Hétérotopies du théâtre

Abstract

Michel Foucault’s theory of the spaces and places of heterotopia have been effectively explored by contemporary directors. In his well-known paper Of other spaces (1967), the philosophermakes a distinction between utopias and heterotopias. For Foucault, utopias are sites with no real spaces, while heterotopias are real places, which are absolutely different from all the sites that we reflect and speak about (cemeteries, gardens, prisons, colonies, psychiatric hospitals, museums, libraries, and theatres). We will examine theatre as heterotopia, in the sense that the theatrical space is comprised of an uncountable quantity of different spaces. In this framework, an analysis based on dramaturgies of heterotopias will be elaborated in regard of a playwright (Bernard-Marie Koltès) and a stage director (Patrice Chéreau).