User:Atrja/Jean Potage

Jean Potage (also Hans Supp, Schampetasche, Jan Supp, Johannes Bodast, Jan Potaige, Jehan Petagi) is the name of an early modern clown figure who appeared as a charlatan or as the assistant to a charlatan from as early as 1621, and then on the stage of the itinerant troupes of English, Dutch and German actors throughout the seventeenth century as well as in any French comedy translated or adapted into German. He represented the stereotypical Frenchman with a craving for the national dish most associated with the French at the time, namely a thick vegetable soup or "Potage". To this extent he resembles other stereotypical clowns named after the national dish such as Jack Pudding, [Pickelhering] etc. In addition, his first name was commonly used in France to indicate a cuckold. The item of clothing most often associated with him is a large grey or white felt hat that could be changed into whatever shape was needed in order the impersonate or parody members of different nationalities, social classes, professions or even things such as a bowl of soup. Although this trick with the hat was introduced in the 16th-century Italian commedia dell'arte where it was associated in particular with the comic figure of Pagliaccio, it was taken to new heights in Paris where Antoine Girard (1584-1626), better known by his stage name "Tabarin" (named after the short Italian cloak worn over one shoulder)and his brother, the charlatan Philippe (1580-ca. 1634), enjoyed immense popularity on a trestle stage located on the Place Dauphine in Paris from 1618 until 1625. Tabarin was a major source for the satirical humor associated with Jean Potage who appears on the German stage from around 1629 until 1681 in a collection of German-language plays by the English Players (1630) and Christian Weise's tragedy Der gestürtzte Marggraff von Ancre(1681) where the bawdy and scatalogical humor of the professional stage has been expunged in order to meet the expectations of parents at a school performance. For some five decades Jean Potage competed with his English counterpart, Pickelkering, but then disappears slowly from sight as the latter takes over not just parts of his costume such as the hat and short cloak, but also the humorous gags associated with them.

John Alexander, "Jean Potage: Shedding Light on the French Connection of an Early Modern Clown Persona," Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 57 (2007): 227-239.