The curious case of La Cantatrice chauve (1950): Re-thinking the death of the avant-garde

Abstract

This article deploys the production history of Ionesco’s most famous play, La Cantatrice chauve, to interrogate a theory of the failure of the avant-garde propounded by cultural theorists. This play has been produced without interruption by the dedicated cast of the small Left Bank Huchette theatre in Paris since 1957. I argue that, while the Huchette’s ‘Le Spectacle Ionesco’ has become a tourist commodity for many theatregoers, the specific circumstances of this production history allow us to see the show not as a hegemonic, de-politicising cultural institution, which a theory of the failed avant-garde would have us believe, but as an impetus for aesthetic experimentation with La Cantatrice chauve beyond the Huchette’s walls. As such, the article propounds a continued ‘spirit of the avant-garde’ that inheres within La Cantatrice chauve.