Jean Carzou, a Scenographer: 1968 Production of Thierry Maulnier’s Jeanne et les Juges
Ararat Aghasyan* and Margarita Kamalyan**
Abstract
This study surveys the scenography of the renowned French-Armenian painter, lithographer, illustrator, and stage designer Jean Carzou (1907–2000), for Thierry Maulnier’s Jeanne et les Juges. Formalist and scenographic approaches, combined with semiotic analysis, unveilplaywrights that Carzou’s aestheticised vision for set, costume and lighting design lay at the heart of the 1968 Jeanne et les Juges production. The contribution of Carzou’s scenography to a deeper understanding of the playtext and the playwright’s intent, and its potency to initiate a new discussion in the dramaturgical field is demonstrated. The scenographic and pictorial aesthetics within the nexus of the theatre production are traced, while the expressive power and originality of their convergence are laid bare.
Keywords: scenography, semantics, mystère, Brechtian alienation, pictorial aesthetics
This article is dedicated to the loving memory of Georgi Kutoyan,
a patriot and a true son of his motherland and nation
Introduction
The scenographer visually liberates the text and the story behind it, by creating a world in which the eyes see what the ears do not hear.
Pamela Howard, What Is Scenography? (2002) (McKinney and Butterworth 2009, 3).
The 1960s marked a new phase towards establishing anti-Aristotelian heterarchical dramaturgies which are currently and widely used in contemporary theatre practice (Trencsényi). The complex paradigm of multiplied temporalities and perspectives required a revision of the role of the theatre design. The term decorator, which was emblematic of the traditional and already anachronistic approach to theatre design, succumbed to scenography (Pavis 314–15). The novel scenographic approach embraced functional spatiality interfaced with modern technologies, toyed with the audience and, most significantly, became “an interpreter of the drama, an actor communicating a message to the spectator” (Bablet 1977, 291).
As scenography has ambiguous connotations (Aronson 1-4), it is pertinent to specify its implications for our study. We deploy this denomination to refer to the stage, costumes and lighting design of a production within the specified conceptual framework.
The French scene of the 1960s was an amalgam of traditions and innovations. Scenographers René Allio, André Acquart, Jacques Noël and Michel Raffaelli were occupied with functional constructions and the semiotic applications of scenic elements, including haptic textures and new materials. Director-scenographer Jacques Polieri actualised the theatre’s spatial and multisensory potentialities, while directors Ariane Mnouchkine and Jérôme Savari subordinated scenography to service audience engagement. In 1969 the Association Française des Services Techniques de Théâtre (AFSTT)was founded in France, a year after the creation of the International Organization of Scenographers and Theatre Technicians (OISTT, later OISTAT) in Prague to promote the scenographic approach to theatrical design.
Countering novel trends, Roland Petit, Maurice Béjart, Jean-Albert Cartier and Maurice Lehmann, among others, retained the traditions established mostly by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, inviting famous painters to theatre. A French painter, lithographer, illustrator, and stage decorator, Jean Carzou (Garnik Zouloumian, 1907–2000), who was born in Aleppo (Syria) to an Armenian family and settled in Paris in 1924, was among them. First as a theatre designer in 1952 on the stages of Grand Opéra and the Comédie Française, Carzou finished his career in 1969 with seven works. Like other celebrated artists of his time, such as Salvador Dalí, Lucien Coutaud, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst and many others, Carzou enriched the French stage with the artistic expression of his sets, proscenium curtains and stage costumes, creating them as true works of art (Kamalyan 95–105). Thus, it is not surprising that his works were included in the fundamental encyclopaedia of stage design (Lista 69, 121, 412, 413, 523).
Jean-Albert Cartier placed Carzou among the painter-decorators who “ont enrichi l’art du spectacle de toute la puissance et de toute l’originalité de leur génie pictural” (“have enriched l’art du spectacle with all the might and originality of their pictorial genius” (246). A selection of Carzou’s stage costumes joined the collections of the Centre National du Costume et de la Scène. The costumes for “Athalie” (1955) and “La Perichole” (1969) are permanently displayed on the official website of the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.
