Theodore Barrière

Theodore Barrière (1823—1877), French dramatist, was born in Paris in 1823. He belonged to a family map engravers which had long been connected with the war department, and spent nine years in that service himself. The success of a vaudeville he had performed at the Beaumarchais and which was immediately snapped up for the repertory of the Palais Royal, showed him his real vocation. During the next thirty years he signed, alone or in collaboration, over a hundred plays; among the most successful were:

• La Vie de bohème (1849), adapted from Henri Murger’s book with the novelist’s help
• Manon Lescaut (1851)
• Les Filles de marbre (1853)
• L’Héritage de Monsieur Plumet (1858)
• Les Faux Bonshommes (1856) with Ernest Capendu
• Malheureux vaincus (1865), which was forbidden by the censor
• Le Gascon (1878).

Barrière died in Paris on October 16, 1877.