SOCIAL DRAMA IN FRANCE IN THE NEW SUBSIDISED THEATRES (l94d - 1968)^ WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE WORK OF GABRIEL COUSIN A thesis presented by David William aeffery for the degree of Ph.D., Bedford College, University of London, 1980 ProQuest Number: 10098383 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10098383 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT Social drama in France in the new subsidised theatres, 1945-1968, with special reference to the work of Gabriel Cousin: by D . W . Jeffery____________________ _________________ A fresh impetus was given to the development of provincial theatre in France immediately after the Second World War by the establishment of* five subsidised Centres Dramatiques Nationaux in Colmar, Saint-Étienne, Toulouse, Rennes, and Aix-en-Provence. Largely influenced by the proposals of the prewar Cartel group of theatre directors for decentralising and democratising French theatre, the directors of these new Centres set about capturing audiences hitherto unfamiliar with the theatre in the culturally barren provinces. During the nineteen-fifties, more experimental forms of theatre, frequently based on the recently-experienced Brechtian epic drama, were gradually introduced into the otherwise traditional repertoires of the new companies. With the creation of a Ministère des Affaires Culturelles under the Fifth Republic in 1958, a further expansion of the decentralisation programme was planned. In the following decade, four new Centres Dramatiques, eleven Troupes Permanentes, and nine Maisons de la Culture were set up, thus bringing the majority of the French population within reach of some form of theatrical activity for the first time. A corresponding increase in the output of plays by a new generation of young dramatists led to a spate of works dealing predominantly with socio-political themes. Typical of this new generation is Gabriel Cousin, whose career as a dramatist began with an intense love of sport and an interest in the art of movement. Like many of his contemporaries. Cousin became inspired by both the theoretical writings and the practical theatre of Artaud, Copeau, and Brecht. His own plays - on such themes as racism, Third World famine, the nuclear threat, and the alienation of Man by his work - show him to be a key figure among the group of social dramatists who sought to arouse in their audiences a 'prise de conscience' of contemporary social ills. Cousin's theatre is thus characteristic of much of the work produced in the new subsidised provincial theatres of France in the postwar era, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank Dr.- Dorothy Knowles for all the advice, help, and encouragement she has given me on numerous occasions during the preparation of this thesis Je tiens à témoigner ma profonde gratitude à Gabriel Cousin tant pour l'aide efficace qu'il m'a apportée dans mon travail de recherche que pour son accueil chaleureux et sympathique lors de mes visites. Contents PART ONE THE NEW SUBSIDISED THEATRES AND THEIR REPERTOIRES CHAPTER I PHASE 1 : 1945 - 1952 (a) Ori gins of the décentralisât ion of pos twar Ere nch theatre 6 (b) The Centre Dramatique de I'Es t 10 (c) The Comédie de Saint-Étienne 15 (d) The Grenier de Toulouse 21 (e) The Centre Dramatique de l'Ouest 27 (f) The Comédie de Provence 32 <g) Cha racteris tics of the reper toire s 35 CHAPTER II PHA SE 2 : 1952 - 1958 (a) The Centre Dramatique de l'E s t 42 (b) The Comédie de Saint-Étienne 46 (c) The Grenier .de Toulouse 50 (d) The Centre Dramatique de l'Ouest 54 (e) The Comédie de Provence 58 (f) Cha racteris tics of the reper toire s 62 (g) External influences on the rep ertoires of the Centres Dramatiques 70 CHAPTER III PHA SE 3 : 1958 - 1968 (a) Exp ansion of the decentralis ation movement 80 (b) The Centres Dramatiques Nati onaux 82 (c) The Théâtre de l'Est Parisie n 90 (d) The Troupes Permanentes 104 (e) The Théâtre Quotidien de Mar se i 11e 105 (f) The Maisons de la Culture 113 (g) 0th e r developments in French thea tre up to 1968 117 CHAPTER IV SOCIAL DRAMA IN THE NEW SUBSIDISED THEATRES: AN EVALUATION 127 PART TWO GABRIEL COUSIN CHAPTER V FORMATIVE INFLUENCES ON COUSIN AS A DRAMATIST (a) Childhood 142 (b) Work and Sport 143 (c) War, Marriage, and a change of direction 146 (d) Literary awakening 147 (e) Les Compagnons de la Saint-Jean 153 (f) Mounin and Monnet 165 (g) Cousin and the Parti Communiste Français 168 (h) Discovering Brecht 171 CHAPTER VI THE PLAYS (a) L 'Officina 175 (b) L'Aboyeuse et l'Automate 185 (c) Le Drame du Fukuryu-Maru 217 (d) Cancer sur la Terre 241 (e) Le Voyage de derrière