Thus, Carzou exemplifies easel painters’ general benefit to the French scene by elevating stagecraft to art. They eschewed an illusionistic approach and created two- or three-dimensional, aesthetically appealing and metaphorically ambivalent pictorial scenery. Nevertheless, unlike many others, Carzou stepped towards the new paradigm of scenography through his work for Jeanne et les Juges.
Despite the deep resonance of Carzou’s theatrical design, literature has yet to comprehensively study it. Monographs (Harutyunyan; Keusseyan 1982; Fels; Marcenac; Lambertin; Campagne; Toranean) about Carzou’s prolific oeuvre superficially cover this discipline, as do articles dedicated to this domain (Razdolskaya; Manasseryan; Keusseyan 1980). In exhibition catalogues, traces of Carzou’s theatrical design are given little to no attention (Rocca, et al.; Aubry, et al.). The scenography of Carzou, a member of the Académie de Beaux-Arts (1977), whose lifelong contribution to French culture was acknowledged through many prestigious titles and awards during his lifetime, has long deserved academic attention.
The oblivion into which the scenography of Jeanne et les Juges has fallen is understandable. It is generally acknowledged that visual arts or theatre and performance studies have not adequately surveyed theatre productions’ visual aspects (McKinney and Butterworth 151). This is partly due to the limitations common to this field (7), ambiguous nomenclature, and the blurring of disciplinary borders. However, this situation is changing. Thus, Aronson prioritises scenographic analysis to “lie at the heart of any analysis of theatrical and performance art,” “as a means of understanding performance” (4). Astrid von Rosen accentuates the correlation of scenography to the field of visual studies. One of her points pertains to the integration of scenography as a marginalized subfield of art history in Sweden since the 1960s (65), which is true in many countries. Given this, the current study examines Carzou’s scenography for Jeanne et les Juges holistically through formalist and scenographic methods, combined with semiotic approach, with the goal to elucidate its impact on the aesthetics of production.
We intend to “read” the scenography in regard to the play’s text, the playwright’s intent, the idea of the director and the performance itself. We aim to discuss the scenic elements discretely and within the nexus of their relationship to each other and the setting, using the semiotic tools (icon, index and symbol) proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce (McKinney and Butterworth 158; Elam 34–42). We examine the spatial arrangement of the production and playful functionality of scenic elements.
Additionally, as scenography also involves the audience’s perception and integration, we consider critical reviews in the French press at the time as a barometer of spectators’ critical involvement in decoding production semantics. Finally, given that Carzou identified himself foremost as an easel painter, even using this as a reason for declining many offers of theatre design (in Gauthier), we take interest in identifying the work’s traditional/innovatory—or specifically, pictorial/scenographic, traits, which mark the unique shift from his previous role as a painter-decorator to that of an artist-scenographer.
To conduct this analysis, we are fortunate that Carzou’s sketches are preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Carzou’s son, producer and essayist, Jean-Marie Carzou kindly provided us with photographs of the production from his private collection. These illustrative materials are presented here for the first time. Diapositives of the production held in the Archives Communales de Versailles provide insight into lighting design. It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which Carzou influenced the lighting design. Since there is no record of a lighting designer working on the play, and that Carzou had previously been involved in lighting design for the ballet Le Loup (in Gauthier), we assume that he performed the same function for Jeanne et les Juges. Unfortunately, Carzou’s views of this production are lacking. Despite these caveats, the collected documents are substantial for the first analysis in this direction.
“Reading” the Stage
Jeanne et les Juges was written by Thierry Maulnier, a member ofthe Académie Française (1964) andCommandeur de la Légion d’Honneur and was first performed on 29 May 1949 in the city of Joan’s execution, Rouen, during the Joan of Arc Festival. It was also broadcast on the radio. Maulnier’s wife, Marcel Tassencourt (member of the Académie de Versailles, 1986), played Joan’s alter ego in the initial production (1949; director and costume designer Maurice Cazeneuve). As director of the Théâtre Montansier in Versaille (1960–1990), Tassencourt revived the play 19 years later. Her decision to hold the premiere on 8 May 1968 at the Théâtre Montansier during the annual Versailles Festival coincided with commemorations of the liberation of Orléans and the victory in World War II. While the first production staged in the town of Joan’s martyrdom on 29 May 1949 accentuated her identity as a martyr, the day of the 1968 premiere on 8 May commemorated her as a liberator.
