_Le piano sera tenu par M. Henri DEVIENNE._
Tous les dimanches et jeudis, à 2 heures.
TREWEY
MATINÉE DE FAMILLE
Throwing this off, he appeared in full court costume—a gentleman of
the reign of Louis XVI. I felt like asking him, “When did you see
last the Chevalier Pinetti?” After a very superior exhibition of
juggling and sleight of hand with cards and coins, {334} he passed
on to ombromanie, or hand-made shadows, among them being portraits
of Thiers, Gladstone, Czar Alexander III, Emile Zola, Gambetta,
Bismarck, Crispi and Lord Salisbury. The art of casting silhouettes
of animals, such as the dog, the cat, and the rabbit, upon an
illuminated wall is very ancient. The Italian painter, Campi, was one
of the first to add new types to the collection of figures. Trewey
raised the art to the dignity of a stage performance, and endowed it
with movement and life. I shall quote as follows from an article on
Trewey, contributed by me to the “Cosmopolitan Magazine” some years
ago:
[Illustration: TREWEY EXHIBITING UPON A STAGE.]
[Illustration: TREWEY’S SILHOUETTES OF EMINENT MEN.]
[Illustration: THE PULPIT PANTOMIME.]
[Illustration: TREWEY’S HANDS.]
“He stands behind a screen, which is brilliantly illuminated
by an oxyhydrogen light, and with his hands projects the
silhouettes—pictures of soldiers, peasants, abbés, etc., to say
nothing of animals. To form the headgear of his men and women, such
as the grotesque bonnets of Norman bonnes, the képis of the little
piou-pious, and the mortar-boards of the English scholastics, he has
recourse to small pieces of cardboard cut to resemble the respective
cranial coverings. Trewey is not content with the ‘cold profiles,’ as
he calls them, of living creatures, {336} but endows his shadows
with animation. His old peasants, for example, smoke, imbibe liquor
from large jugs, inhale snuff, roll their eyes, open their mouths,
gesticulate; his animals are exceedingly mobile. Besides this, he
makes his characters enact charming little pantomimic scenes. One he
calls the ‘serenade.’ A piece of cardboard, fashioned to represent
the side of a house, constitutes the scenery. A gendarme (supposed
to be violently {337} in love with the servant girl) knocks at the
door of the mansion, whereupon his fair _inamorata_ appears at the
upstairs window. After an exchange of compliments, she withdraws
from the window and reappears at the door. She gives to her lover
a drink from a suspicious bottle, and he, after wiping his beard,
kisses her and retires. Then comes the strolling musician, playing
a lugubrious melody on the clarinet. The owner of the house rushes
to the bedroom window and motions the player away, but the musician
derisively strikes up a lively tune. The irate proprietor now makes
his appearance armed with a long broom, with which he thrashes the
clarinettist. The musician still persisting, paterfamilias next
produces the water jug, and from the upstairs window pours the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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