ABOUT THE PLAY

Written in 1635, The Illusion was commissioned by the new leader of the Théâtre du Marais, whose stage name was "captain Matamore." The play differs wildly both from the bourgeois comedies and the violent tragedies Corneille had written hitherto. Corneille had boasted that he had invented a new type of French comedy that did not resort to stock characters to make the audience laugh. In The Illusion, he seems to have undertaken the challenge to outdo himself in reverse, using the most conventional characters of the theatrical tradition to create a play that was at once unique, entertaining, humorous, and profound.
 

First performed in 1636 by the Théâtre du Marais, the play’s original title was The Comical Illusion — "comical" then being a synonym of "theatrical." It was based on the Baroque concept of "theatrum mundi": the world is a theatre under God’s gaze. As indicated by the fact that the play was not published until 1639, it was a huge success: the company wanted to retain exclusivity of text and performance. In the 1660 revised publication of his complete works, Corneille described his newly renamed play The Illusion as a "strange monster" — by which he meant, as was the definition of "monster" at the time, "a prodigy that goes against the order of nature." Indeed, in Corneille’s words, "the first act is nothing but a prologue, the following three make up an imperfect comedy, the last one is a tragedy, and all this sewn together makes a comedy." 
 

Thanks to its structure of embedded levels, the play both follows the three classical unities (everything happens in Alcandre’s cave in less than 24 hours, and revolves around Clindor’s story) all the while having the audience travel in time (to both Clindor’s past and present) and space (Bordeaux, Isabelle’s house, the prison, a Parisian stage, etc.). Its situation, themes, and characters are some of the least original in all of Corneille’s work; but the technique of the play within a play, with act 1 and the end of act 5 framing acts 2-3-4, which themselves frame the beginning of act 5, makes it his most original, genre-defying work. Although this was not the first occurrence of this technique on the French stage, its previous uses had involved only two levels that were utterly unrelated. Corneille’s originality consisted in creating three fictional levels, and in linking them thematically, thus building a mirroring effect that led the audience to fall for the illusion. He further laid the groundwork for a new, now famous structural device, that of the “flashback," by having act 1 unfold in the present and acts 2, 3 and 4 in the past, before past and present are rejoined in act 5. 
 

After the advent of classical theatre, The Illusion, unlike The Cid, fell into oblivion, and  was only rediscovered by the Romantics in the late 19th century. It enjoyed a full revival in the second half of the 20th century, and has since been recognized as one of Corneille’s major achievements, and a staple of French theatrical literature.

​​​ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Pierre Corneille was born in Rouen in 1606 into a bourgeois family. He studied law and became a lawyer in 1624, but was attracted to literature, and wrote his first comedy, Mélite, in 1629. Its success helped establish the Parisian troupe that mounted it, The Théâtre du Marais, which premiered all of Corneille’s plays for the following twenty years. Between 1635 and 1637 Corneille wrote his first tragedy, Medea, followed by The Illusion (1635-1636) and the tragicomedy The Cid (1637). The latter play was so hugely successful that it led the king to ennoble Corneille’s family — but also launched the two-year long “Quarrel of the Cid,” prompted by jealous authors’ virulent attacks on Corneille’s use of Spanish themes and settings, and his lack of respect for the three unities of time, place, and action recommended by the Cardinal de Richelieu. The newly created Académie Française was asked to rule in the matter, eventually compelling playwrights to submit to its decisions, instead of the public opinion, for the artistic assessment of their plays. Corneille  nonetheless continued writing and produced successful comedies and historical tragedies, both Roman (such as Horace and Cinna) and Christian (such as Polyeucte). He married in 1641 and went on to have seven children, and after his third attempt, was himself admitted to the Académie Française in 1647. By 1652 the gradual failure of his tragedies led him to withdraw from playwriting for six years. In 1659, the play he wrote on the theme of Oedipus found success, and brought him back to the forefront of the theatrical world. In 1660 a complete edition of his plays was published in three volumes, each play prefaced and analyzed by the author. In 1662 he moved to Paris and enjoyed two years of theatrical hits, but the growing competition and huge success of Molière’s comedies and, even more so, of Racine’s tragedies on similar themes, eventually led to his second retirement in 1674. Still, his plays kept on being remounted, and he died in 1684 a wealthy man. He is now considered to be one of the founding fathers of the French theatrical tradition.