The original performance’s non-conventional venue, in conjunction with the staging of both productions within the festival framework and during commemorative occasions dedicated to Joan gave voice to Maulnier’s (1951, 20) desire to awaken spectators to the urgency of Joan’s trial and execution and its recurrent nature. In the play Maulnier abandons historical authenticity by replacing the actual tribunal of 60 or 70 men with three judges “sans nationalite” (“no nationality”), “sans état civil” (“no civil status”) and “presque sans visage” (“almost no face”) who encapsulate the corrupt authority of all time and are mobilised “pour écraser un être solitaire et ligoté ou pour obtenir de lui le reniement de lui-même” (“to crush a solitary and bound individual or to make her disavow herself”; Maulnier 1951, 19). Thus, Joan appeared not before “her” judges, but before “the” judges (20).
Across 12 scenes, Maulnier presents Joan as a young convict subject to threats of double condemnation of the flesh and soul, admonitions and temptations. Joan’s recantation is followed by her talk with one of her guards, who makes her realise that self-abjuration is worse than the stake (scene X). Despite Joan being abandoned by her heavenly voices, Maulnier opts to include metaphysical reality. Hence, Joan’s patron saints, who were inaudible and invisible to her, were present on the stage. They observe and sympathise with her but reveal different facets of love. St. Michael prevents St. Catherine’s and St. Margaret’s urge from encouraging Joan, as she must make her own choice in her ‘garden of Gethsemani’ (Maulnier 1951, 60).
The spiritual incarnation of Joan’s true self, her legendary alter ego, emerges to provide her with counsel and strength. She rediscovers her identity as a national liberator and then prepares for a greater role as a martyr and the patron saint of France. Maulnier demonstrates her double victory; her resistance affirms the divinity of her mission and Charles VII’s divine right to the French throne, earning her the ‘palm of martyrdom.’ Saint Michael welcomes her into Heaven (scene XIII) . This play’s overarching motif is the triumph of inner freedom over human injustice.
Tassencourt’s approach as director was to serve the play’s text rather than her own ideas (Les archives communales de Versailles). She opted to accentuate Maulnier’s intended Heaven/Earth, physical/metaphysical dichotomy through a multisensory juxtaposition. In an annotated text, Maulnier approves of Tassencourt’s idea of “la musique et le chant donnent leurs voix à l’invisible lorsque le visible se tait” (“music and song giving voice to the invisible when the visible becomes silent”; Les archives comunales de Versailles). The score for the saints and Joan’s alter ego was composed by Pierre Jansen, who had collaborated with Tassencourt previously, successively scoring Macbeth, Romeo et Juliette, Agnes Bernauer and Knock ou le Triomphe de la Médecine.
In addition to musical expression, the Heaven/Earth, physical/spiritual binary division was reinforced visually through the scenography. The wooden scaffolding-like architectural setting, which was a projection of the skills Carzou had mastered at l’École d’Architecture, designated Heaven and alluded to medieval structures, in particular evoked a Gothic cathedral. The stage’s bare front was used during different scenes as the interiors of the adjacent archiepiscopal palace (the trial location), the Donjon (torture chamber), Joan’s imprisonment cell and the Saint-Ouen cemetery (recantation site) and Place du Vieux-Marché (her execution site). Semantic polysemy was also attributed to the portable bar placed in the stage’s centre and integrated into the performance. It served as a bed in Joan’s prison cell, a torture device and became a pedestal for Joan’s heroism at her execution.
