This book is the first study of popular theatre in France from left to right, exploring how theatre shapes political acts, ideals, and communities in the modern world. As the French found innovative ways of imagining culture and politics in the age of the masses, popular theatre became central to the republican project of using art to create citizens, using secular spaces for the experience of civic communion. But while state projects often faltered in finding playwrights, locations, and audiences, popular theatre flourished on the political and geographical peripheries. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book illuminates lost worlds of political conviviality, from anarchist communes and clandestine agit-prop drama to royalist street politics and right-wing mass spectacle. It reveals new connections between French initiatives and their European counterparts, and demonstrates the enduring strength of radical communities in shaping political ideals and engagement.

Focusing on France, and bringing together historians of politics, literature, philosophy, art, and film, this volume sheds light on the imagination and experience of the political individual in the age of the masses between 1930 and 1950.

This book is the first study of popular theatre in France from left to right, exploring how theatre shapes political acts, ideals, and communities in the modern world. As the French found innovative ways of imagining culture and politics in the age of the masses, popular theatre became central to the republican project of using art to create citizens, using secular spaces for the experience of civic communion. But while state projects often faltered in finding playwrights, locations, and audiences, popular theatre flourished on the political and geographical peripheries. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book illuminates lost worlds of political conviviality, from anarchist communes and clandestine agit-prop drama to royalist street politics and right-wing mass spectacle. It reveals new connections between French initiatives and their European counterparts, and demonstrates the enduring strength of radical communities in shaping political ideals and engagement.

The crises and conflicts of mid-century Europe highlight the fragility of individual life and commitment. Yet this was a time at which individuals engaged in politics on an unprecedented scale, whether in movements, parties and street politics, through culture, or by the choices confronted in war and occupation. Focusing on France, and bringing together historians of politics, literature, philosophy, art, and film, this volume sheds new light on the imagination and experience of the political individual in the age of the masses. From a controversial art exhibition on Algeria to the private diary of a Jewish lawyer in Occupied Paris, these case studies illuminate the specificities of French ideas and experiences in mid-century Europe. They also contribute to a deeper understanding of memory, agency, and responsibility in times of crisis.