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‘Les Grecs’ à la Française

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Leanore Lieblein
Leanore Lieblein
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of English, McGill University.
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Extract

In July 1989 the ‘trilogy’ of Œdipe et les oiseaux, directed by Jean-Pierre Vincent with decor and costumes by Jean-Paul Chambas and dramaturgy by Bernard Chartreux, was presented in its ‘premier état’ at the Festival of Avignon. This preliminary version consisted of full scale productions of Œdipe tyran and Œdipe à Colone by Sophocles in new translations by Chartreux, and a reading of Cité des oiseaux, Chartreux's adaptation of The Birds by Aristophanes. The definitive version was presented at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre. Tyran and Colone opened in October and played in alternation until joined by Oiseaux in November. The complete trilogy—the three plays in succession on a single day—was performed to sold out houses on five successive Saturdays in November and December.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , Summer 1993 , pp. 123 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1993

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References

Notes

1. The observations that follow are based not only on scripts, performances, reviews, interviews, etc., as indicated, but also attendance at rehearsals for two weeks in May and from September to November 1989. I am grateful to the Théâtre des Amandiers and all of the participants in these productions for their hospitality, but especially to Jean-Pierre Vincent, Bernard Chartreux, and Léonidas Strapatsakis, for their patience, cooperation, and help. I also wish to thank the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research of McGill University for their support of this work.

2. Indeed it is those in the nationally and municipally subsidized theatres who most often speak out and/or are called to account. In 1963 Herbert Blau, as an American, was writing longingly of the French national habit of vilifying the Comédie-Française which, at the time, was undergoing one of its periodic crises: ‘We can well envy a country … which can enjoy such a crisis. … The paramount value of the Comédie is that it exists. There. To be attacked.’ The Impossible Theater: A Manifesto (1964; Rpt. New York: Collier, 1985), p. 28.Google Scholar

3. Cf. ‘Théâtre as-tu du chœur?’, Libération, 19 07 1989.Google Scholar

4. Théâtre/Public, No. 88–89, 07–10 1989, 40.Google Scholar

5. Mereuze, Didier in La Croix, 9 07 1989Google Scholar; G[odard], C[olette] in Le Monde, 6 07 1989Google Scholar; Dumur, Guy in Le Nouvel Observateur, 6 07 1989.Google Scholar

6. Ferney, Frédéric, ‘Œdipe sans cravate’, 3 10 1989.Google Scholar

7. Bernard, René, ‘L'Odyssée d'Œdipe’, 29 09 1989.Google Scholar

8. ‘Trilogie pour Œdipe’, Le Provençal, 12 07 1989.Google Scholar

9. G[odard], C[olette], ‘Trilogie grecque: Mythes et démocratie’, Le Monde, 6 07 1989.Google Scholar

10. Théâtre/Public, No. 88–89, 07–10 1989, 63.Google Scholar

11. ibid.

12. ‘Théâtre as-tu du chœur?’, Libération, 19 07 1989.Google Scholar

13. H[éliot], A[rmelle], ‘Œdipe Tyran ou l'éternité du mythe’, Le Quotidian, 17 07 1989.Google Scholar

14. Debuysscher, Jan, ‘Le Cri des oiseaux sur nos têles’, Le Comtadin, 27 07 1989.Google Scholar Cf. also Thibaudet, Jean-Pierre, ‘Chambas, Odyssée d'un décor’, Libération, 13 07 1989.Google Scholar

15. Paulino-Neto, Brigitte, ‘Nyaka voir les Oiseaux’, Libération, 6 12 1989.Google Scholar

16. Other provocative examples of doubling were Frédéric Constant as Thésée and the Dieu barbare, and Claude Bouchery as Tirésias and the self-important and time serving Coryphée.

17. Œdipe tyran, trans. Chartreux, Bernard (Paris: Ecritures Théâtrales, 1989).Google Scholar Subsequent quotations of Tyran and Œdipe à Colone, trans. Chartreux, Bernard (Paris: Ecritures Théâtrales, 1989)Google Scholar, will be documented with line numbers in parentheses in the text.

18. Vincent, Jean-Pierre in rehearsal, 15 09 1989.Google Scholar

19. ibid.

20. ibid., 15 May 1989.

21. 10 May 1989.

22. 11 May 1989.

23. Vincent, Jean-Pierre in rehearsal, 6 10 1989.Google Scholar

24. Chartreux, Bernard, Cité des oiseaux: d'après Aristophane (Paris: Ecritures Théâtrales, 1989), p. 13.Google Scholar Subsequent quotations will be documented with page numbers in parentheses in the text.

25. Cf. Schechner, Richard, ‘Selective Inattention’, Performance Theory (1977; Rev. New York: Routledge, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. Œdipe tyran, trans. Bernard Chartreux, p. 5.Google Scholar Also in Œdipe à Colone, trans. Bernard Chartreux, p. 5.Google Scholar

27. Solis, René, ‘Œdipe décomplexé’, Libération, 7 10 1989.Google Scholar Cf. also Germain, G., ‘La beauté du geste grec’, L'Éveil, 2 11 1989.Google Scholar

28. Dumur, Guy, ‘Les miroirs de la Révolution’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 27 07 1989Google Scholar; G[resh], S[ylviane], ‘Œdipe’, Révolution, 28 07 1989Google Scholar; Clément, Catherine, ‘Laissez-moi dire ce que j'ai vu’, Avignon 89 (Paris: Actes Sud Papiers, 1989], p. 32.Google Scholar

29. ‘En marge: Le Bicentenaire en Avignon 89’, Théâtre/Public, No. 92, 03–04 1990), 53.Google Scholar

30. Marcabru, Pierre, ‘Aristophane à la fête’, Le Point, 4 12 1989.Google Scholar

31. ‘La Cité des oiseaux’, Télérama, 6 12 1989.Google Scholar

32. Mereuze, Didier, ‘’ Témoinage Chrétien, 9 12 1989.Google Scholar

33. ibid.