Page:Poet Lore, volume 28, 1917.djvu/72

58 His monologues and couplets go quickly and at intense pressure. Here and there, in bewildering succession, his wit bursts out in dazzling scintillations and the piece rushes along, bubbling and sparkling, with joyous merriment to its end. Sometimes the fun seems a bit forced and mechanical; but not for long, for the skill of Labiche soon lifts it into remarkable scenes, many of which approach closely to the regions of true comedy.

He is a master of deduction by absurdity. He does not bring forth before our eyes, upon the stage, reasons and motives for accidents and events; by neglecting these he escapes the pitfalls of dramatic stiffness and moralising. His logic is that of the unforeseen; and in this respect he attains a certain breathless sweep of imagination and fantasy, which takes us by a storm of uproarious, deep-throated laughter. In this whirlwind rush he never pauses; he never finds himself at a loss. He is always giving a new turn to the situation and in so doing he extracts fresh pleasure and interest. He drolly speculates upon the complexities of human foolishness, sometimes himself not escaping that foolishness. Again and again he draws upon his inexhaustible store of occasion and accident; and in doing so heightens his illusion. Error is one of the mainstays of his theatrical craftsmanship and philosophy, if we may be allowed to call it such. He holds up before us the discomfitures and petty ailments of humanity. We see ourselves outwitted by chance and out-played by error. It is here that Labiche gets his most telling effects. In his adroit combination of chance and mishap with intrigue and the unforeseen, he gives us results which appear to be simultaneous and accidental. He increases our delight by augmenting the number of wildly gesticulating types which he rushes across the stage. In the hurry and skurry of his comic business we forget, for the moment, both fidelity and truth to nature, and are held entranced by his amazing wit and verve. Only give him a pleasing situation, and one lending itself to free play of the imagination, and he will transform it with charm and attraction. He will lead it headlong toward the desired conclusion, through accidents, errors, rogueries, encounters and tumblings, in short all sorts of complications. Then at last when these complications seem the most intricate and confusing, he will give the plot a clever little twist, and lo, the play takes a simple, happy ending.

In the work of a man who wrote so hurriedly and so much, and who resorted to such extensive collaboration, it is only natural that we find much of unequal merit. Labiche himself seems to