Theater of the Sun

The company of the Théâtre of the Sun is a company of Théâtre founded by ARIANE Mnouchkine in 1964 with Philippe Léotard, Jean-Claude Penchenat, Roberto Moscoso, Francoise Tournafond. Mnouchkine creates the troop after having followed the courses of Jacques Lecoq. It is then a young cosmopolitan troop which elects residence with the doors of Paris, in what will become a new place of theater: old the Cartridge factory of Vincennes, where several other companies sit today.

History of the Theater of the Sun

The troop invents new operations and privileges collective work, the goal is as of this time (which precedes 1968) to draw up new relationship with the public and to be distinguished from the middle-class theater to make a popular theater of quality.

The troop became quickly, as of the Années 1970, one of the major troops of the theatrical landscape as well by the number of artists as it shelters (more than 70 people at the year) that by its international radiation and its engagement to treat great political questions and human, treaties under a universal angle. The troop built its own ethics, attached to the concept of " Troop of Théâtre" similar to a tribe, a family: each one receives the same wages. More original still, the final distribution decides only after the actors were exerted with several roles. The troop often presents its spectacles in rounds out of France and often accommodates with the Cartridge factory of the spectacles of international troops.

The actor Philippe Caubère after his departure of the troop popularized operation thanks to his spectacles of it. He puts in scene the relational difficulties and manners of this one by devoting to him many parts in solo starting from his memories and of his notes, meeting a deserved success. At the beginnings of the troop, ARIANE Mnouchkine was undoubtedly the first director of a theater to open itself the doors with the public, to tear the countermarks, to make it possible the public to attend the make-up and to offer to him to eat (famous soups).

Quotations

"I do not know if it were born from an idea, but rather of a need. At the beginning, people came by far, they went in mud, it was important to allow them to feed. And with good foods, we wanted to make people happy. 1789 required a fairground. We asked for a ground of the size of a surface of tennis shoe, because we knew that there were grounds of tennis shoe everywhere! It is thus the project which gave this configuration at piece-rates; it is also the part which required actor-spectators. For the same reasons, it is because there were no cabins with the Cartridge factory which the actors made up in public. We kept the idea. But I believe that our public is initially that of the Theater of Soleil" (ARIANE Mnouchkine, in " Places of the possible" from François Campana and Anne Quentin, published by Thécif and the scene, March 2001).

"My engagements were always idéalistes" ARIANE Mnouchkine.

Some Spectacles and Films of the Theater of the Sun

" 1789 "(1970), adapted by ARIANE Mnouchkine to the cinema with the Troop of the Sun.
the golden age (1975)
Molière, or life of an honest man (1978), a film of ARIANE Mnouchkine
Richard II, Henry IV (1st part) of Shakespeare (1981),
the Night of the Kings of Shakespeare (1982)
" Terrible but unfinished history of Norodom Sihanouk, king of Cambodge" of Helene Cixous (1985)
" Atrides: Iphigénie with Aulis d' Euripide, and Orestie d' Eschyle (Agamemnon, Choéphores, Euménides) (1990-1993)

" The parjure" City; of Helene Cixous

Sanctimonious hypocrite of Molière (1995) (See documentary the " With the sun even the nuit" of Eric Darmon and Catherine Vilpoux)

And sudden of the nights of awakening, collective creation (1997)

Drums on the dam of Helene Cixous (1999), filmed by ARIANE Mnouchkine in 2001

the last Caravanserai (2005), collective creation, adapted by ARIANE Mnouchkine to the cinema with the troop of the Theater of the Transitory Sun

the (2007), collective creation, under the direction of ARIANE Mnouchkine, to see in simple or double version, with the Theater of the Sun

The spectacles of the Sun always were of the spectacles engaged in one way or another, having a critical word over their time, seeking to have a true social function in the company, they are carrying a humanistic and political dimension to the noble direction of the term. ARIANE Mnouchkine made an hunger strike in 1995 against the massacres in Bosnia-Herzégovine. It took the head of a collective of artists in favor of the Africans without papers in 1996, sheltered some time with the Cartridge factory even.

External bonds

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