La Mort de Danton ・ Comédie-Française

After staging Sarah Kane’s "Blasted" at the Studio-Théâtre, the artistic director of the Théâtre du Peuple de Bussang, Simon Delétang, has chosen "Danton’s Death", a play about the French Revolution, for his first production at the Salle Richelieu.

It marks a significant entry into the Repertoire of the national theatre that the House of Molière has now become. Written in 1835 when Büchner had just escaped arrest after publishing The Hessian Courrier, a pamphlet in support of the peasant masses, the drama is striking for its modernity and its immediate borrowings from reality, a stance defended by the German playwright: “As to the alleged immorality of my book, I have this to say: the playwright is, in my eyes, nothing but a historian, but he stands above the latter because he creates history for us a second time and, instead of giving a dry account, he transports us directly into the life of an epoch, instead of characteristics he gives us temperaments, and instead of descriptions, characters.”

Danton’s Death is a meticulously researched saga that portrays a generation of men and women engaged in a social struggle that leads to their downfall. Simon Delétang sets the action in a eighteenth-century aesthetic where the gildings of royalty continue to glitter. The seventeen actors on stage perform in a single, evolving space that transports the audience into the many different places where the fate of Danton, a lover of life and fervent opponent of Robespierre’s Terror, is played out. Encompassing political convictions and the manipulation of popular opinion, the fiery debates of the Committee of Public Safety and the murderous blade of the guillotine, Büchner’s genius lies in the way he condenses this crucial moment in French history, through which he offers a poignant reflection on the human condition.

with the generous support of Aline Foriel-Destezet, great ambassador of artistic creation
and with the support of the Fondation pour la Comédie-Française

Calendar