Abstract
IT HAS BEEN CUSTOMARY to divide the theaters of Paris into three groups. The Boulevard traditionally produces fluffy plays of pure entertainment, and is primarily interested in commercial success. A second group includes the subsidized theaters, the Comedie Frangillse and the Theatre National Populaire, devoted to the dramatic classics, both ancient and modem. The last group produces serious plays by modem authors, either in the philosophical, poetic, or avant-garde vein. It is sometimes called the avant-garde theater, sometimes the literary. Such a division today is highly artificial, for the large plush theaters of the Boulevards have frequently forgotten commercialism and turned to the plays of serious thinkers like Sartre or Camus, while the Comedie Frangaise has sometimes been led astray into the facile fields of frothy and insubstantial commercial comedy. Moreover, since the reforms effected by Andre Malraux a year or so ago, the purposes of the subsidized theaters have been more clearly defined, and through the experimental theaters placed under the direction of Jean-Louis Barrault and Jean Vilar, a helping hand has been extended to young writers exploring new ways of dramatic expression.
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