French Literature Reviews - 2026
É. Mascarau, Les Cours de Louis Jouvet au Conservatoire et le Personnage de théâtre
Theatre and Performance
Les Cours de Louis Jouvet au Conservatoire et le Personnage de théâtre
Ève Mascarau
éd. Deuxième époque, 2019
Collection « Les voies de l'acteur »
536 p.
Throughout his life, Louis Jouvet (1887–1951) wrote about and reflected upon the art of drama, experiencing every facet of the profession from his early days as a stage manager to his work as a theatre director and, of course, an actor. In his classes at the Conservatoire, taught from 1934 to 1940 and again from 1947 to 1951, he sought to put into words for his students the "mystery" of the theatre—an art form that exists only in the fleeting moment of performance and vanishes as soon as it ends. To achieve this, he constructed a conceptual framework with dramatic characters at its core.
In this book, Ève Mascarau decodes the complex thought of this brilliant actor. Emerging from his lessons is not a "method" or a "system," but a philosophy that is less contradictory than it might appear, sustained by a tirelessly revisited vocabulary grounded in strong constants. The result is a fluent, clear, and, above all, groundbreaking analysis.
Published with the support of the Centre national du livre and Université Paris Nanterre
The figure of Louis Jouvet (1887–1951) remains central to twentieth-century French theatre, representing a bridge between the traditions of the early century and the evolving demands of modern performance. By documenting his tenure at the Conservatoire from 1934 to 1940 and 1947 to 1951, this study situates Jouvet within the broader history of theatrical pedagogy, where the transmission of craft often relies on the articulation of intangible concepts. The focus on the dramatic character reflects a recurring preoccupation in European acting theory, which seeks to reconcile the actor's personal presence with the structural requirements of the written text.
By examining the vocabulary Jouvet employed during his teaching sessions, this work explores how the actor reflected upon the art of drama, which exists in the fleeting moment of performance. This approach aligns with the tradition of reflexive practice, where the practitioner treats the theatre as a site of constant intellectual interrogation. Readers interested in the history of French dramatic arts or the evolution of acting techniques may find this examination of Jouvet's pedagogical legacy relevant to their research.