Etienne Decroux

Abstract

On 15 May 1924, when Copeau closed the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier so that he could devote all of his time to the school, he decided to take his students to Burgundy to avoid the distractions of Paris which were antagonistic to his work. Among those students who were invited to go to the country was one Etienne Decroux — included, it was once conjectured, not so much because he was a promising student (which he no doubt was) but because he had been an apprentice butcher and the school was felt to need a person with those qualifications. About fifteen people in all went with Copeau to Morteuil in 1924. Madame Chennevière, wife of the poet and teacher, accompanied her husband and acted as mistress of the house and director of the kitchen. Madame Dasté remembers Decroux’s bare torso as he deftly cut the meat on a marble slab in the kitchen, his economical gestures already those of a mime. These economical gestures of the working person were one of the primary influences on Decroux’s art; he was often heard to say that working people perform the simplest, most efficient and least tiring movements, as they have to conserve their energy in order to make it through their long days. Copeau too had remarked upon working people’s economy of gesture. ‘That comes from their really doing something, that they do what they do and do it well, knowing the reason, absorbing themselves in it’ (Rudlin, 1986, p. 45).

Copeau had ignited us so well that those of who left him took fire with them. (Etienne Decroux)