Culture for All, Public Theater, Private Theater, the French Rules of the Game

Authors

  • Mirella Pautreau THALIM (Théorie et histoire des arts et des littératures de la modernité) / CNRS Paris, France

Keywords:

public theater, popular theater, private theater, subsidized theatre, Festival d'Avignon IN, Festival d'Avignon OFF, intermittents du spectacle, cultural policy

Abstract

The theater has always been a privileged partner of the political Power, to be protected and/or monitored, depending on each type of society. In France, the idea of having the arts and culture supported by the State had already germinated at the dawn of the French Revolution, but it was necessary to wait until  the end of the 19th century to witness a real awareness and a new distribution of “roles” between institutionalization and democratization. After a quick  historical review, following in the footsteps of André Malraux, Jean Vilar or Jack Lang, until today, we can identify the principles of a cultural policy, shared  between the State and the local authorities. An important particularity of this system is that this policy integrates, to different degrees, the public and private sectors. More concretely, we define what the French theatrical system is made of both public and private, and in the latter, which is more fragile and  relatively uncontrollable, we recall the situation of the socalled “intermittents du spectacle” and their permanent struggle to consolidate or wrest their  rights. A representative case is thus the confrontation between the two branches of the Festival d'Avignon, the IN and the OFF, at the turn of the health  crisis, from which the theater has managed to emerge alive.

Author Biography

Mirella Pautreau, THALIM (Théorie et histoire des arts et des littératures de la modernité) / CNRS Paris, France

MIRELLA PATUREAU is a theater historian and critic, translator and associate researcher at THALIM  (Théorie et histoire des arts et des littératures de la modernité) / CNRS, theater critic at RFI (Radio France Internationale), Paris. She is also a member of the Association of Romanian Language  Translators (ATLR), the SACD (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers) France, the AICT  (International Association of Theatre Critics). She is specialized in modern theatrical writing in Europe –  new technologies on stage – and contemporary Romanian theater, and wrote several studies in  collective works, published in France by the CNRS Publishing House (Brook, vol. 13 of Voies de la  création théâtrale, Chéreau, vol. 14, La scène et les images, vol. 18), and at the l’Age d’Homme  Publishing House (Théâtre et Cinéma années 20; Les écrans sur la scène). Other collaborations, in  several periodicals in France and abroad (Théâtre public, Europe, Seine et Danube – Paris; Alternatives  théâtrales; Scènes, Centre belge ITI – Brussels; Teatr – Warsaw, Poland; Observator cultural, Dilema  veche, Scena.ro, Euphorion, Vatra – Romania). She translated into French several plays of the young  Romanian dramaturgy.

Published

2022-04-14

How to Cite

Pautreau, M. (2022). Culture for All, Public Theater, Private Theater, the French Rules of the Game. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai - Dramatica, 67(1), 99–117. Retrieved from https://dramatica.ro/index.php/j/article/view/243