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France's ‘Other’ National Playwright? The Performance of Shakespeare in France and the Shakespeare Myth 1

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 19; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10486800903209299

1477-2264

Nicole Fayard,

Historical and Literary Analyses

Abstract It is now no exaggeration to suggest that Shakespearian production has been one of the most fascinating features of French theatre in contemporary France. There is therefore an intriguing paradox to unpick. Although Shakespeare is performed as an English author, he has since the Second World War gradually come to dominate French theatre performance in a way equalled only by Molière. Why should he feature so regularly on the French stage? In a first section this paper assesses Shakespeare's fortunes in France since the Second World War. It also briefly discusses how Shakespeare's settlement on the French stage has led to a gradual process of shaping and reshaping of his plays and repertoire, making it increasingly difficult nowadays to define what constitutes a Shakespearian production. A second section then explains this enduring appetite for Shakespeare. The interest in Shakespeare may have less to do with the inherent qualities of his plays than with the pursuit of symbolic power amongst theatrical directors, and the construction of the sacred ‘myth’ of Shakespeare. As such, his name and his theatre fulfil specific ideological needs. A final section suggests that the desire to produce Shakespeare's plays might not be totally the result of conservative games, and examines elements of cultural resistance within the field. Whilst the myth endures, what constitutes Shakespearian production is never taken for granted. Notes 1. This article was written and sections researched thanks to a period of study leave granted by the University of Leicester. I thank my department for support enabling me to present this work at relevant conferences. 2. Dennis Kennedy, Foreign Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 2. 3. Martin Orkin, Local Shakespeares: Proximations and Power (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 19. 4. Ibid., p. 4. 5. Fabienne Pascaud, ‘150 écrivains défendent la création francophone au théâtre: les auteurs se rebiffent', Libération, 20 December 2000, p. 29. 6. Voltaire, ‘Lettre de M. de Voltaire à l'Académie française, seconde partie’ (25 August 1776), in Mélanges IX. Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, XXX (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1880), p. 364. This follows Pierre Le Tourneur declaring Shakespeare to be the ‘god of the theatre’. ‘Voltaire to Charles Augustin Feriol, Comte d'Argental’ (19 July 1776), in The Complete Works of Voltaire, D20220, ed. by Theodore Besteman (Banbury: The Voltaire Foundation, 1975), p. 231. 7. Jean Jules Jusserand, Shakespeare in France sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris: Colin, 1898); John Pemble, Shakespeare Goes to Paris: How the Bard Conquered France (London: Hambledon and London, 2005). 8. See Pemble, ibid., pp. 43–63. 9. Jean Jacquot, Shakespeare en France, mises en scène d'hier et d'aujourd'hui (Paris: Le Temps, 1964), p. 30. 10. Jean Jacquot, ‘Vers un théâtre du peuple: Shakespeare en France après Copeau et le Cartel des quatre’, Etudes anglaises, 13.2 (1960), 216–47 (p. 216). 11. See Nicole Fayard, The Performance of Shakespeare in France since the Second World War: Re-imagining Shakespeare (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 2006), pp. 7–8 and 15–18; Jean Chatenet, Shakespeare sur la scène française depuis 1940 (Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1962), pp. 47–65. 12. Jean-Louis Barrault, A propos de Shakespeare et du théâtre (Paris: La Parade, 1949), p. 103. 13. Jacquot, ‘Vers un théâtre du peuple’, p. 216. 14. Ibid., p. 242. 15. Chatenet, Shakespeare depuis 1940, p. 14. 16. Ibid., p. 97. 17. The tables present a chronological record of main Shakespearian productions between 1940 and 1957. Ibid., pp. 106–13. 18. Fayard, Shakespeare in France. 19. Richard Marienstrass, ‘Une lucidité redoutable’, Théâtre en Europe, 7 (1985), 64–66 (p. 69). 20. Mathieu Galey, ‘Shakespeare: les têtes de série’, Théâtre en Europe, 7 (1985), 83–87 (p. 87). 21. In 1991–92, Racine came first, Marivaux and Shakespeare joint second, Molière third. In 1992–93, Molière came first, Marivaux second, Feydeau and Labiche third, Ionesco fourth, and Shakespeare fifth alongwith Goldoni and Maupassant. In 1993–94, Molière was first, Labiche second and Shakespeare third. Monique Sueur, ‘Analyse et repère des données’, in L'année du théâtre 1991–1992, ed. by Pierre Laville (Paris: Hachette, 1992), p. 375; L'année du théâtre 1992–1993, ed. by Pierre Laville (Paris: Hachette, 1993), p. 391; L'année du théâtre 1993–1994, ed. by Pierre Laville (Paris: Hachette, 1994), p. 402. 22. Pemble, Shakespeare, p. ix. 23. Michel Corvin, ‘Shakespeare William’, Dictionnaire encyclopédique du Théâtre Larousse 1995, http://www.t-n-b.fr/upload/spectacles/fichiertelecharger3/510fichiertelecharger.doc[accessed 1 May 2007]. 