The Beauty of Revolt: Anarchist Theatre in the Belle Époque

Abstract

Parallels between twenty-first century terrorists and nineteenth-century dynamitards have prompted renewed interest in French anarchists of the Belle Époque. But their cultural lives and dramatic experiments remain much less well known. This chapter sheds light on a fascinating network of anarchist individuals, groups, and communes, exploring the connections they imagined—and sought to realize—between beauty, art, and revolt, and charting their attempts at social and popular theatre as a means of creating liberated individuals. The theme of beauty as revolt offers a fruitful means of understanding and connecting the brief, experimental Théâtre d’Art Social, the misleadingly-entitled Théâtre Civique (intended to create defiant citizens, not a docile electorate), and the theatre and song of anarchist communes and communities in and around Paris in the years immediately preceding the First World War.

Shortly after midnight, in those monasteries where the Rule still holds sway, shadowy figures slip along every corridor, silent and prayerful. We see them sliding like ghosts towards the chapel where, in fearful or jubilant chorus, their voices will soon be raised in supplication, joy, and ecstasy. The monks are singing the matins of the new day.