The scenic design visually underpinned also Maulnier’s desire to contemporize the play, by alluding to its time and timeless nature. While the medieval atmosphere was evoked through the wooden spear-like details, the presence of torture instruments, and the dramatic interplay between light and obscurity, modernity was conjured by spiked torture wheels that resemble modern machinery (Harutyunyan 189). A simultaneous staging method, distinctive of the medieval theatre, was also modern in its approach, and is still relevant in contemporary theatre practice: “il répond au besoin de fragmentation de l’espace et de multiplication des temporalités et des perspectives” (“it responds to the need for fragmentation of space and multiplication of temporalities and perspectives”; Pavis 81). Finally, the scaffolding-like setting was popular in the 1960s.
The scenography’s semiotic potential was also enacted through spatial proxemics and architectonics. The juxtaposition of Joan’s relatively small figure with the large-scale setting, looming over the bareness of the front part of the stage, echoed the heroine’s struggles and anxiety. The setting’s verticality metaphorized her aspirations for higher spheres and values. Light was also critical in the demarcation of space as well as amplifying dramatic expression.
The press reviews decoded the scenographic sign-system; by identifying allusions of the setting to the cathedral and the scaffold (Lorne), to which Vigneron added connotations of the palace of justice and torture instruments, and Gautier–of medieval “mansions.” Thus, visual semantics of the scenography fostered active engagement with spectators, which was also facilitated through spatiality. A horizontally attached platform superseded the proscenium arch to provide the public with a sense of proximity and physical involvement. This peculiarity, paired with the architectonic spatiality of the scaffolding-like setting, added a phenomenological plane to the theatrical experience.
Stage Costumes
Unlike the admiration for the setting, the press reviews were unanimous in their criticism of Carzou’s design of the stage costumes, defining them as “futuristic” (Vigneron) , “acrobatic” (Dutourd) , lacking style (C.M.), disorienting for the actors (Lonchampt) and somewhat disturbing for the spectators (Gautier). Apparently, through these formally ‘disintegrated’ elements Carzou invited the spectator for critical engagement. Elam rightly contends that “when theatrical semiosis is alienated, made ‘strange’ rather than automatic, the spectator is encouraged to take note of the semiotic means” (31).
The ornaments of the judges’ stylised church clothes echoed the triangular shapes of the setting’s pediments. This convergence alluded to judges’ roles as church officials. However, their bizarre biretta-shaped hats, with some features of military helmets and royal crowns, served as grotesque icons of multifaceted authority.
The identities of St. Margaret and St. Catherine were revealed through stylised martyrial symbols, such as the palm branch, signifying their victory over death. Omnipresent spiked wheels, torture instruments meant for Joan, were also attributive indices of St. Catherine’s torture (Hall 229–30). The clothes of the saints and their overall images simultaneously evoke Botticelli’s 1480 allegory of the spring in Primavera and the representations of a ‘woman-tree’ recurrent in Carzou’s works (Mère et Enfant 1952; Le Printemps 1963; L’Arbre de Vie 1991) as a poetic metaphor for purity and love. Their images of classical beauty drastically differed from Saint Michael’s appearance in stylised medieval military attire with a Flamberge sword and spiked helmet (Hall 365).
The prickliness of his non-traditional spiky nimbus illustrated the saint’s militant features and stern stance on Joan. The stylistic juxtaposition of linear and painterly modes in the images of the saints emphatically displayed the differences in their attitudes towards Joan.
Joan’s alter ego, Joan the warrior, appeared before Joan the prisoner in her military attire, consisting of stylised reticulated armour. The helmet was adorned by a crown, and, strangely, somewhat resembled the headdress of a thirteenth-century noblewoman, with a large net or white headband covering the hair, forehead and chin, and topped by a flower crown: chapeaux de fleurs or couronne de fleurs (Mertsalova 35). It is worn during both joyous and solemn ceremonies (Académie Française 292). Carzou replaced the wreath of flowers with an actual crown because Joan was to be ‘coronated’ in Rouen as her king was in Reims (Maulnier 1951, 184).
In contrast to this non-naturalistic outfit, the realism of Joan’s concentration camp prisoner uniform is striking. Through this visual foregrounding, Carzou provided additional commentary on production. This powerful visual analogue presented Joan as a supranational symbol of resistance and encapsulated the perennial reality of human struggle. Interestingly, this thread becomes more saturated through thoughts about inner freedom in concentration camps, as expressed by the Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl in his 1963 book (104–106). These meanings also echoed Carzou’s own experiences as a witness to the Armenian Genocide and both World Wars.
