A New History of Theatre in France

This collaborative history highlights theatre's centrality in French culture, re-centring groups and classes once relegated to the wings.

Clare Finburgh Delijani (Edited by), Christian Biet (With)

9781108842372, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 November 2024

476 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 3 cm, 0.81 kg

'… this impressive volume covers French-language theatre history from the oldest vernacular plays (1100s) to a selection of contemporary performance artists … There are fresh insights throughout. … Recommended.' F. H. Londré, Choice

Theatre in France was the first in Europe to be written in the vernacular as opposed to Latin. It has provided the English language with the medieval word farce, the early-modern word role, and the modern term mise en scène. Molière is single-handedly responsible for launching European-style playwriting in North Africa. Today, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that it's harder to get tickets for the Festival d'Avignon, one of the world's largest theatre festivals, than for the Rolling Stones' farewell tour. Containing chapters by globally eminent theatre experts, many of whom will be read in English for the first time, this collaborative history testifies to the central part theatre has played for over a thousand years in both French culture and world culture. Crucially, too, it places centre-stage the genders, ethnicities and classes that have had to wait in the wings of theatres, and of theatre criticism.

Introduction Clare Finburgh Delijani
1. The performing arts in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century France: the making of theatre Marie Bouhaïk-Gironès and Estelle Doudet
2. Drama during the wars of religion: a contextual approach Charlotte Bouteille and Tiphaine Karsenti
3. Drama before standardization: the theatre of blood Christian Biet
4. Neoclassical tragedy: listening to women John D. Lyons
5. Molière, a man of the stage? Martial Poirson
6. Theatres as economic concerns: Molière, the Hôtel Guénégaud and the Comédie-Française Jan Clarke
7. Seventeenth-century printed theatre: gender and peritext Derval Conroy
8. Non-official eighteenth-century stages: censorship, subversion and entertainment Guy Spielmann
9. The expanded theatre of the French revolution Sanja Perovic
10. Nineteenth-century melodrama, vaudeville and entertainment: the vitality and richness of a marginalized theatre Roxane Martin
11. New approaches to women actors and celebrity in nineteenth-century France Clare Siviter and Emmanuela Wroth
12. Extended romanticism in the extended nineteenth century Florence Naugrette
13. Poetry in action, 1945–1968: from Antonin Artaud to Lettrism and the Domaine Poétique Cristina De Simone
14. Performance and installation art: re-turning to Artaud through Christian Boltanski Carl Lavery and Rezvan Zandieh
15. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century theatre directing: perception at play Christophe Triau
16. Political theatre in France (1954–2020): The Brechtian ordinate Olivier Neveux
17. Liberating third world theatre: Serreau, Kateb, Césaire, and Genet Joanne Brueton
18. Francophone theatre-makers in France: Traumatizing the French stage Judith G. Miller
19. Migration in modern and contemporary playwriting: uprooting and rerouting Clare Finburgh Delijani
20. An interview with Éric Ruf Clare Siviter
21. An interview with Magali Mougel Chris Campbell
22. An interview with Phia Ménard Estel Baudou.

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]