The European Theatre Today – The Plays 7

Introduction to the original publication:

The purpose of this volume is to help in the circulation of new works, which can only favour the expansion of the contemporary European theatre repertory. But this volume is not a catalogue, it does not claim to present everything new that has been written for the last two years. Rather, itis a selection of new plays and selection means a subjective choice... and one of chance.

Over 40 amateurs and specialists have been consulted in 39 European countries, whether affiliated or not to the European Theatre Convention — critics, authors, dramaturgs sending us what they liked from recent theatrical production in their respective countries, writing summaries of their favourite plays.

One can therefore question the value of this volume, as it is heterogeneous in the extreme and only presents summaries which themselves have been written without any guidelines, simply based, in the end, on the readers' personal taste.

My response is twofold. I myself wondered about the usefulness of this book... but I had asked that a play written by a young African author, Gustave Akakpo, be included in the previous volume. I was already preparing the first production of this play for performance in autumn 2006. The European Theatre Convention had agreed to feature it at the end of the volume. A few months later, an American director reading this same volume came across the summary and got in contact with the author. Thus, Catharsis came to have a New York premiere just after Saint- Etienne, thanks to the book of play summaries...

As the second point of my response, I feel it must be said that when forty readers/theatre lovers choose one hundred and seventeen plays, in the end this traces a possible portrait of Europe in 2006.

Here, then, is our Europe, between ruin and utopia, living in the fear of withdrawal into nationalism and the terror of globalization. Here is a resistant Europe struggling to exist.

And this Europe of theatrical creation, free and inventive, uses all possible forms to make its voice heard, from reality show to punk revue, passing through family novel, road movie or ancient tragedy. There is a patchwork effect here, a constant search for what can help in founding a multicultural, open and politically incorrect Europe, but always by questioning what remains its foundation, the defence and illustration of democracy. Long live young European authors!