In Joan’s execution scene, she appeared as a martyr in a man’s suit, with a cross in glory embroidered on it. The executioners were identified by the depiction of flames as indices of the pyre.
The stage costumes also played an active semiotic position relative to the setting, which was revealed either through formal-stylistic similarities (the costumes of the judges, the Archangel and Joan the warrior) or discrepancies (the dresses of St. Margaret and St. Catherine).
The press reviews did not dwell on these multimodal, polysemous semantics. Interestingly, we did not fully exhaust their semiotic potential, which we will explore further in the next paragraph.
A Mystery Play? Towards New Dimensions of Decoding Carzou’s Scenography
In his search for semantic intercourse with the playtext, Carzou evidently reached its core. The theatrical interplay of styles and associations, spirituality and satirical mockery in the overall scenic imagery of Jeanne et les Juges expressed the duality of ritual and play that forms the basis of medieval theatre.
This duality draws our attention to the intriguing parallels between Maulnier’s drama and medieval mystery plays, which were overlooked by the critique of the time. In the 1951 preface to the play, Th. Maunier mentions certain peculiarities of his drama that are also characteristic of mystery plays (15–8). He wrote the play to be performed in Joan’s execution city (in the square in front of the Rouen Cathedral) as part of the annual open-air festival commemorating her martyrdom. This, along with the desire to avoid shocking the expectations and faith of thousands of spectators influenced his approach to the playtext. Maulnier interpreted Joan’s martyrdom as the Passion of Saint Joan of Arc (canonized by the Vatican in 1920) and compared it to the Passion of Christ and other saints (1951 41).
This conceptual framework of communal faith formed the basis of mystery plays, which were performed on commemorative and festive occasions in non-conventional, open-air venues (Dzhivelegov and Boyadzhiev 52). Additionally, Maulnier’s desire to contemporize and universalise Joan’s story did not venture far from these mystery plays, in which Christian history was presented through the lens of modernity. For example, in these plays protagonists inter alia wore modern costumes: Roman emperors and pagan kings were dressed like French kings, their retinues like modern nobility, Pilates like royal governors, and so forth (Mokulsky 178). Maulnier’s initial idea to dress the protagonists of his play in contemporary clothes, such as police officers wearing pullovers and smoking cigarettes, was consistent with this approach (1951, 21). The similarity lies in the treatment of the temporal and the eternal, and the desire to give the eternal a contemporary guise.
Jeanne et les Juges was not a univocal revival of mystery plays. The inability to represent a spectacle conceived according to the tradition of mystères Maulnier admits and ascribes to financial restrictions and the need to satisfy the time limitations of a one-and-a-half-hour radio broadcast (1951, 17) . Prolonged medieval mystères were picturesque and spectacular shows featuring many actors and buffonic episodes, which could last for several days and involve hundreds of people. This may have been his intention. Furthermore, unlike Maulnier’s drama, Mystères were written in rhymed verse. Despite these differences, the underlying similarities are too significant to ignore. We argue that the play’s mysterial nature was at the heart of the 1968 production and posit that Carzou’s scenography laid it bare.
Our evidence suggests that Maulnier’s Jeanne et les Juges was a modern, stylised revival of a mystery play. Unlike the 1949 open-air performance, the 1968 production was staged in Montansier Theatre’s conventional setting. Nevertheless, Carzou’s scenography revived the medieval spirit of mystères. He deployed medieval staging methods, such as the locus and platea, in which the upper parts of the wooden scaffold symbolically represented Heaven, and the bare platea became many places throughout the play. Thus, the scenography shared the medieval convention of simultaneously designating both generalised and specific sacred and secular loci of the Christian universe, with its Heaven/Earth binary juxtaposition. Jean-Jacques Gautier noticed the analogy with the medieval scaffold and deployed the synonymous term mansion. In contrast, Jean Vigneron (1968) criticised the juxtaposition of the setting to “un plateau nu,” unaware that “this basic interplay between two kinds of space is deeply rooted in medieval and early modern drama across Europe” (Dillon 6). The multifunctional bar also fit seamlessly within this paradigm, in which it reacquired one of its specific terms and meanings: eculeus “torture table” of the saint’s martyrdom and the “altar” of her sacrifice. The extended platform, which seemingly increased the spectators’ proximity, made them the “congregants” to the mystery.
