A New History of Theatre in France
A New History of Theatre in France
Christian Biet, Université Paris Nanterre
$135.00
USDTheatre 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.
- Covering each century since the tenth, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of theatre in France spanning nearly an entire millennium, and enables readers to situate analyses of particular periods, movements or artists within a broad picture of theatre and history in France
- Accessibly written for new readers, the book also contains new and original studies by the world's leading experts on theatre in France, offering both an engaging entry point to those new to the subject and new knowledge and approaches for long-standing experts and scholars
- Enacts a timely and important reappraisal of the role of groups who are habitually written out of theatre history, including women, racialized people and people with disabilities, opening up routes for further research
Reviews & endorsements
‘A New History of Theatre in France is an exciting book that brings fresh insight and ranges from the fifteenth century to the present time. Unlike previous histories of French theatre, Finburgh Delijani's collection both highlights the central part theatre has played in French culture over the centuries and updates the specificities and interconnections between different periods and geographical locations that make up the French theatrical landscape.' Osita Okagbue, Professor of Theatre and Performance, Goldsmiths, University of London
‘Assembling an impressive range of academics and practitioners, this revisionist history of a nation's theatrical culture insightfully sites the legacy of patronage, empire, revolutions, colonialism and world wars on the ways in which theatre has been made and valued. Examining the influence of French dramatists and theatre-makers beyond France, the volume saliently identifies what travels where and why. The result is a study of the centrality of theatre to French culture that has far-reaching implications for understandings of drama, theatre and performance across the globe.' Maria Delgado, Professor of Theatre and Screen Arts, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London
‘This rich collection of essays provides a very welcome challenge to traditional anglophone preconceptions about French theatre. Ranging far beyond France’s metropolitan centre, leading experts from multiple fields bring performances in the provinces and across the French colonies centre stage. From the middle ages into the twenty-first century, questions of nationalism and transnational identity, race and gender, social class and state control are shown to have been routinely explored in a wide range of performance venues. At long last, French theatre history has been liberated from both a traditional neo-classical straitjacket and an exclusionary, masculinist lens.’ Fiona Macintosh, Professor of Classical Reception, University of Oxford
Product details
November 2024Hardback
9781108842372
476 pages
235 × 159 × 30 mm
0.81kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 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.