la Montagne 250 (f) L'Opéra Noir 270 (g) Vivre en 1968 294 (h) La Descente sur Recife 305 (i) Le Cycle du Crabe 315 CHAPTER VII COUSIN'S THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE THEATRE343 CHAPTER VIII THE THEMES OF THE SOCIAL DRAMATISTS 371 CHAPTER IX COUSIN'S PLACE IN THE SOCIAL DRAMA MOVEMENT 384 CHAPTER X CONCLUSION 397 THE NEW SUBSIDISED THEATRES 407 BIBLIOGRAPHY 408 6 PART ONE ; THE NEW SUBSIDISED THEATRES AND THEIR RHPERTOIRES CHAPTER I PHASE 1 : 1945 - 1952 (a) Origins of the decentralisation of postwar French theatre That a theatrical decentralisation movement should emerge at all in postwar France was no accident: it came about as a result of the fusion of three distinct, but complementary, philosophies. First, the prewar theatre directors, the Cartel group of Dullin, Pitoëff, Baty and Jouvet, themselves the inheritors of Jacques Copeau's ideas, had left an artistic legacy difficult to shake off, both in terms of its rejection of naturalistic themes and styles and in its concentration on directors' theatre. Dullin and Copeau had, moreover, produced philosophies of drama which bore directly on the renewed hopes of their successors in the new subsidised theatres in the provinces after the war. Charles Dullin's prophetic but unheeded Rapport of 1937, republished in 1969 under the title Ce sont les dieux qu'il nous faut, envisaged a decentralised theatre which lent to regional theatres an autonomy and a style developed from the personality of their directors. Dullin saw the rôle of the theatre as an educational one and the dissemination of dramatic art essential to the civilisation of France. His hopes, and those of fellow members of the Cartel, were to be realised when the decentralisation movement began in 1946. In a sense, therefore, this movement may be said to be the extension of the ideas of the Cartel directors themselves. Jacques Copeau's pamphlet Le Théâtre Populaire, written in 1941, advocated a return to the popular dramatic festivals of Ancient Greece or Medieval times. His experiences in Burgundy had led him to conclude that the greatest appeal in theatre for the masses was to be had from an unemphatic kind of poetry expressed in mime, song, and dance. Copeau's philosophy of the presentation of drama was to be re-adopted later by itinerant companies both within and outside the scope of the decentralisation movement; These considerations of the form and organisation of the theatre in the provinces are not inapposite, since the physical decentralisation of theatrical talent and ideas is indissolubly linked to the content of the drama presented. In starker terms, the propagation of culture was only made feasible through the multiplication of outlets for that culture. It was the enlargement of the network of theatres which preceded the broadening repertoire of the companies, and not a contrary movement,which characterised the decentralisation era. The second major influence upon postwar decentralisation policy was an administrative one: it was the result of individual inspiration and dedication on the part of one government official, whose efforts during the war years set the movement into stable and permanent operation after the war. Jeanne Laurent, an ex-deputy mayor from Alsace, had developed an interest in theatre affairs while working for the government in a minor capacity from 1939 to 1944, and when, in October 1945, she assumed the responsibilities of Directeur des Spectacles et de la Musique à la Direction Générale des Arts et des Lettres - a post created only in August 1945 - she brought to the job an objectivity and a perspicacity that earned her the respect of all the directors of the future Centres Dramatiques until her removal from office in 1952. Jeanne Laurent's enlightened attitude towards theatre expansion extended even into the field of repertoire. As Gontard has pointed out^, she was aware in 1943 of the necessity for a cosmopolitan outlook by theatre companies, thus avoiding any narrow or chauvinistic approach to dramatic presentations. In her article L'administration des Beaux-Arts et le théâtre parisien en 1941-2, she indicated that even the great subsidised theatres of Paris could, if they wished, "accueillir des auteurs vivants, même révolutionnaires, et confier la présentation de leurs oeuvres à des metteurs en 1. D. Gontard, La Décentralisation Théâtrale, S.E.D.E.S., 1973, p .144. scène audacieux", The third phenomenon which helped create the whole movement and philosophy of decentralisation was that of the Liberation itself - an indefinable force which acted both upon men of the theatre and on the public at large.