Some of the features of Carzou’s costume designs, which were criticized by the press, were similar to their medieval counterparts. Firstly, they expressed a playful and stylistic eclecticism. Secondly, the “acrobatic” (Lonchampt; Dutourd) and “costumes clinquants pour un music-hall de sacristie” (“tinselly costumes typical of a sacristy music hall’; Rivollet) recall acrobatics, clowning and juggling performed during intermissions of the mystères. Thirdly, lacking any historical verisimilitude, they deployed imaginative motifs (executioners) and attributes (saints), making the play’s protagonists immediately identifiable, another trait tantamount to mystères (Dzhivelegov and Boyadzhiev 66; Mokulsky 178-79). Finally, the hieraticism of the saints’ images, which “ont l’air de trois statues en plâtre de 1880” (“look like three plaster statues from 1880;” Dutourd) point to the sacral aspect and roots of the mystery plays.
The fact that Maulnier himself emphasized the mysterial character of the original 1949 production, means that Carzou’s scenographic solutions were not the result of his creative whim. In contrast, this proves that he delved deep into the core of the playwright’s original intentions.
Intriguingly, the 8th of May, the day of Tassencourt’s premiere, coincided with the liberation of Orléans, a significant event that prompted the conception of another mystery play: Le Mystère du siège d’Orléans. This commemorative allusion may also be suggestive of Tassencourt’s consent to the playwright’s unique vision. In this context the reference of Carzou’s setting to a Gothic, namely Rouen Cathedral–the open-air venue of the original 1949 production–becomes meaningful. Thus, Carzou’s decisions were in harmony with those of the director and playwright. This unity was further reinforced through Jansen’s recitative music, as it also alluded to mystery plays, which “n’a pas de caractère musical propre, mais il peut faire appel à des illustrations musicales, vocales ou instrumentals” (“have no musical character but may have recourse to the accompaniment of singing or instrumental music;” Éditions Larousse).
Consequently, Carzou’s scenography furnished the audience with potent intellectual stimulation, empowering them to construct novel meanings and decipher the intents of the director and playwright.
The Last Knot of Meaning
One additional point is deemed necessary in this research. The intersection of the costume representation modes, ranging from painterly to linear, imaginative to historical-allegorical, representational to realistic, and evoking a sense of unusual and strange, introduces a Brechtian dimension to the production. “These visual disruptions”—foregrounding and grotesquerie—create Brecht’s famous alienation effect, which aims to engage spectators intellectually and awaken them to urgent socio-political issues.
Through distanciation Carzou’s scenography created space for the audience’s inner freedom of thought and choice. This aligned with the play’s essence and served Maulnier’s anti-escapist desire for the people to forge their own truth and awaken to the cyclical nature of oppression. As Maulnier wrote in the preface, “Notre vérité ne nous est pas donnée. Mais il nous est donné de la faire” (1951, 72) (“Our truth is not given to us, but we are given to make it”).
Furthermore, the scenographic use of the famous Brechtian technique shepherds us to a broader analogy with Brechtian dramaturgy, his 1952 adaptation of Anna Seghers’ radio play Der Prozess der Jeanne d’Arc zu Rouen 1431 (Brecht 173–226). It was performed in 1952, a few years after Maulnier’s first production premiered in 1949. The French playwright may have been familiar with the radio play written in 1937. While all the plays focus on the trial process and consider the injustice as a catalyst for audience transformation, Maulnier’s portrayal of Joan as homo religiosus is similar to Seghers’ approach. In contrast, Brecht places greater emphasis on the socio-political dimension (Böcking 407-408). Although further comparative study of these plays is beyond the scope of this study, this appears promising for future research. In addition to dramaturgical similarities, there could be further analogues relative to staging. The fact that Robert Potter (“The Brechtian Dimensions”) ascribes some modern European revivals of mystery plays to Brechtian influence, in the light of the new revelations of Maulnier’s play’s mysterial nature, can also serve as a significant point for further exploration. Thus, Carzou’s scenography “overfulfills” its role as an interpretive agent by additionally signposting a new path of research decades after the production.
