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Shakespeare’s Theatre of War in 1960s France

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Shakespeare in Cold War Europe

Part of the book series: Global Shakespeares ((GSH))

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Abstract

This chapter discusses Shakespearian festivals and productions by Roger Planchon and Marcel Maréchal in Cold War France. It shows how a scenographic focus on questions of space, approached here through Soja’s notion of ‘thirdspace’, worked to create theatrical events that exposed the impact of the conflict at the level of lived experience, thus exposing the political myth of bipolarity and bringing the horrifying reality of Cold War as a war home to French and European audiences.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘The Long Peace’ thesis was predicated by John Lewis Gaddes, initially in his study The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (1989), and thereafter debated widely and from a range of perspectives across the 1990s: see, for instance, Alvin M. Saperstein (1991), Gaddes (1992).

  2. 2.

    Kott (1966). For contrasting positions on Kott’s influential study during this period, see the chapters by Krystyna Kujawinska Courtney, Veronika Schandl, and Erica Sheen in this volume.

  3. 3.

    For a study of ‘Eurafrica’ as an integral feature of the European integration project, see Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson (2014); Chapter ‘The Cultural Politics of the Quatercentenary in Germany’ provides an account of ‘The Eurafrican Relaunch’ in the mid-1950s.

  4. 4.

    For a discussion of Crozier development of this concept and its application to post-war French society see Emile Chabal (2015).

  5. 5.

    ‘une modernité frappante. Mots qui ne disent plus grand-chose, actes vides, opposition entre la vision sublime des personnages alors héros-dieux et le comportement d’hommes-humains […] Ces thèmes s’entrecroisent mais ne font qu’introduire le grand collimateur, la guerre.’ (Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own.)

  6. 6.

    ‘Il y a deux thèmes essentiels: la guerre et l’amour. Le premier thème sert à démystifier le héros, le culte du surhomme, etc […] Shakespeare met en dérision les fausses valeurs que se donnent les hommes, c’est-à-dire quand il y a un décalage entre les valeurs et le comportement […] telles que honneur, courage […] Shakespeare démontre que, face à une situation donnée, un contexte favorable dirait le langage diplomatique, la réponse dépendait des hommes; mais ils ne surent que plonger dans la destruction et la mort. Nous avons tenté de dégager fortement les éléments qui conditionnent ce comportement, car il suffit de regarder autour de soi, de lire attentivement son journal du matin pour s’apercevoir que la pièce a été écrite par notre contemporain William Shakespeare.’

  7. 7.

    ‘En découpant le champ de bataille […] en balayant l’espace selon le rythme dément de la boucherie épique et dérisoire’ [ce dispositif évoque] les soudards d’aujourd’hui.’

  8. 8.

    ‘Pour nous, gens d’après guerre, qui avons appris le problème de l’engagement à travers Merleau-Ponty et Sartre, cette pièce est étonnante d’actualité.’

  9. 9.

    ‘[Cette] œuvre […] n’est pas morale, elle est sociale. Généralement on la joue d’une manière romantique. C’est-à-dire qu’on croit qu’il y a d’un côté les bons, et de l’autre un méchant, un vilain. En vérité, les problèmes sont toujours plus complexes dans la vie et dans la société.’

  10. 10.

    ‘Planchon s’efforce, tout au long, de donner l’impression que tout peut se jouer encore. Les actes définissent les hommes. Planchon fait un théâtre non déterministe. Voyons ce qui va se passer entre tel et tel personnage, semble-t-il dire.’

  11. 11.

    The construction of the concrete reinforcements to the Wall began in 1965, only a year before the staging of Richard III.

  12. 12.

    ‘Shakespeare rejoint Beckett à travers les siècles. Le Roi Lear n’est-il pas l’expression avant la lettre de Fin de Partie? Que le monde débouche sur la douleur individuelle ou sur l’apocalypse générale, tous deux n’ont-ils pas traduit l’angoisse de notre monde nucléaire.’

  13. 13.

    Nicole Fayard is grateful to the University of Leicester for awarding her a period of study leave enabling her to complete this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leicester, UK

    Nicole Fayard

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  1. Nicole Fayard
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Correspondence to Nicole Fayard .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English and Related Litera, University of York, York, United Kingdom

    Erica Sheen

  2. University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Bayern, Germany

    Isabel Karremann

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Fayard, N. (2016). Shakespeare’s Theatre of War in 1960s France. In: Sheen, E., Karremann, I. (eds) Shakespeare in Cold War Europe. Global Shakespeares. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51974-0_6

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