Alfred Hennequin

Hennequin, with his intricate plotting and frenetic exits and entrances through various doors, is known as the originator of the bedroom farce and a model for a later master of the genre, Georges Feydeau. In addition to his farces, Hennequin wrote some of the last of the old genre of musical vaudevilles, in collaboration with composers including Hervé and Raoul Pugno. Many of his farces were successfully staged in English versions, usually with the bedroom element toned down for British and American audiences.

In the mid 1880s Hennequin suffered increasingly serious mental illness, and in March 1886 he entered a nursing home. He died the following year at Épinay-sur-Seine at the age of 45.

Life and career

Early years

Alfred Néoclès Hennequin was born in Liège on 13 January 1842. He studied at the École des mines de Liege, and began his working career as an engineer for the Belgian State Railways. In his spare time he wrote plays under a pen name. A two-act comedy, J'attends mon oncle (I'm Waiting for My Uncle) was produced at the Théâtre Royal des Galeries in Brussels in 1869. The following year the same theatre presented his three-act comedy Les Trois chapeaux (The Three Hats), which Le Figaro described as "a play of astonishing comic verve".

Hennequin moved to Paris, where Les Trois chapeaux was produced at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in 1871. There was a brief controversy before the first night: Hennequin, as a Belgian, was accused of having been insufficiently pro-French and anti-German during the recent Franco-Prussian War, but the accusation was quickly withdrawn. The premiere went well. The critic Jules Prével wrote that the audience laughed as much as the excessively hot weather allowed, and "Besides, M. Hennequin's play is funny … a misplaced hat, running from hand to hand, fluttering from head to head, produces quiproquos that are pretty comical, but too long to detail." The main roles were in the expert hands of star members of the Vaudeville company: Auguste Parade, Léopold Delannoy and Saint-Germain, and the piece was a success.

1875–1878

Hennequin had other comedies ready, but, as Le Figaro later commented, "in Paris, the difficulty is not writing amusing plays – it is getting them played". Hennequin's next success was not until June 1875. He collaborated with Alfred Delacour on a three-act farce, Le Procès Veauradieux (The Veauradieux Trial). The Vaudeville was officially closed for the customary summer break, and Paris was in the middle of a heatwave, but the members of the theatre's company decided to stage the play regardless of their management. The authors of Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique wrote:

It is a long time since we laughed so much and so heartily at the Vaudeville. Everyone looked at each other astonished. You couldn't believe your ears. Everyone had arrived at the theatre without enthusiasm and resigned to spending a boring evening. Not at all: this play … begins with a huge burst of laughter, and as the scenes follow one another and the evening progresses, the laughter crescendos to become almost universal … a great, complete success … We laughed during the show. We were laughing when we came out. And we will laugh at it for a long time.

In Le Figaro Auguste Vitu wrote, "M. Delacour and M. Hennequin won the Veauradieux Trial, with interest, damages and costs; we laughed for two hours, laughed as in the good old days of the Vaudeville, as at the best evenings of the Palais-Royal, we laughed like a herd of madmen". The play ran for 175 performances and established Hennequin's reputation.

The following year Hennequin and Delacour had another success at the Vaudeville with Les Dominos roses (The Pink Dominos), described by Le Figaro as "the triumph of the imbroglio", and by the London theatrical paper The Era as "a triumph" tout court. It ran for 127 performances, and was followed by Bébé (1877, with Émile de Najac) at the Théâtre du Gymnase (214 performances), Le Phoque (The Seal, 1878, with Delacour) at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal and La Poudre d'escampette (The Quick Getaway, with Henri Bocage) at the Théâtre des Variétés.

Last years

The following years saw the appearance of La Petite correspondance, at the Gymnasium, Le Renard bleu, at the Palais-Royal, and then the series of plays written for Anna Judic, in collaboration with Albert Millaud – Niniche, La Femme à Papa and Lili, which, Le Figaro commented, raised the fortunes of the Variétés to a point they had not reached before.

Although Hennequin is credited with creating what became the familiar genre of French farce, he also worked within the older tradition of vaudeville – a genre that originated in the Middle Ages as a satirical song, evolved into a play in verse with music, and by the late 19th century was splitting into two branches: opérettes, such as those by Offenbach, and, in the words of the writer Peter Meyer, "the vaudeville itself ... akin to what we would call slapstick farce, where movement was more important than character". Some of Hennequin's works, such as Niniche (1878), La Femme à papa (1879) and Lili (1882), with music by composers such as Raoul Pugno and Hervé were among the last of the old genre of musical vaudeville. In his non-musical works, Hennequin perfected the intricate plotting that later served as a model for Georges Feydeau. The writer Leonard Pronko describes Hennequin's plots as "endless mazes of crisscrossing couples, scurrying from door to door, room to room in every possible and impossible combination". For his innovative skill in this regard, Hennequin became known as "the father of the farce".

Hennequin worked constantly, and by the early 1880s he was showing signs of mental strain. His condition grew worse, and in March 1886 he went into a nursing home in Saint-Mande. He died a few months later at another nursing home Épinay-sur-Seine, on 7 August 1887 at the age of 45. His body was found in the garden of the home, and suicide was at first suspected, but he had been in good spirits and it was concluded that he had accidentally fallen out of the window of his room.