Europe on Stage 1988-2000

Introduction to the original publication: 
 
If the theatre has withstood the centuries, it is because it has been able to resist barbarism, the call of destruction that each epoch carries within it. We are all familiar with the image of the stage when the dead all get up at the end, greet the audience and tell mankind that even if life is fleeting, tragic, or nothing but an absurd dream, it is always worth living to its fullest like an ephemeral celebration or a light in the darkness. 
 
It must never be forgotten that each evening, wherever an actor takes the stage before an audience, in a great national theatre or in the shadows of an obscure warehouse, a poem of the world is being written for the world. Something happens which helps us to better understand who we are, and what the future may bring. 
 
As long as this incessant desire to know lasts, the theatre will continue to bring together boundless forces, This is what has led to the encouragement of the free circulation of works and artists in a thousand and one different ways. We must see to it that the energy born of intelligence, beauty and questioning will know no borders. We know that there are a long list of artists who have made Europe, before it existed through the parliaments and institutions. The imagination of these men and women created a European cultural space, what we call a civilisation. This is why there must be political decisions and voluntary engagements to spread creation wherever it is found. This is our duty and our mission.  
 
On the European scale, many initiatives already exist, exemplary achievements. Today, we can count the European Theatre Convention among these. Its twelve years of activity characterise its will to pursue the project of opening ourselves to the world, without losing sight of the enrichment of national cultures. 
 
The fact that European theatres are united under this banner should be seen as a magnificent symbol of hope. Whether they are jointly examining issues of authorship, contemporary writing, taking an interest in North-South relations, the economy and the diffusion of productions, or the training of a new generation of artists, each time, the European Theatre Convention has been able to take into consideration the questions posed by history. This is what leads us to salute its twelve years of existence, its presence on all fronts of theatrical creation. For through it, something of the European dream is being carried on. A universal way of thinking with respect to the confrontation with the other, with neither demagogy nor renunciation. Because the stage remains an exceptional place. A unique place of interchange and free speech where our future can invent itself.