Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais: The Marriage of Figaro and The Guilty Mother

Very little caught my attention about the former of these two plays, largely because I have been in the opera version--one of my favorites. There are playwrights--Stoppard, Shakespeare--that must be read to be fully appreciated, and there are those--Beaumarchais, Moliere--that must be seen. The Marriage of Figaro was cute enough, but I couldn't help but wish I were watching instead of reading it. With the exception of the truly touching scene between Figaro and Suzanna in IV.1, everything in Beaumarchais' version is improved upon by Mozart--although the librettist Lorenzo DaPonte does not seem to have improved upon it at all.

The Guilty Mother is a different story. It is more or less agreed that the opera version by Milhaud is wildly inferior both to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Rossini's Barber of Seville (the first of Beaumarchais' trilogy). I didn't expect it, therefore, to be my favorite of the three plays. I'm sure I would not have enjoyed it so much if I had not first read the other two; so much history and characterization is necessary to truly understand The Guilty Mother. Figaro's wit and resourcefulness in the first two plays make for good comic theatre, but little more than that. In The Guilty Mother, Figaro's skills fail him, and he finds himself at the mercy of a wilier, younger foe. An audience familiar with Figaro as a character is naturally on the edge of their seats, anticipating how Figaro will trick his way out of this one, and becomes increasingly anxious as Figaro is outwitted at every turn. This tension is heightened by the affection that familiar readers/viewers no doubt have for Almaviva and Rosine by the time of the third play. Beaumarchais elevates The Guilty Mother above the other two when it is not Figaro's wiles that saves the day, but the fierce love that The Count and Countess still have for each other--and maybe a touch of Divine intervention. All Figaro needs to do by the end is tidy up and do damage control. Thus the Guilty Mother is elevated beyond a comic play to a deeply genuine and human experience, and a rare example of believable love on stage.