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Commemorative Acts
French Theatre and the Memory of the Great War
Susan McCready (Author)
9781487564094
Hardback, published 25 November 2025
194 pages
23.5 x 16 x 1.5 cm, 0.42 kg
"Whereas the cultural memory of the Great War in France is dominated by novels and cinema, in this eminently readable book, Susan McCready recovers the rich but largely forgotten corpus of interwar plays that represent and responded to generational divides and changing attitudes to the war. Against the background of a transitional time in French history, McCready escorts us through an equally transitional time in aesthetics: from the classical "pièce bien faite" to realist, modernist and stylized experimental theatre. Commemorative Acts fills an important gap in French literary and cultural history and promises to be a key reference work for scholars and students of the interwar period in France." "Just when one might have thought that the long vibrant field of World War I cultural studies was petering out, a book like Commemorative Acts comes along to show us that this is not the case. Finally, someone has tackled the vast and neglected topic of the theatre's role in France’s collective understanding of the Great War. In this penetrating and eloquent analysis, the noted historian of French theater Susan McCready charts new scholarly territory at the intersection of theater theatre studies, memory studies and the cultural history of the war. This book needed to be written, and McCready was the person to do it." "McCready has unearthed a treasure trove of theatrical riches from the French stage of the interwar years. Her lucid and sensitive analysis allows us to understand properly for the first time the role of drama in performing the national cultural memory of the First World War for a France both victorious and devastated."
In the aftermath of the Great War, a remarkable wave of collective commemoration emerged, but the aesthetic diversity of this period has often been overshadowed by a singular focus on the combatant experience, primarily conveyed through fiction and memoir. This selective historical narrative has fostered a homogenized memory of the war, neglecting the rich array of cultural productions that also emerged alongside it. Commemorative Acts challenges these prevailing assumptions about the memory of the Great War and its literary expression in interwar France by spotlighting theatrical works that have largely been forgotten.
The book uncovers how the dominance of first-person accounts of soldiers’ experiences has subtly, yet powerfully, narrowed our understanding of what the memory of the Great War can encompass. It explores how drama, structurally at odds with the first-person perspective and defined by its simultaneous modes of expression and reception, has been lost to collective memory. By examining the unique capacity of the dramatic form to capture war trauma, Commemorative Acts offers insights that differ from those of other literary genres, highlighting the theatre’s potential to provide a more expansive and nuanced understanding of interwar memorial culture.
Acknowledgments Introduction: Broadening the Scope of Great War Memory War Plays Appendix
1. Coming to Terms with Memory: French War Theatre to 1928
2. Displacements: French War Theatre 1928 to 1937
3. Bearing Witness: Experience and Illusion in Interwar Theatre
4. Classical Form and Modernist Fracture in Interwar Theatre
Conclusion: The Ongoing Work of Memory
Notes
Bibliography
Index