Contemporary French Theatre and Performance

255 Pages·2011·25.199 MB·English

by  Clare Finburgh, Carl Lavery (eds.)

Performance Interventions
Series Editors: Elaine Aston, University of Lancaster, and Bryan Reynolds,
University of California, Irvine
Performance Interventions is a series of monographs and essay collections on theatre,
performance, and visual culture that share an underlying commitment to the
radical and political potential of the arts in our contemporary moment, or give
consideration to performance and to visual culture from the past deemed crucial
to a social and political present. Performance Interventions moves transversally
across artistic and ideological boundaries to publish work that promotes dialogue
between practitioners and academics, and interactions between performance com
munities, educational institutions, and academic diSciplines.
Titles include:
Alan Ackerman and Martin Puchner (editors)
AGAINST THEATRE
Creative Destructions on the Modernist Stage
Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris (editors)
FEMINIST FUTURES?
Theatre, Performance, Theory
Maaike Bleeker
VISUALITY IN THE THEATRE
The Locus of Looking
Clare Finburgh and Carl Lavery (editors)
CONTEMPORARY FRENCH THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
James Frieze
NAMING THEATRE
Demonstrative Diagnosis in Performance
Lynette Goddard
STAGING BLACK FEMINISMS
Identity, Politics, Performance
Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson (editors)
GET REAL: DOCUMENTARY THEATRE PAST AND PRESENT
Leslie Hill and Helen Paris (editors)
PERFORMANCE AND PLACE
D.]. Hopkins, Shelley Orr and Kim Solga
PERFORMANCE AND THE CITY
Amelia Howe Kritzer
POLITICAL THEATRE IN POST-THATCHER BRITAIN
New Writing: 1995-2005
Marcela Kostihova
SHAKESPEARE IN TRANSITION
Political Appropriations in the Post-Communist Czech Republic
Jon McKenzie, Heike Roms and C. J. w.-L. Wee (editors)
CONTESTING PERFORMANCE
Emerging Sites of Research
Jennifer Parker-Starbuck
CYBORG THEATRE
Corporeal/Technological Intersections in Multimedia Performance
Ramon H. Rivera-Servera and Harvey Young
PERFORMANCE IN THE BORDERLANDS
Mike Sell (editor)
AVANT-GARDE PERFORMANCE AND MATERIAL EXCHANGE
Vectors of the Radical
Melissa Sihra (editor)
WOMEN IN IRISH DRAMA
A Century of Authorship and Representation
Brian Singleton
MASCULINITIES AND THE CONTEMPORARY IRISH THEATRE
Performance Interventions
Series Standing Order ISBN 978-1-4039-4444-3 Paperback
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a
standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us
at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the
ISBN quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Contemporary French
Theatre and Performance
Edited by
Clare Finburgh
(Senior Lecturer in Modern Drama)
and
Carl Lavery
(Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance)
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R:SPUBUQ..UB FllANCAISB
This book is supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as
part of the Burgess programme run by the Cultural Department of the
French Embassy in London. (www.frenchbooknews.com)
palgrave
macmillan
* Introduction and editorial matter © Clare Finburgh and Carl Lavery 2011
All other chapters © contributors 2011
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-58051-0
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
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this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
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ISBN 978-1-349-36850-1 ISBN 978-0-230-30566-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230305663
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
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country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Contemporary French theatre and performance / edited by Clare Finburgh
and Carl Lavery.
p.cm.
Includes index.
Summary: "This is the first book to explore the relationship between
experimental theatre and performance making in France. Reflecting the
recent return to aesthetics and politics in French theory, it focuses on
how a variety of theatre and performance practitioners use their art work
to contest reality as it is currently configured in France" - Provided by
publisher.
ISBN 978-1-349-36850-1
1. Experimental theater-France. 2. Theater-France-History-21st
century. I. Finburgh, Clare. II. Lavery, Carl, 1969-
PN2635.2.C66 2011
792.0944'09051-dc22 2011001640
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
Transferred to Digital Printing 2013
To Immanuel, Inez, Raphael and Saul
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements x
Notes on Contributors xii
Introduction 1
