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Notes
1. Clare Finburgh, Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQEmail: [email protected] generous time and invaluable expertise of the following people have made this piece possible: Anne-Françoise Benhamou, David Bradby, Christophe Brault, Adèle Chaniolleau, Joseph Danan, Jean Jourdheuil, Noëlle Renaude, Bruno Tackels.
2. Vincent (1942-) is one of France's foremost politically committed directors; and one of its main exponents in terms of Brecthian theory. With Jourdheuil, Vincent founded the Théâtre de l'Espérance in the 1970s, and since then has been artistic director of such prestigious venues as the Théâtre National de Strasbourg (1975–83), Comédie-Française (1983–86) and Amandiers-Nanterre (1990–2001). His productions focus mainly on the classics, employing dramaturgical analysis to interrogate the relationship between theatre, history and society.
3. The plays and productions of Gabily (1955–1996), who worked in collaboration with his group T'chan'G', were preoccupied with the relationship between theatre, myth and the world; the trilogy Gibiers du temps, for example, stages encounters between figures like Theseus, Phaedra, Hermes, and the Amazons. Tanguy (1955-), who has worked with the Théâtre du Radeau since the 1980s, employs dramaturgical analysis to adapt classic texts, for example Molière or Shakespeare, or mythical figures like Faust, to produce spectacles with great visual, aural and sensory appeal.
4. Artistic director of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg (TNS) from 2000 to 2008 and now director of the Théâtre de la Colline, Braunschweig, a philosophy scholar, mainly stages the classics – Molière, Ibsen – to which he brings acute analytical rigour and dramaturgically charged scenography. Like his teacher, Antoine Vitez, he is a pedagogue, in 2002 introducing a dramaturgy qualification to the TNS School.
5. Paul Allain and Jen Harvie, The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 200.
6. Theatre scholar Dort (1929–94) was one of Brecht's main advocates in France. He contributed frequently to the politically committed journal Théâtre populaire, and throughout his career promoted an understanding of theatre's social and political role.
7. Vitez (1930–90) was one of the great directors from the latter half of the twentieth century, often staging ancient Greek and Russian texts, which he translated himself. An advocate of what he termed an ‘elite theatre for everybody’, he applied his hallmark style of montage, poetic stylization and free association to the classics, creating productions that were at once aesthetically arresting and accessible.
8. Planchon (1931–2009), along with Vitez, was one of France's most important twentieth-century directors, and founder in 1957 of the Théâtre de la Cité in Villeurbanne, which in 1973 became the Théâtre National Populaire. Staging both the classics and modern authors like Michel Vinaver and Arthur Adamov, he differed from Vitez in that his theatre was naturalist and everyday, rather than poetic. Brechtian dramaturgy enabled him to demonstrate in theatre how history is determined by the social relationships between the privileged and the poor.
9. See Roland Barthes, Écrits sur le théâtre (Paris: Seuil, 2002), pp. 162–65; Bernard Dort, Lecture de Brecht (Paris: Seuil, 1960).
10. Michel Bataillon, who worked as Planchon's artistic adviser, describes Planchon as ‘dramaturges de tous les pays’ (‘France's most formidable dramaturg’), in Du dramaturge, ed. by Philippe Coutant (Nantes: joca seria, 2008), pp. 11–26, (p. 22). This and subsequent translations are my own.
11. See Anne-Françoise Benhamou, ‘Entretien avec Anne-Francoise Benhamou’, Cahiers philosophiques, 113 (April 2008), 101–14 (p. 101).
12. Whilst Chéreau (1944-), like many important French directors, is affected by Brecht, the influence is aesthetic rather than political, since Chéreau defends theatre primarily as art. In contrast with many of his contemporaries, he displays an interest in contemporary authors as well as the classics, from Bernard-Marie Koltès to Jean Genet and Heiner Müller.
13. Françon (1945-), who has been artistic director of several national theatres, is reputed for his austere minimalism, which he combines with a Brechtian preoccupation for social concerns. Sobel (1936-) has a direct association with Brecht, since he worked at the Berliner Ensemble in the late 1950s. He founded two theatres in the Paris suburbs, where he frequently staged Brecht's plays. His theatre is characterized by its social conscience.
14. Steiger (1928-) was one of the first people to introduce Brecht to France, staging The Exception and the Rule (1957). He was also the first director to publicize the role of the dramaturg on a production poster. He has also taught dramaturgy at the TNS school.
15. Jean Jourdheuil, L'Artiste, la politique, la production (Paris: 10/18, 1976), p. 255.
16. Ibid., pp. 112–18.
17. Villégier (1937-), artistic director of the TNS from 1990 to 1993, frequently stages classics, especially Corneille, as a filter through which to examine today's society.
