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(2011) Contemporary French theatre and performance, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Théâtre du grabuge

ethics, politics and community

Bérénice Hamidi-Kim

pp. 111-121

Since the term théâtre populaire entered the cultural lexicon towards the end of the nineteenth century, French theatre has been publicly charged to act as an agent of and for greater democracy. However, what democracy actually means in this context has been repeatedly questioned, with all parties concerned (government ministers, artistic directors and theatre makers) arguing fiercely over the best way to define it and to proceed. Whereas artists such as Romain Rolland and Armand Gatti advocated a form of people's theatre that would lead to a political revolution, others such as Firmin Gémier, Jean Vilar and, more recently, Ariane Mnouchkine have pursued a different objective: namely, to bring together and reunite all the sections of French society in or around a common stage. At a time when the economic gap between rich and poor in France is widening, and a vociferous and aggressive debate over what constitutes French national identity is on the governmental agenda, a number of artists persist in their attempts to realize the Utopian aims of théâtre populaire with refreshed methods (see David Bradby, Chapter 1 in this volume). This chapter, based on the study of the Passerelles by Théâtre du Grabuge, purports to analyse one such attempt.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1057/9780230305663_9

Full citation:

Hamidi-Kim, B. (2011)., Théâtre du grabuge: ethics, politics and community, in C. Finburgh & C. Lavery (eds.), Contemporary French theatre and performance, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 111-121.

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