This study takes two facts as a starting point: on the one hand, the persistent reference to Greek theatre at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, especially through what will later be called a ‘vogue’ for outdoor theatre; and on the other hand, the political and aesthetic dimension of this reference. Indeed, Greek theatre seems to be understood as a model of a democratic assembly, which some therefore try to rebuild. In this understanding, the antique theatre of Orange can be seen as a paradigm, mostly since the performance of Mounet-Sully as Œdipus in Oedipus the King in 1888, which is still remembered as a key moment. In 1869 already, Alphonse Bernard, Anthony Réal and Félix Ripert, all members of the artistic movement called the “Félibrige” tried to promote the Occitan culture and organised the “Fêtes romaines”, later called the “Chorégies” in 1902, thus named after the reference to the choir of the greek tragedy. But this fascination for the ‘outside’ is not deprived of certain ambiguities and paradoxes. First of all, the theatre performances given in Orange illustrate both a will of decentralisation (the ‘Comédie-Française’ accepts to “lend” some of its shows) and an attempt to promote local authors. We must keep in mind, though, that the ‘Comédie-Française” and the ‘Opéra de Paris’ hold a monopoly on the productions in the antique theatre until the second world war. The period we are studying is politically marked by the development of conservative ideologies, personified most notably by Charles Maurras but also noticeable in all the debates between different understandings and experiences of nationalism. On a historical level, the period is also marked by the memory of the 1870 defeat, the Dreyfus ‘Affaire’ and the breaking point constituted by the First World War.

This breaking point is crucial to this study: when I was going through the collection regarding outdoor theatre in the National French Library1 and reading the press of the time, I noticed a change, between before the First World War and after, in the references to Greek theatre. While, before the war, Greek theatre was seen as a necessary myth to unite the national community, after the war, the current history seemed too significant to have to refer to a fantasy of the past.

We will try to highlight the social and political evolutions implied by this change. We will focus mostly on the rhetoric that surrounds this phenomenon of outdoor theatre, especially in the contemporary press and in the book written by Gabriel Boissy, The Dramaturgy of Orange, particularly since he wrote the foreword on the front line during the First World War2.

First of all, we will describe quickly this ‘renaissance’ of the antique theatre of Orange (since it is the word used in the press clippings, and it is not meaningless), then we will try to figure out the ideology surrounding these experiences and, above all, how the First World War caused a profound change in the reference to ancient Greece.

1.  ‘When europe wakes up from barbarism, her first cry is to greece3’: the ‘renaissance’ of orange

During the period of time we are focusing on, it was quite common to speak about the ‘renaissance’ of Orange: this dates back approximately to the play Oedipus the King in 1888, with Mounet Sully playing Oedipus. It is not the first time plays were being held again in the antique theatre, but this particular play was to be remembered as a key moment, a revival of what would soon be called the ‘vogue’ for outdoor theatre. Not long after the French defeat of 1870, and before the First World War put an end to the shows in Orange, the period was deeply marked by wars (past and to come) and political tensions. The use of the word ‘renaissance’ is not neutral at all: it is a way to provide continuity between ancient Greece and France at the beginning of the twentieth century. The first criteria seems to be the number of spectators, seen as a resemblance with ancient Greece : the theatre of Orange can accommodate around 9000 people. The analysis of the archival collection dedicated to outdoor theatre in the French National Library attests to the importance of this phenomenon and its large coverage by the press of the time, mostly from 1902. Two examples can illustrate this:

Ailleurs encore, on organise une semblable fête dramatique ; voilà la preuve que cette mode nouvelle a pris, et que la vogue ira bientôt à ces représentations en plein air, à ces théâtres à ciel ouvert. Il faut voir dans ce goût nouveau l’effet de plusieurs influences heureuses. Le succès qu’ont remporté les hardies représentations d’Orange et de Nîmes ont fait comprendre quel intérêt offraient de tels spectacles, ont fait sentir tous les agréments des théâtres établis selon la conception antique. Et puis nous prenons chaque jour une plus fervente envie de vivre au jour, à la lumière, un plus vif désir de jouir de l’espace et de la mouvante beauté de la nature4.