24. In Survey 1 1981 was deemed to open up a new cultural and Shakespearian era coinciding with the election of François Mitterrand. (Fayard, Shakespeare in France, pp. 119–201). 25. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (California: The University of California Press, 1988), p. 169. 26. For example Orkin, Local Shakespeares; Kennedy, Foreign Shakespeare. 27. Fayard, Shakespeare in France, pp. 31, 63, 86 and 130; Pemble, Shakespeare, p. 79. 28. Marion Monaco, Shakespeare on the French Stage in the Eighteenth Century (Paris: Didier, 1974). 29. Shakespeare has also long been adapted to classical and contemporary dance and music. See for example the Ventura Dance Company's Female Macbeth (Granville, October 2003), and Giant Luigi Trovesi's ‘Autour du songe’, a concert based on A Midsummer Night's Dream and performed by a Baroque and a Jazz trio declining the theme of the Bergamasque dance (Cavaillon, May 2004). However, my survey records only theatrical performances. 30. See Kennedy, Foreign Shakespeare, pp. 5–6. 31. The Appropriation of Shakespeare: Post-Renaissance Constructions of the Works and the Myth, ed. by Jean I. Marsden (New York: St Martin's Press, 1991), p. 1. 32. Daniel Fischlin and Mark Fortier, Adaptations of Shakespeare. A Critical Anthology of Plays from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (London: Routledge, 2000). 33. Gare au théâtre le journal, 4 (October 2000), p. 8, http://gareautheatre.com/_pdf_spectacles/journal_04.pdf[accessed 3 May 2007]. 34. For more details about the Shakespearian productions of young directors, see Nicole Fayard, ‘Recycling Shakespeare in the 1990s: Contemporary Developments on the French Stage’, French Cultural Studies, 14.1 (2003), 23–39. 35. ‘Le Théâtre en France 5’, Quid, http://www.quid.fr/2007/Theatre/Le_Theatre_En_France/5[accessed 27 April 2007]. 36. Brigitte Olivier, La Saison culturelle France 2003–2004 (Paris: Département de l'information et de la communication, 2003); Laurence Charrier, La Saison culturelle France 2006/2007 (Paris: Département de l'information et de la communication, 2006). 37. Recent cultural policy has also encouraged further collaboration between state-subsidized and private theatres, whose repertoire has traditionally been different. 38. Graham Holderness, The Shakespeare Myth (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988). 39. Conversation between Andrei Serban and Jean-Michel Déprats (6 July 2001), in Le Marchand de Venise press pack, Passion Théâtre, http://www.passion-theatre.org/cgi-bin/pti_lol/[accessed 24 April 2007]. 40. Interview with Mona Guichard (18 October 2006), in Lettre du trident, 25 (November–December 2006), http://pros.orange.fr/theatre-de-cherbourg/lettres/lettre25.pdf[accessed 30 April 2007]. 41. Christian Schiaretti in Armelle Héliot, ‘Christian Schiaretti, actualité de “Coriolan”’, Le Figaro, 30 November 2006, http://www. lefigaro.fr/culture/20061130.FIG000000134_christian_schiaretti_actualite_de_coriolan.html[accessed 24 April 2007]. 42. Alan Sinfield, ‘Royal Shakespeare: Theatre and The Making of Ideology’, in Political Shakespeare: News Essays In Cultural Materialism, ed. by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 182–205 (p. 198). 43. Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art (London: Polity Press, 1996), p. 286. 44. See Dollimore and Sinfield, Political Shakespeare; Bourdieu, The Rules of Art. 45. Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 13–14. 46. Patrice Pavis, Le Théâtre au croisement des cultures (Paris: José Corti, 1990), p. 52. 47. Ibid., p. 51. 48. After seeing Braunschweig's production of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, Brian McMaster, the director of the Edinburgh Festival, invited Braunschweig to stage a play in Britain with a British cast. As this invitation coincided with Braunschweig's taking up the directorship of the Centre National Dramatique d'Orléans, it was postponed until summer 1994. Braunschweig was working on The Winter's Tale at the time, and was invited to perform his play in Edinburgh with British actors. However, he argued that his production had been conceived for French actors and would not work in English, and suggested staging another play by Shakespeare at a later stage. Measure for Measure was produced in Edinburgh in collaboration with the Nottingham Playhouse in July 1997. 49. See the concepts of distinction and field developed by Pierre Bourdieu in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). 50. Fayard, ‘Recycling Shakespeare’, pp. 34–37. 51. Regattieri in Thierry Quinson, ‘Vincianne décrasse son Shakespeare!’, Regard en coulisse.com (1 February 2002), http://www.Regardencoulisse.com/articles/article.php?num=152[accessed 2 May 2007]. 52. Vital Philippot, ‘La Tempête’, Fluctuat.net, http://www.fluctuat.net/scenes/chroniques02/tempete.htm[accessed 1 May 2007] (my emphasis). 53. Regattieri in Quinson, ‘Vincianne décrasse’.