SOURCE: Bradby, David. “Playwrights of the Seventies.” In Modern French Drama: 1940-1980, pp. 224-49. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

In the following essay, Bradby discusses major French dramatists and directors of the 1970s, focusing on both playwriting and staging issues.

In the course of the seventies, major changes have taken place in French playwriting which are still difficult to assess. In the excitement of the création collective experiments, during the early years of the decade, the traditional role of the playwright almost seemed to have disappeared: instead of starting with a text, theatre companies started from an idea, theme or situation; where playwrights were still employed, it was as literary advisers or adaptors, serving the interests of actors and directors. Among the factors contributing to this situation were: the emphasis on group responsibility; developments in literary theory; the questioning of established artistic methods; and the all-pervading ‘gauchisme...