French Theatre Today: The View from New York, Paris, and Avignon

Introduction

French culture in decline? In late November 2007 Time magazine’s European edition ran a cover story titled “The Death of French Culture.” The reporter, Donald Morrison, lamented that “France today is a wilting power in the global cultural marketplace,” and he cited a recent poll in Le Figaro Magazine showing that only 20 percent of Americans considered culture to be “a domain in which France excels.”1 Trotted out were the names of mid-twentieth-century Gallic luminaries who once enjoyed international fame: Albert Camus and André Malraux, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, Charles Trenet and Edith Piaf. In response, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy—who had recently made a splash on these shores with American Vertigo, a book on U.S. culture and politics—pointed out the dubious logic of measuring the health of a nation’s culture “by the degree of curiosity that it excites at the heart of the dominant culture (today, that of the United States).”2 The British journalist John Lichfield, in The Independent , likewise rebuked Time for being “rooted in a cartoon transatlantic definition of French culture.” Lichfield argued that the worldwide profiles of such contemporary figures as architect Jean Nouvel, fiction writer Michel Houellebecq, and pop musicians Daft Punk and Etienne de Crécy signal not a decline but a “revival of French artistic creativity.”3 The sociologist Frédéric Martel, an expert in French and American arts policy, conceded that France “is no longer a great cultural power.” But rather than give in to “masochism” and “mourning,” Martel urged his fellow citizens to “rediscover our energy, our vivacity, and openness to the world.”4 One of Sweden’s Nobel Prize committees was perhaps ahead of Martel’s programmatic curve when it chose the French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (b. 1940) as its 2008 laureate in literature. Not surprisingly, the globe-trotting author of Désert (Desert, . . . .. Introduction . . . . . . . . .. Notes . . . . . . . . .. For Further Reading . . . . . . . . .. Index . . . . . . . . .. Introduction xviii 1980)—who spends part of each year at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and whose books regularly explore non-Western cultures —was virtually unknown to most Americans. Only a handful of his more than forty volumes of fiction and essays were then currently available in translation from U.S. publishers. What about French theatre? It is telling, I think, that neither the Time reporter nor his respondents evoked French theatre. Such neglect possibly reflects the tired premise that the French language automatically prevents France’s stage works from traveling far. Part 1 of this book will refute this notion. Yet in choosing for its cover illustration a look-alike of the late great mime Marcel Marceau (d. 2007), Time’s editors also implied that the only French stage actor who can hope for global fame must be one who dares not speak. As we will see throughout this volume , a good part of the truly exciting theatre taking place in France today is in fact no longer wedded to the exquisite belle langue (beautiful language) that was a central feature of most French theatre from Jean Racine (d. 1699) to Jean Giraudoux (d. 1944). Emphasis may now fall more on choreography, visuals (film and video), and digitized sonic environments than on ultrapolished dialogue or even on casually uttered exchanges. Moreover, for the younger generation of stage artists in France, American culture is not something to fear, snub, or compete with. It is simply one more rich source to draw upon in fashioning new works. Hollywood blockbusters and TV sitcoms, ethnic comedians and online gaming, Toni Morrison and Dennis Cooper, Tony Kushner and Julie Taymor—these are just a few of the influences from the United States that are invigorating the contemporary French stage. Influence in the opposite direction tends to be less common. Still, an awareness of things French among U.S. theatre practitioners and playgoers is growing—thanks in good measure to festivals like Under the Radar, the yearly international event run by Mark Russell at New York’s Public Theater; and Crossing the Line, the fall array of transdisciplinary artists produced by New York’s French Institute/Alliance Française in partnership with numerous New York cultural institutions . Also notable are increasingly adventuresome programming at various regional theatres and university campuses; aggressive pub- Introduction xix lic and private efforts to ensure that French literature in translation —theatrical and otherwise—will occupy a larger place...