Theatre Go-betweens
Key institutions (AFAA and ONDA in
France), central structures in the network promoting
plays (Entr'Actes, Théâtrales/l'Association, the Maison
Antoine Vitez), crucial partners around the world
such as publishers, agents, Verlags, translators,
dramatists. And a few other efficient mediators such
as the following.
Actors
Because of their prestige, actors are also go-betweens
in promoting the flow of plays. Well-known actors
can get plays staged which are by foreign playwrights
unknown to local audiences. Plays by X. Durringer
and F. Veber are currently being staged in Bulgaria,
following key productions in Sofia by É.-E. Schmitt,
S. Kribus, S. Valletti and Y. Reza, and a project
around L. Bellon is in progress. Actors have the same
status in Italy, remarked G. Costa, where agents and
directors intervene after there has been a genuine
"connection between actors and plays".
In France, actors and companies play a similar role
in events such as the Contemporaines. D. Girard explained
that not enough stage directors and directors of theatres
attend the public readings, which are initiated by
actors hoping to propose the texts to theatres.
Playwright-Directors
Projects involving playwrights and directors can be
the most efficient solutions: A. Hakim and M. Azama
went to Chile, É. Lacascade visited R. Peres in Spain.
France hosted Italian directors. M.-C. Rivière cited
C. Marquerie, F. Ramirez Olivero and A. Llamas as
more examples of theatre go-betweens. And what a stroke
of luck, she observed, to be able to send a playwright-director
like R. Garcia on a mission to France. As the only
Spanish playwright who is relatively well-known in
France and whose work has been translated into French,
he is the ideal mediator for establishing ties between
the stage and the quest for new kinds of writing.
In Scotland, dramatist E. Wildridge hosted S. Kribus
at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and held readings
in French of plays by Durringer and Lagarce.
As for AFAA, it mainly calls upon directors to "export"
French playwrights. Foreign tours have been made possible
by this strategy, with the aim of directly linking
the world of the stage and performance with that of
playwriting, and of banking on more pro-active promotion
through acting and staging - often accompanied by
simultaneous translation. Moreover, the Fonds Étant
donnés recently created in the United States supports
twenty or so artistic projects per year, mainly contemporary
French plays staged in English by American companies
and theatres, but also tours of French-language productions.
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