Le retour des odéons ou la lecture théâtralisée comme performance

Abstract

The Return of Odeons or Dramatised Reading as Performance
The actor is by tradition a transmitter of texts: this role is not new. However, a discreet but growing phenomenon has made him an explicit mediator of reading books. The ancient odeons, those buildings once dedicated to public reading or music, seem to double the stages of our theatres with an invisible presence. Often the actor, or the director, dramatizes reading, makes a performance of his relationship with the book: the show becomes a dramatized reading. This article endeavours to isolate its distinctive features, in particular: the delegation of the first act of opening the book, the staging of the reading, the principle of interaction, the principle of aperitive selection, and the production of a major affect, the ‘libido legendi’, which in turn induces a particular dramaturgy, where the treatment of thresholds and scansions is of particular importance. In appendix, a testimony by Nicolas Lormeau.