Knowra French theatre French theatre French theatre is dramatic writing and performance in the French language, encompassing traditions from medieval religious drama to contemporary stage works.
Medieval French theatre : French-language drama from the Middle Ages, including religious plays, farces, and moralities. Its religious cycles and comic forms precede the professional stages of later French theatre.
Molière : A seventeenth-century French playwright and actor known for comedies satirizing social hypocrisy and pretension. His comedies made social satire and comic characterization central to the French stage.
French tragedy : A French dramatic genre portraying grave conflict and catastrophe, especially in its classical seventeenth-century form. It supplied the tradition’s most prestigious genre and its strictest conventions.
French Romantic theatre : A nineteenth-century French dramatic movement that rejected strict neoclassical rules in favor of historical scope and mixed styles. Its defiance of the unities and decorum challenged classical theatre’s dominance.
The Cid : A tragicomedy by Pierre Corneille, first performed in 1637, about love, honor, and duty in medieval Spain. The play’s success and controversy crystallized debates over dramatic rules.
Confrérie de la Passion : A Parisian lay brotherhood that organized religious drama and held a monopoly on theatrical performance in the city. Its performance monopoly helped prompt the creation of permanent Parisian playhouses.
Pierre Corneille : A seventeenth-century French dramatist whose tragedies explore honor, duty, and political choice. His heroic tragedies helped establish the prestige of French classical drama.
French comedy : A French dramatic genre using humor to expose folly, social behavior, or mistaken identity. Its range runs from farce to the character-driven comedies associated with Molière.
Theatre of the Absurd : A postwar theatrical movement portraying human existence through illogical action, repetition, and unstable language. Its fractured plots and dialogue depart sharply from classical dramatic structure.
Tartuffe : A comedy by Molière about a religious impostor who manipulates a wealthy household. Its satire of religious hypocrisy provoked censorship and became a repertory classic.
Show all 29