http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/806 RADAC celebrated its 40th birthday last year with an international conderence devoted to a very topical theme indeed: Crossing Borders. This volume presents the findings of scholars, translators, theatre-makers and publishers from a dozen European countries who gathered in Paris October 11-12, 2018 to discuss how Anglophone theatre circulates within Europe. They raise important questions linked not only to the reception, translation and adaptation of specific works, but also to the patronage and adaptation of specific works, but also to the patronage and funding of theatres and theatre professionals. Numéros fr mer., 05 févr. 2025 12:11:02 +0100 lun., 13 juil. 2026 13:52:10 +0200 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/806 0 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/807 mer., 05 févr. 2025 12:11:59 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/807 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/812 While there have been waves of English playwriting leaving their mark on European stages (the “angry young men” of the 1960s, the In-Yer-Face writers of the 1990s), the exchange between English and Continental European theatre practice has been much rarer. English theatre only seemed to arrive on the Continent, when directors – such as Peter Brook or Declan Donnellan - turned their back on British stages and left their home country. In recent years, Katie Mitchell has become a pioneer in directing her work both in the UK and in Continental Europe. Yet, nowadays more and more British directors and companies are brought over to work in Europe, such as Robert Icke at Toneelgroep Amsterdam, and Simon McBurney and the collective Dead Centre at Schaubühne Berlin. This essay will investigate how these directors bring a new sense of Anglophone theatre to Europe, which is both influenced by contemporary Continental practices while also influencing European theatre with its distinctly “English” stage language. jeu., 06 févr. 2025 09:24:12 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/812 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/814 Over the last three decades I have worked as a co-translator and a cultural mediator between the UK and Italy, bringing plays by Alan Bennett, Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, Claire Dowie, David Greig, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Hanif Kureishi, Liz Lochhead, Sabrina Mahfouz, Rani Moorthy, among others, to the Italian stage. Bearing in mind a complex web of Italo-British relations, I will discuss how my strategies of cultural mediation have evolved over the years as a response to significant changes in the two theatre cultures. I will explore why the task of finding a publisher and a producer/director for some British authors has been more difficult than for others, the stage and critical success of certain dramatists in Italy more limited. I will look specifically at the Italian “journeys” of the following writers: Caryl Churchill and my co-translation of Top Girls (1986) and A Mouthful of Birds, Edward Bond and my co-translation of The War Plays for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and Alan Bennett and my co-translation of The History Boys at Teatro Elfo Pucini from 2011-3013, including two national tours. jeu., 06 févr. 2025 10:02:39 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/814 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/816 This contribution aims at exploring the multiple border crossings enacted by theatre translation as it happens through time and, simultaneously, makes time happen in the overlapping of distinct moments: of writing, of translating, and of performing. The Italian staging of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine, Settimo cielo, produced by the independent theatre company Bluemotion and premiered in Rome at Teatro India in February 2018, enacts the disruption of linear time through its relationship with the play’s already challenging timeline. The passing of time is a central theme in its conception and design: as the director, Giorgina Pi, has stated, her choices were informed by the need to look at Cloud Nine from the vantage point of the present, foregrounding this staging as a sort of “third act”, following the first, set in 1879 Africa and the second, in 1979 London, which was also the time of the first performance of the play. This production emphasizes Cloud Nine’s apparently outdated rebelliousness, avoiding any cultural reference beyond 1979. Through a detailed analysis of the mise-en-scene, I argue that the staging of a translation of a piece, especially when each event is separated from the other by several decades as in this case study, creates what Elizabeth Grosz would call a “nick of time”, allowing the audience to become aware of the passing of time and, in the same movement, of the persistent urgency of the issues confronted by the play itself. jeu., 06 févr. 2025 10:39:14 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/816 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/818 This contribution situates itself within a wider research project on the reception and reproduction of Sarah Kane’s drama in Italy. If theatre practitioners in the UK may initially have shown some reluctance in bringing Kane’s work to the stage, the case was different across the Channel. Though this is seldom acknowledged in the burgeoning critical literature, Italian theatre-makers have been at the forefront in driving the process whereby Kane’s oeuvre was quickly taken on by the European experimental scene as an iconic expression of the contemporary Zeitgeist. This essay focuses on 4.48 Psychosis, by far the most widely performed among Kane’s plays in Italy (and elsewhere). Since 2001, when it was first presented to Italian audiences, Kane’s script has received over thirty professional productions. Perhaps even more than for its unrivalled popularity, however, 4.48 Psychosis stands out as a unique case because of the readiness with which it has been reworked and reshaped by Italian theatre practitioners, with adaptations, rewrites and even parodies following hard on the heels of the play’s first stagings. With their tendency to merge different forms and agents of creativity, the more innovative Italian performances of 4.48 Psychosis seem specifically designed to challenge the distinction between text-based and devised theatre and, more in general, to invite a perception of theatre-making as an all-inclusive collaborative endeavour. jeu., 06 févr. 2025 11:44:12 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/818 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/820 Martin Crimp has never been a prophet in his own country. Nevertheless, most of his ambiguous plays have entered the repertoire of several theatres across Europe and overseas. The