The scholar and translator John Wood writes that the play was probably completed in more or less its existing form by 1778.[7] It was accepted for production by the management of the Comédie Française in 1781, after which three years elapsed before it was publicly staged. Initially the text was approved, with minor changes, by the official censor, but at a private reading before the French court the play so shocked King Louis XVI that he forbade its public presentation.[8] Beaumarchais revised the text, moving the action from France to Spain, and after further scrutiny by the censor the piece was played to an audience including members of the Royal Family in September 1783. The censors still refused to license the play for public performance, but the king personally authorised its production.[9]
Under the title of La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro, the play opened at the Théâtre Français on 27 April 1784 and ran for 68 consecutive performances, earning higher box-office receipts than any other French play of the eighteenth century.[9] The author gave his share of the profits to charity.[9] Benjamin Franklin, who was in France as an American emissary, attended an early showing.[10]
Advertisement for the first English production, which opened in December 1784The play was translated into English by Thomas Holcroft,[3] and under the title of The Follies of a Day – Or The Marriage of Figaro it was produced at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London in late 1784 and early 1785.[11] In France the play has held its place in the repertory, and leading companies have played it in the original language to audiences in Europe and America.[12] In 1960 a Comédie Française production was filmed, under the direction of Jean Mayer, with Jean Piat as Figaro.[13]
In the twentieth century the play continued to be staged in translation by foreign companies. In 1927 Constantin Stanislavski staged the work at the Moscow Art Theatre;[14][n 1] in 1974 the British National Theatre company presented a version by John Wells, directed by Jonathan Miller.[17]
Beaumarchais' comedy was adapted into One Mad Day! a "screwball comedy" in Three Acts by William James Royce. The play premiered at the Norton Clapp Theatre on 24 October 2008. In 1984 BBC Radio 3 broadcast a production of Beaumarchais' play in John Wells's translation;[3] in December 2010 the same station transmitted a new version, adapted and directed by David Timson.[18]
