| The power of theater comes from the fact that it is the only genre where one finds a direct line of contact and confrontation between the presence of the actors and that of the audience. While occidental theater emphasizes the role played by the written text and places it above the actor and his body in conveying the message, oriental theater draws upon the energy of the actor and uses his body to communicate with the spectators.;This dissertation attempts to study the views of Claudel, Artaud, Carriere, Brook, Mnouchkine and Cixous, who have all turned to Asian theater, inspired by its corporal symbolism. In this study, the myths and the techniques of representation are analysed, particularly in plays such as the Mahabharata, L'Histoire terrible mais inachevee de Norodom Sihanouk, Roi du Cambodge, L'Indiade ou l'Inde de leurs Reves, Et soudain, des Nuits d'Eveil and Tambours sur la Digue, and the purpose of this study is to understand the conditions within which these plays were created, so as to help ascertain the role played by such a theater in the contemporary world. It is concluded that although on the one hand, the play by Carriere and Brook and the earlier plays by Cixous and the Theâtre du Soleil are firmly anchored in western theatrical practices, on the other hand, the later works of Mnouchkine and Cixous succeed in incorporating certain oriental practices of theater, thereby creating a universal language that could exceed the limits of the written text and the spoken word. |
