Le Nouveau Théâtre: 1946–2017 by Jeanyves Guérin (review)

Appearing front and centre in the nouveau théâtre were bewildered characters, struggling to make sense of pointless destruction in an increasingly unrecognizable world. Suffice it to say that, half a century after they were written, the plays from this period resonate with us. The most comprehensive study of the nouveau théâtre to date, this volume contains not only essays, but also a highly detailed chronology of authors and plays from the period, and illuminating inventories of the plays published by Gallimard, those staged at the Festival d'Avignon, and the languages into which they have been translated. In his introductory chapter, volume editor Jeanyves Guérin identifies Jacques Audiberti's Quoatquoat, staged in 1946, as the first nouveau théâtre work. Examined across the chapters are other plays that appeared the same year, by Jean Genet, Henri Pichette, and Michel de Ghelderode, who are analysed alongside Arthur Adamov, Fernando Arrabal, Samuel Beckett, François Billetdoux, Roland Dubillard, Georges Schéhadé, Jean Tardieu, Jean Vauthier, and Romain Weingarten. Throughout, illuminating and nuanced comparisons between the various authors' approaches to theatrical innovation are revealed by the book's ten contributors. Marguerite Duras and Nathalie Sarraute are mentioned cursorily: the nouveau théâtre, which peaked during the 1950s and 1960s, is conspicuously dominated by men. Like its parallel 'movements' the nouveau cinema and nouveau roman, the nouveau thé-âtre, variously termed 'anti-théâtre' (Georges Neveux), 'absurdist theatre' (Martin Esslin), or 'théâtre nouveau' (Michel Corvin and Geneviève Serreau), ruptured conventional aesthetic codes. Many of the chapters in the book describe how playwrights revolutionized theatre by exploding dramaturgical practices such as linear plot, rational argument, comprehensible meaning, recognizable character, intelligible time, or coherent space, and instead presented disassembled figures in shattered landscapes. But the collection provides more than a mere accessible, informative account of playwriting styles and registers of the period. A number of chapters offer particularly original perspectives, notably Hélène Laplace-Claverie's study of the féerie—the anti-realist use of spectacular, playful, or childlike language and effects; Gilles Ernst's investigation into the representation of violent death, the figure of the afterlife, and the relationship between death and sex; and Nathalie Macé's enquiry into the prevalence of the character of the author across nouveau théâtre plays, of which she provides an impressive inventory. The book's enquiry covers a period that leads up to shortly before its publication date, and more contemporary authors such as Bernard-Marie Koltès, Jean-Luc Lagarce, and Wajdi Mouawad are mentioned, albeit briefly, as successors. A wide-ranging chapter on the legacy of the nouveau théâtre today, might have included some more contemporary playwrights from France, for instance Noëlle Renaude and Magali Mougel, and indeed from further afield, for example Caryl Churchill and debbie tucker green, currently the UK's two most artistically original and politically potent playwrights, who were all inevitably influenced by the eruption of theatrical invention taking place in mid-twentieth-century France. This expansion of the field of the nouveau théâtre into today's theatrical panorama would have offered the added advantage of redressing its gender imbalance.