André Antoine (actor)
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André Antoine (31 January 1858, Limoges (Haute-Vienne) - 19 October 1943, Le Pouliguen (Loire-Atlantique), French actor, theatre manager, film director, author, and critic who is considered the inventor of modern mise en scène in France.
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[edit] Biography
André Antoine was a clerk at a gas station and worked in the Archer Theatre when he asked to produce a dramtization of a novel by Émile Zola. The amateur group refused it, so he decided to create his own theatre to realize his vision of the proper development of dramatic art.
Antoine founded the Théâtre Libre in Paris in 1887. His work had enormous influence on the French stage, as well as on similar companies elsewhere in Europe, such as the Independent Theatre Society in London and the Freie Buhne in Germany.
Antoine opposed the traditional teachings of the Paris Conservatory, and focused on a more naturalistic style of acting and staging. In particular, Théâtre Libre productions were inspired by the Meiningen Ensemble of Germany. They performed works by Zola, Becque, Brieux, and plays by contemporary German, Scandinavian, and Russian naturalists. In 1894, Antoine was forced to relenquish the theater due to financial failure, but he went on to form Théâtre Antoine, which followed the traditions established by Théâtre Libre until its demise 10 years later.
Plays performed at the Théâtre Libre were often "thin on plot, dense in social and psychological implication" (Chothia, Andre Antoine). Productions rejected formal acting styles that were prevalent at the time and they built the "fourth wall." Despite being proponents of naturalism, they still adhered to some ideas of "playing for the audience" – there is no evidence that Antoine ever set any chairs facing away from the audience, and the actors still had to make sure that their voices could be heard to the back of the house -- so, in a way, their "naturalism" was really just a higher level of illusion than theatre had been up to that point.
In 1894, Antoine gave up the direction of his own theatre, and became connected with the Gymnase, and two years later, with the Odéon theatres. Heavily indebted, he left the Odéon in 1914 and turned to the cinema. Between 1915 and 1922, he directed several films under auspices of the Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres ("Film Society of Authors and Men of Letters") of Pierre Decourcelle, adapting literary or dramatic works, such as La Terre ("Earth"), Les Frères corses ("The Corsican Brothers") and Quatre-vingt-treize ("Ninety-three"). He applied the principles of naturalism to film, giving importance to the scenery, natural elements that actually determine the behavior of the protagonists, and by using non-professional actors who were not tied up in the old forms of theater. For Jean Tulard, his literary reputation and is involved in "giving the film its sense of noblity". Influencing film makers like Mercanton, Capellans Hervil and he is "the true father of neorealism".
Antoine concluded his career as a theatre and film critic beginning in 1919. For twenty years, his commentary was published by L'Information, and more sporadically in Le Journal, Comœdia, and Le Monde illustré. Two volumes of memoirs were published in 1928, and appeared in the journal Théâtre from 1932 to 1933.
[edit] Writings
- Mes souvenirs sur le Théâtre-Libre, 1928
- Mes souvenirs sur le Théâtre Antoine, 1928
[edit] Filmography
(Works as film director)
- Les Frères corses, 1915
- Le Coupable, 1917
- Les Travailleurs de la mer, 1917
- L'Hirondelle et la mésange, 1920 (forgotten for 60 years, première in 1982)
- Quatre-vingt-treize, 1920
- Mademoiselle de La Seiglière, 1920
- La Terre, 1921
- L'Arlésienne, 1922
[edit] Sources
- Antoine, André, Microsoft Encarta 2000, Microsoft Corporation, 1999
- Théatre Antoine at Theatreonline.com
- André Antoine, at Cinéclub de Caen
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] Bibliography
- André-Paul Antoine, Antoine, père et fils. Paris : Julliard, 1962
- David Bourbonnaud, "André Antoine, diffuseur et traducteur ?" (archive), Revue Protée: Les formes culturelles de la communication, volume 30, number 1, Spring 2002.
- Bernard Dort, "Antoine, le patron", in Théâtre Public. Paris: Seuil, 1967.
- Jean-Pierre Sarrazac et Philippe Marcerou, Antoine, l'invention de la mise en scène, Actes Sud-Papiers (coll. Parcours de théâtre), 1999 (ISBN 978-2742725120)
[edit] External links
- Official site of the Théâtre Antoine (French)
