Monvel, 'Les Victimes Cloîtrées'

Amants s par s, vertu pers cut e, moines lubriques et meurtriers, confrontation de l'Ancien R gime et du nouvel ordre, avec la R volution en guise de deux ex machina; mais aussi passions d cha n es, proclamations enflamm es et tableaux frappants: l'intrigue des Victimes clo tr es, drame de Jacques-Marie Boutet dit Monvel, avait tout pour plaire au public de 1791, et connut, tout au long de la p riode r volutionnaire, un grand succ s sc nique ainsi que de nombreuses r ditions. La pr sente dition retrace l'histoire du texte et de ses repr sentations, de sa cr ation ses derni res reprises lors des c l brations du Bicentenaire de la R volution fran aise en 1789. Elle s'efforce d' clairer les implications historiques de cette pi ce intimement li e aux circonstances et la question monacale, en pr sentant les modifications impos es au texte par le contexte id ologique et les interpr tations vari es qui en ont t faites. Mais elle met galement en lumi re l'importance proprement dramatique de cette oeuvre, crite par un acteur soucieux de spectaculaire et d'effets sc niques. Avec Les Victimes clo tr es, cha non manquant entre le drame bourgeois de Diderot, le roman gothique anglais et le m lodrame du d but du XIXe si cle, s'invente un nouveau type de dramaturgie et un nouveau rapport du public au spectacle: un v ritable th tre de la fascination. tous ces titres, le drame de Monvel m rite d' tre red couvert. Separated lovers, persecuted virtue, lecherous and murderous monks; the confrontation between the Ancien R gime and the new order, the Revolution appearing as a kind of deux ex machine; unrestrained passions, enflamed speeches and striking tableaux: the plot of Les Victimes clo tr es, a drame by Jacques-Marie Boutet, known as Monvel, had everything necessary to please the audiences of 1791. Throughout the revolutionary period this work enjoyed an immense success on the stage, and was also reprinted numerous times. This new edition retraces the history of the text and its performances, from its debut to its last production during the bicentennial celebrations of the French Revolution in 1989. This edition explores the historical implications of a work intimately linked to the times in which it was produced, as well as to the debate about monasteries and religious vows. This volume presents not only the changes imposed upon the text by the ideological context, but also the various interpretations that the play has provoked. It sheds light on the theatrical importance of the work, written as it was by an actor attentive to spectacle and stage effects. The missing link between Diderot's drame bourgeois, the English gothic novel and early nineteenth-century melodrama, Les Victimes clo tr es invents a new kind of dramaturgy and a new relationship between the audience and the performance: a true theatre of fascination. For all these reasons, Monvel's drame deserves to be discovered afresh.