Droll Lectures

Rather than speaking of “theatricality”—an ambiguous term with seemingly uncertain connotations—I would like to propose a few paths for reflection on those elements in Lydie Salvayre’s writings that participate in theater itself—what her writing summons expressly from the theater, as well as what the practice of theater can reveal in its turn.

The following will take into account my interest and work as a stage director (metteur en scène) for two texts that I brought to the stage, and which invoke very particularly the theater: Quelques conseils utiles aux élèves huissiers, which toured throughout France in 1999 and 2001, and La Conférence de Cintegabelle, which was the subject of public readings in the summer of 2003 with Roland Bertin, honorary member of the Comédie Française, who will be working with us on another production, scheduled to open in early 2005 in Paris and on tour.

What makes this writing pertinent for the theater strikes me as three-fold: a singular method of “speaking up,” a language that demands orality, and an urgent quest for the other, summoned in his silence.