18. Published in Pour Marx (Paris: La Découverte, 1996), pp. 129–52.
19. Playwright Chartreux (1942-) has worked as Vincent's dramaturg since the 1970s, often adapting non-theatrical works - for example, Zola's Germinal (1975). Influenced by the theories of Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes and Jacques Lacan, playwright and director Deutsch (1948-) incorporates sociological study into his theatre, which is described as ‘Théâtre du quotidien’ (Theatre of the Everyday). Lacoue-Labarthe (1940–2007) and Nancy (1940-), both known as university professors in Strasburg, are politically committed postmodernists. Therefore, Vincent's dramaturgs, whilst deriving from varied disciplines, shared one overriding commonality: socialist politics.
20. See Antoine Vitez's interview with Émile Copferman, published as De Chaillot à Chaillot (Paris: Hachette, 1981), p. 168.
21. Pierre-Alain Chapuis, ‘Le Machin’, in Coutant, Du dramaturge, pp. 51–9 (p. 55).
22. The duo Markovitch and Morvan specialize in translating theatre from Russian and English into French. Their translations of Chekhov and Shakespeare dominate today's French theatrical scene.
23. Regnault (1938-), heavily influenced by Foucault, Althusser and Lacan, informs his dramaturgical work for Chéreau and for Demarcy-Mota with his philosophical and psychoanalytic scholarship. Demarcy-Mota, who also has a background in philosophy, and who frequently stages plays by contemporary author Fabrice Melquiot, is currently artistic director of Paris's Théâtre de la Ville. See Emmanuel Demarcy Mota, ‘Avec ou sans dramaturg’, in Coutant, Du dramaturge, pp. 113–16.
24. Painter and scenographer Aillaud (1928–2005) regarded his striking sets as metaphorical landscapes invested dramaturgically with signification.
25. Anne-Françoise Benhamou, ‘Bref aperçu de dramaturgie expérimentale’, in Coutant, Du dramaturge, pp. 45–50 (p. 46).
26. Marcel Freydefont, ‘Panurge le dramaturg et Panique la dramatique’, in Coutant, Du dramaturge, pp. 101–12 (p. 103).
27. See Jean-Marie Piemme, ‘Le Souffleur inquiet’, Alternatives théâtrales, 20–21 (December 1984), 21–2.
28. Bruno Tackels, Fragments d'un théâtre amoureux (Besançon: Les Solitaires intempestifs, 2001), p. 104.
29. Heiner Müller, quoted by Bernard Dort in ‘Dramaturgie’, in Dictionnaire encyclopédique du théâtre, ed. by Michel Corvin (Paris: Larousse, 2008), p. 447.
30. Melquiot (1972-) often treats contemporary themes, which he distorts to create a grotesque atmosphere of humour and anxiety. Novarina (1942-), conversely, is a playwright for whom the treatment of language supersedes any thematic consideration. His is a dramaturgy of destruction – of theatre as one recognizes it – and celebration – of the human voice and its rhythms, tones and textures. The language of Minyana (1946-) also foregrounds sonority, but his theatre is anchored more in realism, exploring relationships between humans and their material surroundings, which are often described in minute detail. Lagarce (1957–95) is renowned for his use of highly complex and rhetorical syntax, which renders meaning elusive and language incantatory. Finally, Koltès (1948–89) is the most important French playwright since the 1970s. Discovered by Chéreau, his plays announce a return in French theatre to narrative linear coherence. His plays treat marginalized members of society – drug dealers, blacks, Arabs – but their scope is universal and eternal, rather than simply sociological. These playwrights therefore vary widely in the themes they treat and the styles they adopt.
31. Whilst these authors are eclectic in their subject matter – Novarina explores the French language; Renaude investigates the limits to which she can expand or contract theatrical time, space, language and character; Vinaver treats social and political themes, albeit in an elliptical way, from the Algerian War of Independence to unemployment; Minyana examines individuals and their relationships with objects – they, and many members of their generation of authors, concern themselves predominantly with language, whether to highlight the impossibility of communication, as in Vinaver's case, or to celebrate language's musical potential, as in Novarina's.
32. Noëlle Renaude, Ma Solange, comment t'écrire mon désastre Alex Roux (Paris: Théâtrales, 2004), p. 21.
33. Stéphane Braunschweig, ‘L'Auteur ne s'absente pas: Sur les classiques’, in Petites portes, grands paysages (Arles: Actes Sud, 2007), pp. 279–91, (p. 285).
34. Benhamou, ‘Entretien avec Anne-Francoise Benhamou’, p. 109.
35. Bernard Dort, ‘L'Etat d'esprit dramaturgique’, Théâtre/Public, 67 (1986), 3–10 (p. 4).
36. Tackels, Fragments d'un theatre amoureux, p. 103.