Vintage French postcard. ELD (Ed. Le Deley). GPL. Photo Bert. Stage play Chantecler by Edmond Rostand, Lucien Guitry as Le coq/ The Rooster, i.e. Chantecler.
Lucien Guitry (1860-1925) was considered the preeminent French actor of his day. For many tears, he played opposite Sarah Bernhardt. He also appeared in silent films like Tosca (1908) and Ceux de chez nous (1915). He was married to Jeanne Desclois and Renée de Pont-Jest, and his son was the well known actor-writer-director Sacha Guitry.
Chantecler is a play in four acts by Edmond Rostand, written in 19101. It was first performed on 7 February 1910 at the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre. The lead roles were played by Lucien Guitry, Jean Coquelin, Félix Galipaux and Madame Simone.
A cockerel, Chantecler, reigns over a barnyard, so convinced of his importance that he imagines his crowing will make the sun rise. But the arrival of a pheasant hen turns his life upside down, revealing love to him in such a way that he forgets to crow. But when the sun came out, Chantecler became the laughing stock of all domestic and wild animals, especially the owls, creatures of the night who hated him and forced him to accept a public fight with another cock. The fight takes place in the guinea fowl's literary salon. After a near-death experience, Chantecler defends the barnyard against the threats of a sparrowhawk, thereby regaining some of his prestige. Unjustly neglected, but understanding that vanity is stronger than love in the cock, the pheasant nevertheless sacrifices herself for him and goes to meet a hunter in his place. A shot is fired, but it is the golden-voiced nightingale who is mortally wounded. The rooster's hoarse crow alone will continue to celebrate the dawn.
Opposite the proud coquerel Chantecler, there is the vile Merl, representing the cynical city slicker, intrigue, jealousy and cowardry; the presumptuous Guinea Fowl; the loyal and friendly dog Patou; the Pheasant, representing female Beauty and the Modern Woman; the vain and stupid Peacock; the fragile and magic Nightingale; and the creatures of the night like the Toads (ugly and powerless, a critique by Rostand of theatre critics) and the Night Birds like the Owls (who hate the coquerel as they can only live during the night and he disturbs this).
After a long break after his successes of Cyrano de Bergerac and L'Aiglon, expectations were very high, even more so as Rostand took years to finish the preparation for the play, which involved over 70 characters and over 195 costumes. Rostand himself designed the sets & costumes, but almost crashed over the enterprise. When the play finally premiered on 7 February 1910 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, despite a star cast with e.g. Lucien Guitry as Chantecler and Jean Coquelin as Patou, the audience was deluded and even felt insulted, as Rostand sharply criticised the hypocrisy, jealousy, intrigues, and presumptuousness of life in the city, opposed to the countryside. The audience felt criticised itself. Moreover, audiences were not accustomed to see the famous actors dressed up as animals, and some felt Guitry's performance was not his best. A revival in 1927, with Victor Francen as Chantecler, was better received. Afterward, the play would be revived in and outside of France several times, while the Broadway version already took place in 1911, with Maud Adams starring.
A curious case of afterlife is told on English Wikipedia: "In June 1960, Disney told the Los Angeles Times that, following the release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, two animated projects were in development, which were Chanticleer and The Sword in the Stone. Around that same time, Disney's elder brother Roy O. Disney attempted to persuade him to discontinue their feature animation division, as enough films remained to make successful re-releases. The younger Disney refused, but, because of his plans to build another theme park in the United States, he would approve only one animated film to be released every four years. Chanticleer was developed by Ken Anderson and Marc Davis, who aimed to produce a feature animated film in a more contemporary setting. They visited the Disney archives and decided to work on adapting the satirical tale after glancing at earlier conceptions dating back to the 1940s. Anderson, Davis, Milt Kahl, and director Wolfgang Reitherman spent months preparing elaborate storyboards for Chanticleer. Following a silent response to one pitch presentation, a voice from the back of the room said, "You can't make a personality out of a chicken!" When the time came to approve either Chanticleer or The Sword in the Stone, Disney remarked that the problem with making a rooster a protagonist was, "[you] don't feel like picking a rooster up and petting it." "
In 1992, Rostand's story of Chantecler was loosely adapted into the American animated film Rock-a-Doodle, directed by Don Bluth, and set in Tennessee 1957. Here the Grand Duke of Owls concocts to have Chanticleer ridiculed as he forgets to crow at the rising sun after a fierce battle, so the rooster leaves for town to become a singer. Meanwhile, the night birds set their hungry eyes on the farm birds... The film was no critical nor box office success. Yet, it would be more successful during its home video release. Voices were by e.g. Glen Campbell (Chanticleer) and Christopher Plummer (the Grand Duke of Owls).
Sources: English and French Wikipedia.
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