Introduction

Abstract

Active Citizens offers the first history of French popular theatre from left to right. The introduction explains how and why previous studies have privileged selected initiatives, often within a linear narrative of cultural democratization that is portrayed as either enlightened or repressive. In contrast, the focus here is on the concept of popular theatre as a dialogical space for the playing out of complex relationships between rival communities—central and peripheral; real and imagined. Offering an analysis of how proponents of popular theatre understood the connections between politics, theatre, and utopia, the introduction draws on their differing concepts of the people to structure an approach to the case studies that is both chronological and thematic.