reasons why this elusive English dramatist is so appealing abroad are to be found in his Continental influences: “Crimpland” is an in-between theatrical space where different traditions such as the absurd, surrealism, and – according to some critics – even post-drama intermingle and converge with a British flavour. As the variety of Italian productions suggests, Crimp’s work has been well received in the Bel Paese. His first encounter with the Italian stage dates back to 1996-97, when “Intercity Festival” in Sesto Fiorentino was devoted to London, the home of British new writing. After an overview of Crimp’s reception in Italy, this article will focus on the experimental and intensive work carried out by Accademia degli Artefatti, a theatrical company based in Rome and founded in the early Nineties by Fabrizio Arcuri. Fascinated by the meaningful ellipses and linguistic ambiguities permeating Crimp’s plays, Artefatti started exploring the ‘unsaid’ in this slippery theatrical territory with the trilogy Tre Pezzi Facili – Meno Emergenze (Fewer Emergencies), Avviso alle donne irachene (Advice to Iraqi Women), Faccia al muro (Face to the Wall) – which received the prestigious Ubu award in 2005. In that year, the company presented Attempts on Her Life/Attentati alla vita di lei – 17 soggetti per il teatro, followed by Be-sides (Misantropo: Molière / Crimp) (2006), as part of the wider project “Dress-code: Reality” (2001-2006), which included – among others – plays by Chris O’Connell and Sarah Kane, showing how contemporary British theatre is a breeding ground for aesthetic (and ethical) investigation. jeu., 06 févr. 2025 15:03:37 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/820 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/822 This essay will analyse the several stages of translation and self-translation that are implied in the plays by the Caribbean author Derek Walcott with particular attention to the issue of translating passages written in the French-based Creole of Saint Lucia, into French and into English. By looking at these instances of self-translation, we will see how the authority of the author over his own text allows him to make choices in self-translations of his own words which would almost surely be condemned if it were the work of another translator. jeu., 06 févr. 2025 16:01:00 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/822 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/824 jeu., 06 févr. 2025 16:22:30 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/824 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/826 This essay will concentrate on the contemporary British plays that have recently been staged in France and in French and, while focusing on the reasons behind the French stage directors’ choices, I will try to elucidate what intrinsic qualities of this imported theatre are revealed when it is appropriated by French directors. Finally, I will consider the extra amount-of-being granted to the original by the “devenir-French” of the play. ven., 07 févr. 2025 10:27:29 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/826 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/828 Anglophone theatre is spread across the world, mainly due to Britain’s colonial past and the global diffusion of the English language. Although Malta achieved independence from Britain in 1964, plays in English, generally by English authors, continue to dominate the Maltese stage. This essay traces the development of theatre in the English language in Malta, giving a brief overview of its growth under colonial rule, and presenting its current state. It distinguishes between English theatre, that is, theatre written by British or American playwrights, and theatre in English which is written or devised by Maltese authors and actors. It discusses efforts towards more professionalism, given that theatre in Malta is mostly amateur, except for some semi-professional companies. It shows how the choice of English theatre in Malta has often depended heavily on two main characteristics: success in the West End, or the polemical quality of the subjects dealt with giving rise to public discussion, also due to Maltese cultural characteristics and religious choices. It examines the choice of Anglophone authors on the Maltese stages, and the reasons for their selection, as well as any influence they may have exerted on local writers. It shows how English-language theatre was initially the expression of colonial power, and how progressively, it was used to express Maltese political dissent, and exploited to fight for freedom of expression in the theatre, and the abolition of censorship. ven., 07 févr. 2025 11:17:13 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/828 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/830 Blasted (1995), by Sarah Kane, was staged for the first time in Catalonia in December 2017 at Temporada Alta Festival (Teatre de Salt), and then it was performed, from January to February 2018, at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC, Catalan National Theatre). The production played a crucial role for both consolidating the Catalan National Theatre as part of the European theatrical scene and developing the reception skills of the country’s “general” audience that represents the national citizenship. Both changes can be explained by the fact that Blasted was programmed at the TNC, which is the main public institution of drama and performing arts in Catalonia. On the one hand, the TNC has the goal of reinforcing the theatre written and staged in Catalan through translating and performing the classical works that belong to the European theatrical repertoire, as a way of rooting its national theatre in the continental dramatic tradition. By including a contemporary piece like Blasted in the TNC’s annual programme, the Catalan repertoire was expanded and became linked with the postmodern Western tradition. On the other hand, the incorporation of the experimental dramatic form of Blasted into the Catalan theatrical canon challenged the usual realistic parameters of the TNC’s theatre programme, forcing the institution to revise its model of reception and to diversify its regular audience’s prototype. Presenting the different audience reactions to Blasted’s Catalan production, the essay analyses to what extent Kane’s play also contributed to changing the horizon of expectation of the TNC’s regular theatre-goers. ven., 07 févr. 2025 14:17:11 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/830 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/832 In the post-dictatorship era (1975 and after), the new sociopolitical situation in Greece has called for new radical plays in political thinking, sexual ethics and gender politics to be produced on stage. Under this ideological demand, the new British socialist and later the so-called “In-Yer-Face” theatre had, and