What is important here is the focus on the ‘antique conception’ and the lexical choices, which are quite lyrical and embody a wish to celebrate the reunion with the beauty of ancient Greece. A few years later, in 1910, Maurice Magre, a writer, poet and playwright, goes further:

Un grand mouvement artistique commence et grandit en province. Paris considère encore ces manifestations comme des tentatives, une forme de théâtre « à côté », une manière de curiosité d’art. Il n’en est rien. Nous assistons à une renaissance de la tragédie, à un renouvellement de notre forme dramatique. Des essais, d’abord confus, puis plus précis, qu’a donnés le théâtre en plein air, un genre nouveau est en train de sortir, ou plutôt de renaître de ses cendres, un genre qui unira trois arts, danse, poésie, musique5. 

Two things must be noted here: the ‘renaissance6’ is specified as an aesthetic one (‘a renewal of our dramatic form’); the difference specified between Paris and provincial life is quite interesting because the pejorative tone associated with Paris reveals the will to praise the beauty of nature, as opposed to the dissolute Parisian lifestyle. By doing this, Maurice Magre, who was a strong advocate of a national reunion, focused on the need to reenact a national epic, and Orange seemed to be the perfect venue for it.

If we try to sum up, two levels can be highlighted. On the social level, the word ‘renaissance’ is a way to provide continuity between ancient Greece and France. The search for a return to nature in an increasingly industrialized and urbanized society is combined with profound renewals in the ways of thinking about the body7 and all this can take political aspects: this ‘fervent wish to live outdoors’ which the Gaulois newspaper spoke about comprises ideological assumptions, which can be either modernist or conservative. On an aesthetic level, then, the ‘renaissance’ is quite paradoxical: in fact, the ‘renewal’ was not quite a modern one. The aim was to recall antique tragedy via a national reference to the Renaissance of the XVI^e century and to make it a synonym of modernity, which is not without contradiction. Outdoor theatre in Orange was seen as a way of making antique tragedy modern. To sum up this idea, Michel Autrand evokes an ‘unpowerful wish of renewal8’. The outdoor theatre, or more precisely the outdoor theatre in Orange, is mostly seen as a way to adapt the classic form to the modern times.

2.  First hypothesis: reference to ancient greece, a way to rebuild a cultural and national identity?

First of all, we have to remind ourselves of the political and social French context: as a lot of historians have shown, it was this period which saw the birth of a new social body soon to be called the ‘masses’. And the republican government tries to set up a ‘vivre ensemble’, literally a ‘living together’, by encouraging cultural events outside of Paris and trying to build a ‘proximity democracy’. For the theatre, leaving Paris — even briefly — was not at all meaningless, and its significance was all the greater when it was the troupe of the ‘Comédie Française’ going to Orange: such a move is understood as the circulation of a national identity. The big political question of the moment seemed to be, as quoted by historians specialised in this period:

Comment faire participer pleinement les masses impatientes, désormais mobilisables sous des bannières jusqu’alors inconnues, au jeu de la démocratie inscrit dans le cadre républicain9 ?

Outdoor theatre seems to be an answer, among others. The renaissance of antique classical tragedy appears as a possibility to create a ‘democratic game’; even more, the very nature of tragedy is supposedly to be performed in front of a large audience. In August 1905, an article in the magazine Lectures pour tous acknowledges this fact:

La tragédie antique, en effet, composée pour toute une cité, n’est vraiment à sa place que dans ces vastes espaces où elle peut faire vibrer l’âme d’une foule immense10.

This ‘large crowd’ is supposed to overlap the whole city, and we can already understand the democratic ambitions of outdoor theatre in Orange. That is why it is interesting to focus for a moment on the lexical choices made in different press clippings of the time, as they reveal the different meanings of the rhetoric of ‘living together’, which the outdoor-theatre policy tries to implement.

First, the term ‘foule’ in French, approximately ‘crowd’ in English, has an aesthetic connotation in French. The great and open space of the antique theatre should, in this conception, be conducive to the gathering of an harmonious crowd. In the continuity of the Baudelairian imaginary, but for the rural environment, this ‘crowd’ would be a sign of modernity, but a healthy and united one, as opposed to the dissolute urban crowd.

Then, the term ‘peuple’ in French is also used, mostly by Gabriel Boissy, author of The Dramaturgy of Orange. One example of 1907 is very indicative of the democratic ambitions that outdoor theatre, in some people’s minds, should have :

Cet accroissement est dû aux avantages multiples que ces spectacles offrent non seulement à ce que l’on appelle le public, qui est familier des théâtres, mais surtout au peuple, qui ne va au théâtre que dans des conditions spéciales. Ces conditions, le peuple les rencontre rarement et ce sont précisément celles qui caractérisent le théâtre de plein-air11.

