Du conte au théâtre contemporain pour la jeunesse. De la mise en scène des émotions

Abstract

Regarded from the structuralist angle, deprived of all psychologism and reduced to incarnate functions, the characters of the patrimonial tales seem to be not very sensitive to the misfortunes and the abuses which threaten them: abandons, mourning, betrayals, mutilations, devouring are mentioned and related. with a certain coldness and the emotions of the characters are most often treated on the allusive mode, even by the ellipse. The same is true of the contemporary rewritings of these tales, which update them to adapt them to a young readership and defeat the very canons of the genre when the use of the first person gives access to the interiority of the heroes, at most near his questions and his torments. This development is particularly noticeable in theatrical transpositions for young people who, giving voice to the characters, give them the power to express their emotions and to exorcise their suffering. We would like to explore these plays of resilience through some recent examples of rewritings of our most famous tales.