still has, a great impact on Greek audiences. The keen interest in contemporary political British theatre continued well into the twenty-first century and was further intensified in the period after 2008 when a protracted situation of economic and social crisis heightened the spirit of anger, revolt and despair in the hearts of Greek citizens. At the same time the older generation of writers, with their thematic and stylistic diversity, never fell out of favour. However, as the indigenous dramatic production has been maturing both in writing skills and thematic diversity, there has also been developing a concurrent stronger critique over the reasons for the persisting popularity of contemporary British plays on the Greek stage with commercialization often being blamed for winning over more quality-based criteria. Also, the postdramatic tendencies of many theatre directors complicate further any attempt to pin down the motivation of specific production choices. Besides, in the last two decades, German docu-drama as well as Hispanic theatre have made a remarkable entrance into the Greek theatre market, thus introducing new parameters of competition over the Greek stage. However, one can say for sure that, because of greater familiarity with the English language (if not the culture), contemporary Anglophone theatre continues to hold its primary position in the attention of Greek theatre practitioners and audiences and, equally, as a source of thematic and stylistic inspiration for contemporary Greek playwrights. ven., 07 févr. 2025 14:44:36 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/832 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/834 This essay deals with the reception of contemporary Anglophone playwrights in four Montenegrin theatres from 2000 to 2015. The 23 Anglophone plays that were staged by these theatres belong to different theatre genres and different time periods. The insight into the reception of the plays, based on the data obtained from the theatre archives, shows that “classic” playwrights (T. Williams, A. Miller, E. Albee, S. Beckett and H. Pinter) retained their popularity with the Montenegrin audience; at the same time, theatre practitioners showed great interest in adapting more contemporary playwrights, such as N. Wood, P. Quilter and E. Bond. Theatre reviews and interviews with leading Montenegrin theatre practitioners and theatre scholars reveal that the decisive factors that contributed to the selection of the plays and to their positive reception by critics and audiences were: high artistic value and the widespread popularity of the texts, the theatrical relevance of the plays, the talent and skills of the stage practitioners and the appeal of the specific theatre genre. The plays reflected the trend towards the politization of contemporary theatre in Montenegro, which was the theatrical response to the challenges of modern times. In the context of the problematic social and political reality of Montenegro in the first fifteen years of the 21st century, the plays addressed the most burning issues of Montenegrin society in the period of transition and, generating greater audience participation, managed to challenge the accepted notions underpinning the Montenegrin patriarchal society. ven., 07 févr. 2025 15:14:28 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/834 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/836 This essay proposes an examination of the role of Anglophone theatre produced in translation by the Czech National Theatre since 2000. Setting aside work by Shakespeare and plays from earlier historical periods, it will concern itself with productions of modern and contemporary work. Drawing on the theatre’s archives, the first part of the essay will survey the presence of work of Anglophone provenance in the repertoire and the theatre’s programming decisions. The second part will investigate specific case studies, in order to explore the ways in which the work has been artistically interpreted and critically received. Case studies will treat the following productions: Tom Stoppard’s Rock’n’Roll (premiere: 2007), Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes in London / Zemětřesení v Londýně (premiere: 2015) and Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information / Láska a Informace (premiere: 2016). ven., 07 févr. 2025 16:07:10 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/836 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/838 By looking at several productions in France of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1992), this contribution explores the meaning of American cross-cultural performance. Considering with Schechner that theater is a “performance text” defined by its context, dramatic traditions, actual performances, reception and repercussions, the essay discusses to what extent Kushner’s play blurs the perception of American theater in France by offering a fecund hybrid style. First, it will delineate some epistemological categories framing the French reception of American performance by pointing out how US shows are often filtered through a binary vision of American theater as either psychological realism (Tennessee Williams) or cutting-edge avant-gardism (Robert Wilson). Then, after highlighting the play’s postmodern themes and style, the essay will uncover the echoes and limits of this reception model by testing it through the productions of Brigitte Jaques-Wajeman (1994; 1996), Krzysztof Warlikowski (2004), Ivo van Hove (2008) and Aurélie Van Den Daele (2015-18). They all provide historical, political, social and esthetic figurations of America on the European stage. If a number of clues (negative reviews) could suggest a cultural bias toward US drama, the staged play overall complicates the meaning of cultural transfer thanks to the artists’ creativity. The success of the play further implies that its “fabulous” epic style could be a measure of a new hybrid American theatricality. The final section focuses on a few tropes (speed, fluidity and queerness) and sheds light on the cross-cultural creative processes of the play’s staging. Ultimately, it underlines the potentiality of the anthropological gap yielded by a performance text. lun., 10 févr. 2025 10:02:43 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/838 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/839 lun., 10 févr. 2025 12:01:29 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/839 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/810 mer., 05 févr. 2025 13:31:22 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/810 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/811 mer., 05 févr. 2025 14:58:09 +0100 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/811 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/1300 mer., 08 juil. 2026 11:56:07 +0200 http://www.peren-revues.fr/coupdetheatre/1300