Coming from Gabriel Boissy, a known nationalist writer close to Charles Maurras, the use of the term ‘people’ is a way to underline the democratic, but also the nationalist, ambitions of outdoor theatre in Orange.

Finally, the term ‘nation’ is not often used; in its place, we find the humbler word ‘city’, which is a direct reference to the Greek period. Joseph Péladan, a French writer known for his tendency to occultism, in an article entitled ‘Oxygen and Theatre’ in 1905, writes in such terms:

[L]a clameur prend l’envergure antique d’une cité entière, criant et gesticulant son enthousiasme ; ce n’est plus un public, c’est un peuple, (…)12.

The association of the terms ‘people’ and ‘city’ suggests the dream of a popular assembly and, above all, of a communion of bodies, which echoes the conception of the nation which is theorized at the time. We may recall here the historian Michel Winock, when he says, in his book on nationalism13, that one thing is common to all kinds of nationalism at this time, and it is their anti-individualism.

What is at stake in outdoor theatre in Orange is, indeed, a conception of the audience as a metaphor of the nation, and the reference to ancient Greece serves as a model. It is actually a complex one, and there is a large part of fantasy in it. But this model is not used in the same manner before and after the First World War. Our second hypothesis is that a change occurs, mostly because the need for a myth is not so acute when history, via the war, is so significant. The building of a ‘living together’, after the war, may rely more on the current history than on a mythical past one.

3.  Second hypothesis: the war as a breaking point in the way to refer to ancient greece

3.1.  Before the war

Before the war, in the different press clippings at our disposal, the Greek reference is both very common and very fantasized. The Greek fantasy appears in two ways, either political or aesthetic, which both echo the concerns of the time: first, by urging for a ‘popular’ theatre (what Greek theatre is supposed to have been), and, secondly, by encouraging a parallel between theatre and religion, as far as the ‘communion’ of an assembly is concerned.

The ‘popular’ question becomes central at the time, and Greek theatre appears as a sort of solution. Maurice Magre refers to Greek theatre in such terms:

Dans l’antiquité et au Moyen-Âge, le théâtre avait un caractère populaire et religieux. C’était une sorte de festival, une solennité à laquelle on se préparait longtemps avant au foyer, qui demeurait ensuite longtemps dans le souvenir. Toutes les classes aimaient les mêmes spectacles, qui étaient écrits pour les simples comme pour les esprits cultivés. Que nous sommes loin de ce temps ! Nous n’avons plus de représentations populaires14.

Here, Greek theatre is a way to theorize the beginning of ‘popular theatre’ which will develop afterwards, but it is also a way to bemoan the disappearance of a united nation.

Secondly, the parallel between theatre and religion is also very remarkable in the rhetoric used in the press, but it is interesting to notice that the idea of theatre as a modern religion is what remains after the war, even though the reference to ancient Greece has almost disappeared. But before the war, most of the accounts we read are tinged with a form of mysticism, which reveals the part of fantasy lying in the reference to Greece. And first of all, it is illustrated by the dream of a large crowd united in an almost religious communion. The words of Alfred Mortier speak for themselves:

[…] Quiconque n’a pas assisté à certains de ces spectacles, quiconque n’a pas communié dans le silence ardent de dix mille spectateurs suspendus à la véhémence des passions éternelles qui conduisent l’humanité depuis son berceau, celui-là n’aura pas connu la puissance mystique de l’art, n’aura pas entrevu le lien qui unit la Poésie à la Religion comme aux temps primitifs, et n’aura jamais accédé à ces hauteurs magnifiques où l’émotion d’art rejoint la Prière15.

Those words, written by a journalist and playwright, describe the symbolic value attributed to the outdoor theatre of Orange: the large meeting permitted by the outdoor place is seen as the ideal venue for the nation to reunite itself and become a ‘people’.

