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Patrice Chreau on "The Screens"

Author(s): Arthur HolmbergSource: Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1984), pp. 75-77Published by: Performing Arts Journal, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3245409Accessed: 22/09/2010 00:40

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PATR ICE C H E R E A UO n " T h e Screens"

Interviewedby ArthurHolmbergWhat considerations led you to produce The Screens now?There is a crisis in the theatre, and I don't believe it's limited to France. Wehave no great playwrights. There are plenty of people who write plays, but Idon't know of anyone who knows how to use language dramatically, to in-corporate it into a theatrical discourse. One of my primary goals inestablishing this cultural center in Nanterre is to search out and nurtureyoung playwrights like Bernard-MarieKoltes. You don't write a great playovernight-you must learn the craft.The last great age of theatre in the Western worldwas the theatre of the ab-surd spawned in Paris in the fifties. WhyGenet? Why The Screens? Simple.It is the last great French play. I would even go so far as to say it is the lastgreat literarywork written in French. It has not been seen in France sinceBarrault's famous production in 1966. Therefore, a whole generation ofyoung Frenchmen have grown up who have not had a chance to see this na-tional treasure. I wanted to share with them the opportunityof hearing andseeing Genet's masterpiece. It's a play that submerges plot and character.It doesn't tell a story with psychologically coherent characters. It is a hymnin praise of the French language. It is a play about words, about the energyof words. It's a play about play. It's a play about death. It's also full ofhumor.Genet is a great comedian, and he gave freer rein to this side of histalent in The Screens than anywhere else.[Atthe premiere of Chereau's production right wing terroristsplant a bombin the theatre. Theperformance is stopped and the building cleared out.]The political right are not the most astute literarycritics. There were alsobombs and numerous incidents the last time the play was presented. Iremember the situation well because myprise de conscience politique tookshape during the Algerian War,and my decision to set the play in the 1950srather than the 1830s was a desire to reflect this agitated period of ourhistory when the play was written. But history is only pretext for the spec-tacle. The right thinks the play attacks French imperialism against theArabs and that the scene of breaking wind over the fallen dead insults thenational honor. But The Screens is not a political play. It is a play aboutwords, a detonation of the French language. No great play is political, atleast in the sense usually meant. Great plays transcend politics.

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THESCREENSI'm astounded to hear you say that no great play is political. One of themost salient features of your career has been to produce plays which mostwould consider highly charged politically, and with a definite leftist bent:Fuente Ovejuna of Lope de Vega, The Massacre of Paris of Marlowe, TheSoldiers of Lenz, Don Juan, RichardII,The Splendor and Death of JoaquimMurietaof Pablo Neruda,Tollerof TankredDorst, Lulu,and Wagner's Ring.The abuse of power is a constant theme in your work.Obviously the plays I choose to devote time and energy to and my inter-pretation of them reflect my social preoccupations and political concerns.At the beginning of my career I believed in the missionary role of theatre,but I have lost that faith. To what extent does theatre have an impact onsociety ... ? Well, let's say I'm now an agnostic. Politics today is in thehands of technocrats who don't go to the theatre. For the theatre to be apolitical force, it would have to reach many more people than it does. Thetheatre is no longer a mass medium. It appeals to an elite. I'm not talkingabout a political, social, or economic elite. I mean an intellectual and ar-tistic elite. Of course despair can prod you along. One dreams always ofcreating utopia, of a revolution that finally achieves the highest ideals ofjustice, of a theatre that reaches out to the entire population. But these aredreams. As for reality, Ihave always followed and will continue to follow myown aesthetic objectives. Mymovies and plays appeal only to a relativelysmall public. We all know what one has to do to curryfavor with the crowd,but I have no interest in commerce.Does the theatre, then, have any importance today?I'mgoing to answer your question with a tautology, but it's the most honestanswer I can give you. The theatre is importantfor those people for whom itis important, and for them it's vital, an irreplaceable experience. Iam one of76

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those people, but I am in the minority. For the majority, sitting at home infrontof a television set with pizza and beer is enough. The theatre is an actof futility that we must take in dead earnest. The theatre becomes impor-tant when those who make it realize it is without importance. Likegettingup in the morning, theatre is an existential act.

EL VENENO DEL TEATRORodolf SireraDirected by Emilio HernandezTeatro Maria Guerrero (Madrid)HYSTERIEOpera-Collage: Grupo de Acci6n InstrumentalDirected by Jacobo Romano; Musical direction by Jorge ZuluetaTeatro Espainol (Madrid)ISABEL, REINA DE CORAZONESRicardo L6pez ArandaDirected by Antonio MerceroTeatro de la Comedia (Madrid)EL CARNAVAL DE UN REINOJose Martin RecuerdaDirected by Alberto Gonzalez VergelCentro Cultural (Madrid)

MarionPeter HoltThe appointment of Lluis Pascual, from Barcelona's Theatro Lliure,to thedirectorship of Spain's National Theatre created an air of expectation asthe fall season began in Madrid.The 31-year-olddirector's schedule was anexciting one, including an inaugural production of Brecht's 1924 version ofMarlowe's Edward II and a new staging of Valle-lnclan's masterpiece,Luces de Bohemia (Bohemian Lights), which is to be remounted in Parisfollowing its Madridrun.Because of an injurysustained by a principalactorduringrehearsals, the opening of EdwardIIwas unavoidably postponed. Tobegin his first season, Pascual substituted an impeccably staged produc-tion of El veneno del teatro (Theatre Poison), a minor but intriguing two-character play on the ubiquitous subject of fiction-versus-reality by theValencian dramatist Rodolf Sirera.The orchestra seats of the multi-tiered Maria GuerreroTheatre had alreadybeen removed to provide a Peter Brook-style arena for Edward II, and

those people, but I am in the minority. For the majority, sitting at home infrontof a television set with pizza and beer is enough. The theatre is an actof futility that we must take in dead earnest. The theatre becomes impor-tant when those who make it realize it is without importance. Likegettingup in the morning, theatre is an existential act.

EL VENENO DEL TEATRORodolf SireraDirected by Emilio HernandezTeatro Maria Guerrero (Madrid)HYSTERIEOpera-Collage: Grupo de Acci6n InstrumentalDirected by Jacobo Romano; Musical direction by Jorge ZuluetaTeatro Espainol (Madrid)ISABEL, REINA DE CORAZONESRicardo L6pez ArandaDirected by Antonio MerceroTeatro de la Comedia (Madrid)EL CARNAVAL DE UN REINOJose Martin RecuerdaDirected by Alberto Gonzalez VergelCentro Cultural (Madrid)

MarionPeter HoltThe appointment of Lluis Pascual, from Barcelona's Theatro Lliure,to thedirectorship of Spain's National Theatre created an air of expectation asthe fall season began in Madrid.The 31-year-olddirector's schedule was anexciting one, including an inaugural production of Brecht's 1924 version ofMarlowe's Edward II and a new staging of Valle-lnclan's masterpiece,Luces de Bohemia (Bohemian Lights), which is to be remounted in Parisfollowing its Madridrun.Because of an injurysustained by a principalactorduringrehearsals, the opening of EdwardIIwas unavoidably postponed. Tobegin his first season, Pascual substituted an impeccably staged produc-tion of El veneno del teatro (Theatre Poison), a minor but intriguing two-character play on the ubiquitous subject of fiction-versus-reality by theValencian dramatist Rodolf Sirera.The orchestra seats of the multi-tiered Maria GuerreroTheatre had alreadybeen removed to provide a Peter Brook-style arena for Edward II, and

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