“This Drama that Displeased” Representation vs. Representativeness

Abstract

This article analyzes the first performance of Les Copiaus in Demigny (1925), revealing how the reception hinged on a tension between representation and representativeness. Formed after the collapse of Jacques Copeau’s pedagogical project in Burgundy, the young troupe had already woven strong social ties in the village. Their debut show mixed commedia dell’arte, parades, and comic interludes that aligned with local festive culture and were warmly received. The failure came with Copeau’s naturalist drama Le Veuf , based on a recent village suicide linked to alcoholism. Intended as a moral lesson, the play instead provoked rejection: the audience refused a theatrical mirror that exposed a painful local reality. The article argues that popular theatre achieves representativeness only when grounded in shared prior experience between actors and audience—a condition fulfilled by the troupe's everyday presence but absent from Le Veuf . Re-examining this little-known episode, the study shows how it illuminates the early dynamics of French rural theatrical decentralization and the limits of Copeau’s vision of a popular theatre.