of socially relevant themes, such as poverty and exploitation, with dramatic productions like "La Case de l'oncle Tom," based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, and "Michel Strogoff," co-written with Jules Verne. Many of his plays, including "Les Deux orphelines," achieved remarkable success, leading to later film adaptations. By the 1870s, Dennery had attained wealth and social prominence, receiving honors such as the Legion of Honor for his contributions to the arts. His legacy reflects a blend of popular appeal and artistic collaboration that left a lasting impact on French theater.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Adolphe Philippe Dennery
Playwright
- Born: June 17, 1811
- Birthplace: Paris, France
- Died: January 25, 1899
- Place of death: Paris, France
Biography
Adolphe Philippe Dennery wrote or collaborated on the writing of more than 250 plays, mostly melodramas, that aroused contempt from critics but drew enthusiastic working-class audiences. Sometimes, five or six Dennery plays were being performed simultaneously in Parisian theaters. Some people question how directly involved Dennery was in writing many of the plays attributed to him and a collaborator. During Dennery’s lifetime, many aspiring playwrights approached him to collaborate with them on plays.
In current terms, Dennery could be called a script doctor. He had an unfailing understanding of what would work in theater and was well known as someone who could apply his skills to fix a foundering play. No less a figure than Honoré de Balzac turned to him to make his play, Mercadet le faiseur, stage-worthy, for which Dennery received much deserved credit as Balzac’s collaborator. Madam Delphine Gay de Girardin turned to Dennery to repair her comedy, Une Femme qui déteste son mari, in 1856, which, as her collaborator, he turned into a more presentable production. Emile Zola recommended that many young writers turn to Dennery to learn what works in theater and how to structure successful melodramas.
Born in 1811 in Paris to Jewish parents of modest means, Dennery worked in his teens as a shop assistant and finally advanced to a clerical position in a notary’s office. He took painting lessons, but his chief avocation was writing articles for newspapers. He quickly developed a passion for theater. Having left his family home, Dennery struggled to survive on his meager earnings. In 1831, he collaborated with Charles Desnoyer, an actor now performing in vaudeville, on Emile: Ou, Le Fils d’un pair de France, which had a successful run at the experimental Théâtre des Nouveautés.
Dennery occasionally ventured into writing plays other than melodramas, including operettas, short comedies, farces, patriotic plays, and follies of the sort demanded by tourists in Montmartre, but his most harmonious medium was melodrama. The success of his plays led to his being appointed chevalier in the Legion of Honor, and eventually an officer and commander in that organization. By the 1870’s, Dennery and his wife, Clémence, had become wealthy and socially prominent, particularly in literary circles.
Dennery’s plays often deal with such social issues as the fallen woman, poverty, exploitation of the working class, and unjust oppression. Ever drawn to spectacle, Dennery’s adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin as La Case de l’oncle Tom, in 1853, a sprawling eight-act play, was followed by other spectacular dramas, but none more striking than Michel Strogoff, a collaboration with Jules Verne in 1880. This extravaganza featured fifty dancers in two grand ballets, twelve hundred costumes, 350 extras, horses, and a dramatic battle scene between the Turks and Tartars set in Siberia. The drama, outrageously expensive to produce, ran for 386 sold-out performances in Paris’s Châtelet Théâtre.
Les Deux orphelines (1874; The Two Orphans, 1874), a collaboration with Eugène Cormon, was so successful that film versions of it appeared in 1915, 1922, 1933, and 1955. The best of these was the 1922 adaptation Orphans of the Storm, which starred Lillian and Dorothy Gish and was directed by D. W. Griffith.