Taken by Surprise (Les Esbahis)

David E. Kemp is a drama professor at Queen’s University and the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Jacques Grévin was born in Cleremont-de-Beauvaesis in 1538 and died in Turin in 1570. His play Taken by Surprise (Les Esbahis) was the first comedy inspired by classical models to be published in France. While Grévin wrote his play within the convention of the Italian “commedia erudita,” in no way can it be considered a slavish imitator of the genre. His adaptation and mockery of the Italian conventions give Taken by Surprise a distinctly French character and flavor.

The play is set in the streets and squares of Paris in the second half of the sixteenth century. The characters, a lively panorama of merchants, servants, and noblemen, speak in a vigorous language that is both colloquial and proverbial.

The plot of the play, a complex network of disguise, mistaken identity, and misunderstandings, is basically conventional with respect to its period. What makes the piece memorable is the ambiguous ending, which is indicative of Grévin’s ironical and even cynical view of romantic entanglements and indeed of the human condition in general.

Taken by Surprise, translated with vigor and imagination by Leanore Lieblein and Russell McGillivray, is a welcome addition to the series “Carleton Renaissance Plays in Translation,” which offers to the student, scholar, and general reader a selection of sixteenth century masterpieces in modern English translations, most of them for the first time.

General Editors Donald Beecher and Massimo Ciavolella are to be congratulated on their bravery and skill in bringing to a North American audience plays that, although among the most celebrated of their own epoch, are in the main unknown due to the previous lack of an English translation. Taken by Surprise is a small jewel in the crown of Renaissance theatre. One can only hope that, now that a lively translation is available, a stage production will follow.