Theatrical Activity in Paris (7) — The "Theater of the Nations" in Paris: Meeting Place of the Peoples

—7—

After the last world war the world turned toward international groupings of every kind — political and cultural institutions of all sorts. The United Nations and its many branches express this tendency in the modern civilized world, and man's hope of reaching the solution of his problems by way of peace and understanding instead of wars and disputes. And since culture is the soul of civilization and the wellspring from which it drinks, eyes turned toward the international cultural institutions, that they might be an instrument of solidarity and rapprochement... And who knows? Perhaps what was impossible for politics and its people may become possible through cultural and spiritual exchange.

The "Theater of the Nations" in Paris is trying to contribute to this bold experiment. It invites the masters of the theatrical art from all parts of the world, each to come with his troupe, his language, and his own methods, and offer his wares in the Sarah Bernhardt hall during four months of every year. It was founded on June 29, 1955, by decision of twenty-three states belonging to the "International Theatre Institute," with the approval of the French government and the municipal council of Paris.

The theater houses within its walls various international institutions, among them: the International Association of Theater Critics; the International Association of Theater Professionals; and the Club of the Theater of the Nations, which tries to bring together individuals interested in theatrical activity and believing in its cultural mission, setting before them the theories of the modern directors and the various problems of the theater, in lectures given by the great critics and in discussions in which the public, the actors, and the directors take part together...

In the latest bulletin issued by the theater's administration on its activity and its program for the past season we find the following figures:

States taking part in performances: 11
Languages used: 8
Plays: 11
Ballet: 9
Opera: 7

Among these states are England, Norway, Russia, Germany, Japan, Morocco, China, and France; each came with its own troupe, expressing itself in its national language, its particular style, and its novel apparatus of staging.

That we may grasp the importance of this theatrical display, let us mention some of the famous plays whose staging has left a tangible mark on the world of literary criticism and on the modern artistic tendency. Among the most important of them is Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus," presented by the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company, directed by Peter Brook and acted by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. The troupe performed it in English, and Jean-Louis Barrault (J. L. Barrault) had earlier read its French translation over the Paris radio, to ease the theater's task and spread the play among a public that does not know the English original. It met with dazzling success, although it is unknown to most lovers of Shakespeare, since men of letters and historians count it among the least important of his plays and the most tangled: the author wrote it in his first years of production, when his art was still in its childhood, feeling its way under the influence of the Elizabethan stage of that day... Its success at the Theater of the Nations is due, of course, to the collaboration of Laurence Olivier and Peter Brook in acting and direction. Brook took charge of the direction, the stage décor, and the music — an arduous task, each part of which is usually assigned to a particular person. The reason is that Brook believes the play to be a complete unity, whose staging must be undertaken by one man who directs the actors, decides the form of the production, and composes the music at the same time. And the director must not be bound by the surface text of the play; he must go beyond it to grasp the poet's message, so as to uncover his deep dream and present it, clear and crystallized, to the public...

The German theater presented three plays by the well-known German author Bertolt Brecht, among them the famous "Mutter Courage"; also the play "Requiem for a Nun," of which we spoke in a previous issue, by the American writer Faulkner; and the play "The Devil and God" by the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre. Each of the German directors, Erwin Piscator and Hans Schalla, set forth his views on theatrical direction and on the use of colors and lights to express the author's message. Last May I attended a discussion at the "Club of the Theater of the Nations" turning on the lighting used in Brecht's "Opéra de Quat' Sous," in which the director Hans Schalla, members of the administration of the Theater of the Nations, some of the actors and critics, and the public took part. The talk went on in both German and French; the press took up these views, and from them came valuable studies of the methods of theatrical art in France and abroad. One of the subjects the critics broached was the comparison between the staging of Sartre's "The Devil and God" by the German troupe of the "Bochum" theater under Schalla's direction, and the staging of the same play by the "Antoine" theater in 1950. For there is no doubt that director and actor exert a great influence upon a play: the same piece may appear wholly different if we see it on this stage or that, staged by different persons — as happened with Faulkner's play, "Requiem for a Nun," which the German troupe rendered in a manner entirely unlike Albert Camus's production in French. Opinions clashed as to which was the truer expression of the author's spirit and message, and the critics differed over the style of direction and the stage décor, and so on through all the divergences of professional and artistic method.

From this brief glance it appears that the "Theater of the Nations" is still taking its first steps, and that those behind this movement are trying to make Paris a center of cultural and artistic exchange and a meeting place of the peoples, that it may be a means of understanding and rapprochement; and they hope from this contact for a new vitality of artistic invention, and for a center of selection, refining, and sifting. Culture, for as long as history has been known, has had two fields in which it reveals itself: the first local, in which its roots take hold; the second worldwide, into which it stretches its branches — and both are necessary to its flowering and its ripening.

The theater is a vital part of a nation's culture; it expresses her hopes and her dreams, her problems and her pains. And at the same time it is distinguished by a universal human mission that passes beyond the bounds of the limited society in which it grows, gathering under its banner the sons of humanity, for all the difference of their colors and their tongues.