Short Description

Théâtre de société (society theater) is defined as theater that is mainly or entirely amateur, not for profit, without a regular schedule and practiced in private homes. The project studies this form of theater between the 18th and 19th centuries in France and the French-speaking part of Switzerland based on an interdisciplinary approach combining dramaturgy, the history of art and the performing arts, cultural history, aesthetics and sociology. The aim is to better document, understand and interpret the phenomenon in its entirety. Its objectives are to:

• Better define and problematize the object of study in relation to other contemporary or successive theatrical forms.

• Identify the scenic and social spaces in which social theater is performed.

• Distinguish the features of its dramatic aesthetics in the field of playwriting, choice of repertoires and manner of performance.

• Study the nature, the extent and the stakes of the networks of sociability created and maintained by this practice.

• Study the material aspects of the representations of society, linked to the visual culture and the staging of the shows.

• Show the permanence of theatrical and social practices born within this form of theater in contemporary theatrical forms.

• Organize and structure the data on the representations studied in a reference database.

The project will restore the history of social theater, the principles of its distinctive identity and the place that it deserves in cultural history: a crossroads of networks of sociability, a vector of aesthetic questioning and redefinition, and a catalyst of dramatic passions as well as moral and identity issues.