Reply #16: From Wikipedia

[Jack Rabbit]

From the entry Pierre Beaumarchais:

Beaumarchais's Figaro plays comprise Le Barbier de Séville, Le Mariage de Figaro, and La Mère coupable. They were some of the most important French plays, for the trilogy spans the most turbulent period of French history. Figaro and Count Almaviva, the two characters Beaumarchais most likely conceived in his travels in Spain, were (with Rosine, later the Countess Almaviva) the only ones present in all three plays. They are indicative of the change in social attitudes before, during, and after the French Revolution. The two began in a formal master-and-servant (albeit light hearted) relationship, in Le Barbier; the two became rivals over Suzanne in Le Mariage, a personification of class struggle in pre-revolutionary France; and they finally join hands again to thwart the evil schemes of Bégearss, an attempt to call for reconciliation in La Mère. Further, Beaumarchais also dubbed La Mère "The Other Tartuffe", to pay homage to the great French playwright Molière, who wrote the original Tartuffe.

To a lesser degree, the Figaro plays are semi-autobiographical. Don Guzman Brid'oison (Le Mariage) and Bégearss (La Mère) were caricatures of two of Beaumarchais's real-life adversaries, Goezman and Bergasse. The page Chérubin (Le Mariage) resembled the youthful Beaumarchais, who did contemplate suicide when his love was to marry another. Suzanne, the heroine of Le Mariage and La Mère, was modelled after Beaumarchais's third wife, Marie-Thérèse de Willer-Mawlaz. Meanwhile, some of the Count monologues reflect on the playwright's remorse of his numerous sexual exploits.

Le Barbier premiered in 1775. Its sequel Le Mariage was initially passed by the censor in 1781, but was soon banned from performance by Louis XVI after a private reading. The King was unhappy with the play's satire on the aristocracy. Over the next three years Beaumarchais gave many private readings of the play, as well as making revisions to try to pass the censor. The King lifted the ban in 1784. The play premiered that year and was enormously popular even with aristocratic audiences. Mozart's opera premiered just two years later. The final play, La mère was premiered in 1792 in Paris. All three plays enjoyed great success, and they are still frequently performed today, at theatres and opera houses.