Staging France between the World Wars
Performance, Politics, and the Transformation of the Theatrical Canon
By (author) Susan McCready
Not available to order
Publication date:
21 September 2016Length of book:
176 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498522793
Staging Francebetween the World Wars aims to establish the nature and significance of the modernist transformation of French theater between the world wars, and to elucidate the relationship between aesthetics and the cultural, economic, and political context of the period. Over the course of the 1920s and 30s, as the modernist directors elaborated a theatrical tradition redefined along new lines: more abstract, more fluid, and more open to interpretation, their work was often contested, especially when they addressed the classics of the French theatrical repertory. This study consists largely of the analysis of productions of classic plays staged during the interwar years, and focuses on the contributions of Jacques Copeau and the Cartel because of their prominence in the modernist movement and their outspoken promotion of the role of the theatrical director in general. Copeau and the Cartel began on the margins of theatrical activity, but over the course of the interwar period, their movement gained mainstream acceptance and official status within the theater world. Tracing their trajectory from fringe to center, from underdogs to elder statesmen, this study illuminates both the evolution of the modernist aesthetic and the rise of the metteur-en-scène, whose influence would reshape the French theatrical canon.
This is first-rate scholarship on the history of theater and performance that brings us to a new understanding of the French stage—and its radical transformation—during the interwar years (1918-1940). Susan McCready argues convincingly that the period’s modernist directors revolutionized theatrical production, transformed the metteur-en-scène into an artiste in his own right, and re-envisioned the French dramatic canon. Perhaps most compellingly, she ties these aesthetic developments to the far-reaching cultural ferment of the interbellum, to the period’s complicated political context, and to its deep and anxiety-ridden engagement with broader questions of French identity. Carefully researched and clearly written, Staging France has much to offer, both to theater specialists and to a more general readership in French Studies.