Théâtre National Populaire

Théâtre National Populaire, Paris. The first TNP was founded by Gémier, who from 1920 to 1933 obtained Government grants to defray the cost of inviting companies to play to worker-audiences at the Palais de Chaillot in the Trocadéro. He also organized provincial tours, pioneering the use of motorized transport for stage equipment. His work came to an end when in 1934 the Trocadéro was reconstructed to house the International Exhibition of 1937.

The second TNP was directed by Vilar, 1951–63, and was again housed in the Palais de Chaillot, which since 1945 had been used as an assembly hall by the United Nations. The enterprise was able to support its own company, which developed in conjunction with the activities of Vilar at the Avignon Festival. For the first five years productions were staged at Chaillot and then sent on tour, especially in the working-class suburbs of Paris; efforts were later directed rather to attracting spectators from those areas through organized trips and audience associations. An entirely new approach to public relations gave the TNP enormous popularity in the 1950s, though even then there were criticisms of the low proportion of manual workers in its audiences, and the preponderance of well-known plays in its repertory. Certainly Vilar based his work mainly on the classics, both French and foreign, but he also produced a number of contemporary plays—Brecht's Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder in 1953, Jarry's Ubu-roi in 1958, and Brecht again with Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui in 1960. He overcame problems posed by the enormous auditorium (seating 1,800, with a stage 34 metres wide) by adopting reforms still at that time considered experimental: sparse use of scenery, abolition of the footlights and proscenium arch, complex lighting effects, and the use of large acting areas defined by lifts and revolving platforms. Playing in many of the productions himself, and ably seconded by Gérard Philipe in such classic roles as Corneille's Le Cid and Maria Casarès in the tragic heroines of the Romantics, Vilar established a ‘TNP style’, which, unlike that of the Comédie-Française, was based on economy of gesture and simplicity of speech.

The TNP was directed, 1963–72, by the actor-director Georges Wilson (1921– ), who had joined it in 1952 and attracted critical acclaim in such roles as Ubu-roi. Under Wilson the repertory became more modern and international, and he introduced Brendan Behan and Edward Bond to the French stage; but the loss of Vilar and Philipe, together with the development of other popular theatres in the Parisian suburbs and provinces under the policy of Décentralisation Dramatique, led to a decline in popularity. Whereas the average number of seats sold had remained at over 90 per cent until 1966, it dropped in 1970–1 to 37 per cent and in 1972 the theatre was closed by the Government, its subsidy and title passing to the group controlled by Planchon at Villeurbanne.

Wilson continued to work independently, his later roles including James Tyrone in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night in 1973 and Othello at the Avignon Festival in 1975. He directed Sartre's Huis-Clos in 1981 and appeared in Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 1985.