Le Couvent ou les Voeux forcés Olympe de Gouges

Theatre perceived as a genre reserved for men, very few female playwrights Improper for a respectable woman to have anything to do with a theatre company Actors seen as having dubious morals

Olympe de Gouges 1748 – 1793 1786: starts her career as a playwright. She will write about 15 plays Slavery Forced marriage Divorce Political events 1791: Discours des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne 1793: the only woman tried and guillotined for her writing during the Terror

Projet d’un second théâtre et d’une maternité, 1789 ‘Dans tous [les théâtres], on trouve ce qui peut flatter et entretenir les vices. Ces horribles tréteaux ont fait la perte du peuple. On voit un ouvrier se priver de pain, abandonner son travail, sa femme et ses enfants, pour courir chez Nicolet, Audinot, aux Beaujolais, aux Délassements Comiques et tant d’autres qui obèrent le peuple, qui dépravent les moeurs et qui nuisent à l’Etat.’

Projet d’un second théâtre et d’une maternité, 1789 ‘… si une bonne religion a été toujours le fondement inébranlable du salut des Etats et des peuples, un théâtre moral, dont les actrices seraient irréprochables, conviendrait à la société des hommes policés, exciterait les vertus, corrigerait les libertins, et, à peine dix ans se seraient écoulés, que l’on reconnaitrait que la bonne comédie est véritablement l’école du monde.’

3 phases 1789-1791: revolutionary ideology appearing more and more on stage 1791-1793: decree of 13th January 1791  from 10 to 35 theatres, debate over repertoire and censorship After 9 Thermidor: less inflamed theatre, trying to refocus on literary quality rather than on political interpretations

Theatre for national regeneration Potential for propaganda ‘régénération civique’, ‘école primaire pour adultes’ From the Comédie Française to the Théâtre de la Nation Actors as citizens

The play Very successful with 80 performances Controversial and politically explicit theme: written while the Assembly was debating on religious maters 13 February 1790: abolition of religious orders Church as taboo subject for plays in Ancien Régime Church costumes and ceremonies banned from stage until 1790 Drame bourgeois upholds patriarchal model. What happens when a woman writes her own drama? De Gouges does not comply with the expected characterisation Heroine more active, female solidarity, patriarchal oppression as cause of unhappiness Intervention of the law in the play