Clare Finburgh and Carl Lavery
Part 1 Contemporary French Theatre 31
1 From Mise en Scene of Texte to Performance of
'Textual Material' 33
David Bradby
2 The Spirit of a Place: Place in Contemporary French Theatre 4S
Michel Corvin
3 The Landscaped Narratives of Phillipe Minyana and
Noelle Renaude S6
Celine Hersant
4 The Politics of Dramaturgy in France 68
Clare Finhurgh
S An Unlikely Scene: French Theatre in the New
Liberal Economy 80
Jean-Pierre Han
6 The Construction and Production of Performance 90
Robert Cantarella
7 Performing Presence, Affirming Difference: Deleuze
and the Minor Theatres of Georges Lavaudant and
Carmelo Bene 99
Laura Cull
8 Theatre du Grabuge: Ethics, Politics and Community 111
Berenice Hamidi-Kim
9 Amateurism and the 'DIY' Aesthetic: Grand Magasin
and Phillipe Quesne 122
Chloe Dechery
vii
viii Contents
Part 2 Contemporary French Performance 13S
10 From Orlan to Bernhardt: Recycling French Feminism,
Theatre and Performance 137
Elaine Aston
11 Performance and Poetry: Crossed Destinies 149
Eric Vautrin
12 Breaking Down the Walls: Interventionist Performance
Strategies in French Street Theatre 162
Susan Haedicke
13 Montage and Detournement in Contemporary French
Moving Image Performance 174
Carl Lavery
14 Xavier Ie Roy: The Dissenting Choreography of
One Frenchman Less 188
Bojana Cvejic
15 A Theological Turn? French Postmodern Dance
and Herman Diephuis's D'Apres '.-G. 200
Nigel Stewart
16 Watching People in the Light: Jerome Bel and the
Classical Theatre 213
Augusto Corrieri
17 Apres toutes ces ellesl After All this Else: 'New' French
Feminisms Translated to the British Scene 224
Geraldine Harris
Index 236
List of Illustrations
1 Extract from Noelle Renaude (2006), Ceux qui partent it
l'aventure (Paris: Theatrales), p. 93 64
2 Bernard Heidsieck reading Tout autour de Vaduz, la poesie/
nuit, Lyon, 2006 ©Didier Grappe 151
3 Charles Pennequin and the guitarist Jean-Franc;ois Pauvros, la
poesie/nuit, Lyon, 2007 ©Didier Grappe 157
4 Montage of images from Jeanne Simone's Le Goudron n'est pas
meuble at Aurillac, 2008 ©Susan Haedicke 167
5 Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's TH. 2058 at Tate Modern,
2009 ©Carl Lavery 179
6 Julien Gallee-Ferre (Christ) and Claire Haenni (Mary) in
Herman Diephuis's D'apres f.-c., 2006 Photo: Marco Barbon 205
ix
Acknowledgements
We have endeavoured, where possible, to use respected translations in
this volume. When this was neither possible nor appropriate, we either
asked contributors to provide their own translations, or translated texts
ourselves with the support of Dominic Glynn and Cathy Piquemal. We
adopted the same principle with respect to titles of plays, performances
and texts. On all occasions, the date in brackets refers to the original
French publication, and not to the English translation. The meaning
of titles that remain in the French original are, we trust, self-evident.
Finally, we have tried to engage the chapters in a dialogue with each
other by making use of extensive cross-references and editors' notes.
Some of the editors' notes are for the benefit of an Anglophone audi
ence and provide information on key figures, terms and events in
France.
We gratefully acknowledge permission to edit and reprint sections
from an essay by Michel Corvin, 'L'Esprit du lieu', Theatre/Public,
183 (2006), 36-44.; and sections of a document by Clare Finburgh,
'External and Internal Dramaturgies', Contemporary Theatre Review, 20:2
(2010),206-19 (http://www.informaworld.com). We would also like to
thank the contributors and companies who supplied images for the vol
ume. This book owes much to the translation, linguistic and organiza
tional skills of Dominic Glynn at Exeter College, Oxford University and
Cathy Piquemal, the Publications and Research Officer at Aberystwyth
University. Their help has been immense.
This volume would not have been possible without the support of
the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who provided a Burgess Grant
for translation fees. In difficult economic times, Aberystwyth University
and the Department of Theatre, Film and Television (TFTS) went beyond
the call of duty and financed translation costs, supplied administrative
support and funded a research trip to Paris in 2009. We are indebted to
Professors Adrian Kear and Lynn Pykett.
We would like to mention the colleagues and friends who com
mented on extracts from the book and helped to source images. These
include: Anne-Fran~oise Benhamou, Christophe Brault, Joseph Danan,
Andrew Filmer, Reuben Knutson, Noelle Renaude, Mike Pearson, Bruno
Tackels, David Williams and Ralph Yarrow. For a number of personal
reasons, some good, some bad, this book has taken longer than it
x