Dullin, Charles (1885–1949), French actor and producer, a pupil of
Gémier, who, after some appearances in melodrama, joined
Copeau when he first opened the
Vieux-Colombier. In 1919 Dullin formed his own company and took it on a long provincial tour. Back in Paris, confronted by many difficulties and always short of money, he finally succeeded in establishing the company in the Théâtre de l'Atelier, a suburban playhouse built in 1822 and used mainly for melodramas and vaudevilles. It had become a cinema in 1914, but after Dullin took it over in 1922 it soon gained a reputation as one of the outstanding experimental theatres of Paris. The plays produced there included the classics of France, the comedies of
Aristophanes, translations of famous foreign plays, among them
Calderón's La vida es sueño (1922), Shakespeare, Ben
Jonson,
Pirandello for the first time in France, and such new French plays as
Cocteau's Antigone (also 1922) and the works of
Achard and
Romains. Himself an excellent actor, Dullin ran a school of acting connected with his theatre, and in 1936 was invited to become one of the directors at the
Comédie-Française. During the occupation of France he toured the unoccupied zone with
Molière's L'Avare, and in 1943 he was responsible for the first production of
Sartre's Les Mouches.
André
Barsacq succeeded Dullin at the Atelier after the war, moving in with his own company and, in spite of growing financial difficulties, upholding the theatre's reputation. After Barsacq's death in 1973 it was managed by his son André-Alexis, who in 1974 handed over to Pierre Franck.
