Charles Dullin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 8 May 1885 |
| Died | 11 December 1949 (aged 64) |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Film director, actor |
| Relatives | Sister: Pauline Teillon |
Charles Dullin (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl dylɛ̃] ; 8 May 1885 – 11 December 1949) was a French actor, theater manager and director.
Dullin began his career as an actor in melodrama [1] :185 In 1908, he started his first troupe with Saturnin Fabre, the Théâtre de Foire, where they staged works by Alexandre Arnoux. [1] :185
Dullin was a student of Jacques Copeau, [2] :317 whose company he joined in 1913 for one season, before rejoining from 1917 to 1918. [3] :134 He also trained and worked with Jacques Rouché, [4] :73 André Antoine and Firmin Gémier.[ citation needed ]
In June 1920, Dullin began taking on students and was giving acting lessons at the Théâtre Antoine under the tutelage of Gémier. [5] :111
In July 1921, Dullin founded Théâtre de l'Atelier which he referred to as a "laboratory theater". [6] :346 He conducted auditions for the troupe in Paris, and then brought the small group of actors to Néronville, where they trained for between ten and twelve hours daily. [6] The small group of students, among them Antonin Artaud and Marguerite Jamois, was organised as a commune, with Dullin looking to create 'a different attitude toward theatre' through a 'common sharing of life and work'. [6]
In 1922, the group established itself in the Théâtre Montmartre, the 'first purpose built theatre in suburban Paris', which originally opened in 1822. [7] :31 In order to cover the initial cost of leasing and setting up the theatre, Dullin's mother sold some of the family's furniture and silverware at pawn shops. [8] :36; [9] :45
In 1941 he moved to the 'larger, more modern Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt', where he remained resident until 1947 when accumulating debts forced him to close down. [10] :78
Dullin also played many roles on the screen, and used some of the money earned in these roles to support his theater. He was one of the major French actors both on the stage and the screen during the 1930s.[ citation needed ]
Dullin put a particular emphasis on mime, gymnastics, voice production, and various improvisational exercises intended to heighten one's sensory perception. [11] :119 In the tradition of Copeau, Dullin emphasised respect for the text, a simplified stage décor and a poetic rather than a spectacular perspective on the mise-en-scène, placing the actor at the center of the performance. [10] :76 He aimed to create a total theatre in which the world of the stage was 'more expressive than reality'. [12]
The goal of Dullin's training was to create the "complete actor":
to form actors with a general culture, which they so often lack; to inculcate them from the very beginning with solid principles of actors' techniques: good diction, physical training; to expand their means of expression to include dance and pantomime; in one word, to form the complete actor. [6] : 346
The actor was to get in tune with "La Voix du Monde" (the voice of the world) by making contact with one's surroundings, which would free the actor's true voice, "Voix de Soi-Même" (the voice of oneself). [6] :347
In his seminars, Dullin often used improvisation, which was one of his most important techniques. He emphasized that his actors must "see before describing, hear before answering...and feel before trying to express himself", often using bells, the sound of footsteps, and masks as preparation. [6] : 347 His actors were encouraged to forget the weight of their bodies, while using them more than their faces to express themselves, often wearing a full or half mask. [6] : 347
Dullin drew heavily on East Asian theatre techniques, and particularly Japanese theatre, [3] :135 His interest in Japanese theatre developed as early as 1916, when, as a soldier in World War 1, he performed on the frontline and declared his fellow soldier's performances to be Japanese due to their integration of dance, speech and singing into their performance. [13] :134
As a member of Jacques Rouché's Théâtre des Arts (1910-1913) he performed in Louis Laloy's Le Chagrin dans le palais de Han (1911), an adaptation of a Chinese Yuan zaju play. [13] He would first perform in the minor role of un seigneur before taking over the role the Emperor, one of the play's two leads, for its revival in December. [13] In addition to starring in the revival, Rouché asked Dullin to modify some aspects of the staging, which, according to Rouché, foreshadowed his ‘future tendencies towards stylisation’ [13] :133
He would first witness Japanese theatre in 1930, when Tsutsui Tokujirō's troupe came to Paris. [13]
Dullin died in Paris on December 11, 1949, after falling ill while on tour as an actor in Southern France. [4] :90
Students of Charles Dullin included Pascale de Boysson, Antonin Artaud, Jean-Louis Barrault, [14] :29 Juozas Miltinis, Étienne Decroux, Juran Hisao and Marcel Marceau. [15]
Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud, was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as one of the major figures of the European avant-garde. In particular, he had a profound influence on twentieth-century theatre through his conceptualization of the Theatre of Cruelty. Known for his raw, surreal and transgressive work, his texts explored themes from the cosmologies of ancient cultures, philosophy, the occult, mysticism and indigenous Mexican and Balinese practices.
