Staging France between the World Wars (eBook)

Performance, Politics, and the Transformation of the Theatrical Canon

Susan McCready (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
176 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-2279-3 (ISBN)

Infos

This book analyzes the rise of the modernist aesthetic in French stagecraft between the world wars. Focusing on interwar productions of the classics, it demonstrates that modernist directors had a significant and lasting impact on the academic canon of theater.

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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-scene, whose influence would reshape the French theatrical canon.

Autor

Susan McCready is professor of French and codirector of the Center for the Study of War and Memory at the University of South Alabama.

Inhalt

Chapter Four: Racine et Shakespeare Chapter Five: The Romantics Chapter Six: Hitting the MainstreamConclusion

Rezensionen

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.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.9.2016
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• Schlagworte: André Antoine • André Antoine • Antonin Artaud • Cartel des Quatre • Comédie-Française • Comédie-Française • France • French theater • Jacques Copeau • Jean-Louis Barrault • Molière • Molière • Performance • Politics • Theater • World War
• ISBN-10: 1-4985-2279-3 / 1498522793
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4985-2279-3 / 9781498522793