These two points (the desire for a popular theatre and the religious model) are the basis of a paradoxical aesthetic position regarding outdoor theatre in Orange: the idea was to build in Orange a resistance to a modernity seen as decadent but still to claim a ‘renewal’ of the dramatic form, based on a return to Greece. The same contradiction appears in the political rhetoric of Charles Maurras, leader of a strong right-wing nationalism and who wrote on outdoor theatre in Orange: he is known for having based his nationalism on an instrumentalisation of Greek Antiquity while presenting it as a way for the nation to rebuild itself; he sees in Orange an aesthetic metaphor of this process.

3.2.  After the war

After the war, another nationalism (a ‘republican’ one, as the historian Michel Winock would say16) rises and dominates, directly and, in a way, ‘naturally’, and it seems that the reference to Antiquity is not needed as much as before.

The reading of the journalism concerning the antique theatre after the war is quite enlightening: since the war is a recent and real historical experience, there is no need to refer to ancient Greece to build a form of ‘national epic’. Gabriel Boissy was a major advocate of the outdoor theatre in Orange, and in the foreword of his Dramaturgy of Orange (which was written during the war on the front line), he clarifies the transition between a mythical tragedy and a historical one:

Par delà le plaisir et les insouciances partout répandus, ce rappel à la nature tragique des êtres et des choses n'était pas sans soulever de fines railleries. Hélas! Il fallait une autre tragédie et d'autre sang que celui du Bouc dionysiaque pour purger les délires et les erreurs17 !...

The first world war is indeed understood as a break in the need (and possibility) to refer to ancient Greece. Boissy goes on in his foreword:

Aujourd'hui, — et depuis combien de mois !... la bataille a passé des jardins de l’intelligence dans les boues infernales de notre sol : Poésie et réalité, dirait, de son haut, le satanique Gœthe. Les combats ont succédé aux disputes et notre fierté sera d'avoir participé aux uns, comme aux autres18.

Boissy opposes ‘the gardens of intelligence’ (supposedly outdoor theatre) to the ‘hellish sludge’, as well as poetry to reality. When he says that the ‘battles’ have succeeded the ‘quarrels’, he sums up, in a way, the evolution of the reference to ancient Greece: whereas, before the war, Greece was needed to unify the nation and to give it a ‘national epic’, after the war, history itself seems to play this role. As Gabriel Boissy reveals it, the ‘tragedy’ has become a real one and the aesthetic debates have turned into actual battles. By using the word ‘fierté’ (pride) for both, Gabriel Boissy tends to put them on the same level, or more precisely, to declare the latter a consequence of the former.

In the end, this change also has aesthetic consequences: after the war, there will be doubts about the theatrical choices of Orange. Lugné-Poe, for example, calls for a true modernity: the point is not to imitate ancient Greece any more, but to create a genuine French and European modernity. In 1922, he spoke quite radically about Orange:

La vérité est qu’il ne faut pas s’alarmer de ces spectacles donnés dans les ruines. C’est un cap à dépasser, une époque ; ils appellent cela spectacles d’art, mais personne ne s’y trompe ici et ne prend au sérieux des vessies pour des lanternes magiques19.

The chosen words are enlightening: there is, here, an acknowledgement of the ‘mythical’, fantasized part of these shows. But later, he also specifies:

Vienne ici le créateur, l’arrangeur, l’auteur, nous aurons la plus merveilleuse renaissance d’art théâtral que nous puissions souhaiter […]20.

It seems that, after the war, the sense given to ‘modernity’ has evolved: it has become a need to establish a new way to write and perform theatre, not specifically continuing ancient Greece but precisely in accordance with the current history.

4.  Conclusion

At a time when the balance between ‘republican nationalism’ and the ‘nationalism of the nationalists’ (if we keep in mind the categories settled by Michel Winock) is being reconsidered, the words of Louis XIV on Orange are particularly meaningful: he said that Orange was « the most beautiful wall of his kingdom ». Saying this, he induces us to understand the wars (ideological, historical, aesthetical) which have sprung up about this place. That is what we tried to do here, and a lot remains to be done concerning the devices of the shows (audiences, stage, actors, chosen texts…). In any case, we tried to describe a ‘social discourse’, some words that can not exactly be attributed to a specific person but that reveal the social and political tensions of a time. In this frame, we can finally say that the reference to ancient Greece has been paradoxical, sometimes manipulated, but studying these evolution helps to understand how myth and history can fight and mix up. Later, some other outdoor experiences, those of Jacques Prévert and his activist ‘October group’ for example, will borrow ideas from Greek theatre but for a completely different purpose, actually much more literally ‘popular’.