Jules Eugène Louis Jouvet was a French actor, theatre director and filmmaker.
Experimental theatre, inspired largely by Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu plays as a rejection of both the age in particular and, in general, the dominant ways of writing and producing plays. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical.
Jacques Copeau was a French theatre director, producer, actor, and dramatist. Before he founded the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris, he wrote theatre reviews for several Parisian journals, worked at the Georges Petit Gallery where he organized exhibits of artists' works and helped found the Nouvelle Revue Française in 1909, along with writer friends, such as André Gide and Jean Schlumberger.
Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. Although several performance theatre disciplines are often described as "physical theatre," the genre's characteristic aspect is a reliance on the performers' physical motion rather than, or combined with, text to convey storytelling. Performers can communicate through various body gestures.
Jean-Louis Bernard Barrault was a French actor, director and mime artist who worked on both screen and stage.
Jacques Lecoq was a French stage actor and acting movement coach. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He taught there from 1956 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999.
The Theatre of Cruelty is a form of theatre generally associated with Antonin Artaud. Artaud, who was briefly a member of the surrealist movement, outlined his theories in The Theatre and Its Double. The Theatre of Cruelty can be seen as a break from traditional Western theatre and a means by which artists assault the senses of the audience. Artaud's works have been highly influential on artists including Jean Genet, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, and Romeo Castellucci.
Étienne Decroux was a French actor who studied at Jacques Copeau's École du Vieux-Colombier, where he saw the beginnings of what was to become his life's obsession–corporeal mime. During his long career as a film and theatre actor, he created many pieces, using the human body as the primary means of expression.
Roger Blin was a French actor and director. He staged world premieres of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 1953 and Endgame in 1957.
Thomas Leabhart is an American corporeal mime and corporeal mime teacher.
Suzanne Bing was a French actress. She was a founding member of Jacques Copeau's Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris during the first season 1913-14. Later she worked with the troupe in New York from 1917-19 and again in Paris, 1920-24.
Michel Jacques Saint-Denis, ditJacques Duchesne, was a French actor, theatre director, and drama theorist whose ideas on actor training have had a profound influence on the development of European theatre from the 1930s on.
René Xavier Marie Alain Cuny was a French actor of stage and screen. He was closely linked with the works of Paul Claudel and Antonin Artaud, and for his performances for the Théâtre national populaire and Odéon-Théâtre de France.
André Barsacq was a French theatre director, producer, scenic designer, and playwright. From 1940 to 1973 he was the director of the Théâtre de l'Atelier. He was the brother of Russian production designer Léon Barsacq and the uncle of film actor Yves Barsacq.
Georges Pitoëff was a Russian émigré with an Armenian background who became one of the leading actors and directors in France.
Jean Sarment, real name Jean Bellemère, was a French film and stage actor and a writer. He was nominated administrator of the Comédie-Française in July 1944 although he won't occupy the position.
Jacques Louis Eugène Rouché was a French art and music patron. He was the owner of the journal La Grande Revue and manager of the Théâtre des Arts and the Paris Opera.
The Theatre Alfred Jarry was founded in January 1926 by Antonin Artaud with Robert Aron and Roger Vitrac, in Paris, France. It was influenced by Surrealism and Theatre of the Absurd, and was foundational to Artaud's theory of the Theatre of Cruelty. The theatre was named after Alfred Jarry, who is most known for creating Ubu Roi. Though short-lived, the theatre was attended by an enormous range of European artists, including Arthur Adamov, André Gide, and Paul Valéry.:249
Tsutsui Tokujirō (1881-1953) was a Japanese performer born in Osaka, Japan.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Biographical dictionaries | |
| Other | |
