Fayard, Nicole

Dr. Nicole Fayard is Lecturer in French at the University of Leicester. Her research focuses on 20th century and contemporary French theatre. In particular, she has published articles on Shakespeare in France and on the work of Georges Lavaudant, Daniel Mesguich and Stéphane Braunschweig. More recent research has taken her into the field of contemporary French women writers. Dr. Fayard has also published on the methodology of language teaching.

Performance of Shakespeare in France Since the Second World War

2006 0-7734-5891-3
Provides a comprehensive survey and critical evaluation of Shakespearian production in France from the 1960s to the end of the twentieth century. Through a study of the specifics of a large number of productions, the work theorises the strategies used by each new wave of directors to influence the Shakespearian repertoire and generate new appropriations of Shakespeare’s theatre, from critical interpretations of his plays in the light of the theories of Bertolt Brecht and Jan Kott in the 1960s and the iconoclastic radicalisations of the 1970s to the self-referential post-modern “theatre of images” of the 1980s and 1990s and the playful and radical appropriations of the young directors of the 1990s. This original study makes a significant contribution to the study of Shakespeare’s place in France, surveying forty years of changes and innovations in Shakespearian theatre production. It also opens up a new area of debate within the established field of Shakespearian studies, relocating it in the arena of cultural politics in France. The book contains a valuable database recording new Shakespearian productions in France between 1960 and 1997.