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This book is the first study of popular theatre in France from left to right, exploring how theatre shapes political acts, ideals, and communities in the modern world. As the French found innovative ways of imagining culture and politics in the age of the masses, popular theatre became central to the republican project of using art to create citizens, using secular spaces for the experience of civic communion. But while state projects often faltered in finding playwrights, locations, and audiences, popular theatre flourished on the political and geographical peripheries. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book illuminates lost worlds of political conviviality, from anarchist communes and clandestine agit-prop drama to royalist street politics and right-wing mass spectacle. It reveals new connections between French initiatives and their European counterparts, and demonstrates the enduring strength of radical communities in shaping political ideals and engagement.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Citizens of Utopia: Popular Theatre and the Republican State.- 3. Folk Art, Faith, and Nationalism: Popular Theatre in the Provinces.- 4. Beyond the Peuple Fid èle: Catholic Theatre and the Masses.- 5. Anarchist Theatre in the Belle Époque: The Beauty of Revolt.- 6. The Art of Revolution, from Romain Rolland to Communist Agit-Prop.- 7. The Art of Counter-Revolution, from Royalist Satire to Fascist Mass Spectacle.- 8. Conclusion.
About the author
Jessica Wardhaugh is Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, UK, where she researches and teaches on French politics and culture. Her first monograph with Palgrave (2009) was a study of street politics in 1930s France. She has also edited books on Paris and the Right, and politics and the individual.
Summary
This book is the first study of popular theatre in France from left to right, exploring how theatre shapes political acts, ideals, and communities in the modern world. As the French found innovative ways of imagining culture and politics in the age of the masses, popular theatre became central to the republican project of using art to create citizens, using secular spaces for the experience of civic communion. But while state projects often faltered in finding playwrights, locations, and audiences, popular theatre flourished on the political and geographical peripheries. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book illuminates lost worlds of political conviviality, from anarchist communes and clandestine agit-prop drama to royalist street politics and right-wing mass spectacle. It reveals new connections between French initiatives and their European counterparts, and demonstrates the enduring strength of radical communities in shaping political ideals and engagement.
Additional text
“Popular Theatre and Political Utopia gives us both telling vignettes and a broad overview of theatre that sought collective transcendence during the Third Republic. By doing so, it sheds light on a vast realm of performances that is rarely mapped out in works this comprehensive or this richly researched.” (Cary Hollinshead-Strick, H-France Review, Vol. 18 (230), December, 2018)
Report
"Popular Theatre and Political Utopia gives us both telling vignettes and a broad overview of theatre that sought collective transcendence during the Third Republic. By doing so, it sheds light on a vast realm of performances that is rarely mapped out in works this comprehensive or this richly researched." (Cary Hollinshead-Strick, H-France Review, Vol. 18 (230), December, 2018)