“Reading” the Scenic Image as an Artwork
It is noteworthy that apart from modern scenographic traits, Carzou’s design of Jeanne et les Juges also carried some anachronistic features, as it was conceived as a pictorial composition, with actors as its moving parts. The scenography appeared like a three-dimensional projection of his artwork thematically and stylistically. It bore the imprint of his easel works, in which “allegory, magic, and grotesque reality are often intertwined,” (Aghasyan, et al. 558) and the motifs of ‘woman-tree’ 1964 and spiked wheels recur throughout. Additionally, it possessed the prickly linearity of Carzou’s signature style and its high aesthetic value. The “splendide” beauty of the “filiforme” and “flamboyant” decor impressed Tassencourt (“Au ‘Mai de Versailles’”) and the reviewers (Lonchampt; C.M.; Lorne).
This kind of aestheticization of the stage and its conceptualisation within the framework of easel painting was the modus operandi of visual artists, who occasionally worked as theatre designers (Bablet 1986). Renowned names lent resonance to the performance, and their high-quality artistic designs increased its visual impact. However, their stage decorations corresponded more to the old paradigm of theatre practice. In Jeanne et les juges, the pictorial aesthetics of the ‘animated artwork’ acquired scenographic functionality and replaced its outdated role with one of active interpretation.
The ‘animated artwork’ approach has also parallels in medieval theatre. Gordon Kipling discusses the medieval perception of a play as “painting-come-to-life,” in which “plays were written, staged and performed in the language of iconography derived from paintings and other forms of medieval art” (254). Although this similarity is coincidental, as this approach was common to all of Carzou’s theatre designs, it is still notable in that it aligns well with the dramaturgical concept.
Conclusion
The comprehensive analysis exposed that Carzou’s scenography was at the heart of the production of Jeanne et les Juges. With the intent of galvanising intellectual engagement among spectators, and, by chance, researchers, the polysemantic multidimensional codes conveyed through dramatic, historical and art-historical references not only visually interpreted the play, but also offered insights into deeper layers of the playwright’s intent, even unveiling intriguing Brechtian parallels. Combined with the corporeality of the scaffolding-like construction and other scenic elements, this has positioned Carzou’s scenography among the modern scenographic trends of the 1960s French scene.
These innovative scenographic features creatively coalesced with the artist’s traditional approach of constructing the stage as a pictorial artwork, marked by his unique signature style and imbued with rich aesthetic expressiveness.
By successfully reconciling the traditional/modern and decorator/scenographer dichotomies, Carzou demonstrated that the tradition of inviting non-professional theatre designers with their artistic visions and original styles to design the stage—a practice that originated in the late nineteenth century and persisted into the 1960s—can produce compelling results.
Acknowledgement: We would like to take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude to Carzou’s son, Jean-Marie Carzou, as well as the staff of the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris and Les Archives Communales à Versailles, who kindly provided us with previously unpublished photographs of the performance, sketches of the stage costumes, and other archival materials.
Νote: A preliminary version of this article was presented at the Sixth Scientific Session of Young Armenian Art Historians and subsequently published in the conference proceedings in Armenian in 2012 (Kamalyan 2012, 12–19).
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*Ararat Aghasyan is a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. Doctor of Sciences (Arts), Professor Aghasyan is the Scientific Supervisor of the Institute of Arts NAS RA, the Head of the Department of Armenian Diasporic Art and International Relations. He is mainly engaged in historical and theoretical issues related to the Armenian Fine Arts of the XIX-XX centuries and the history of Armenian-Russian and Armenian-French artistic relations. Aghasyan has published several monographs in Armenian, Russian and English, including The Ways of the Development of Armenian Fine Arts of the XIX-XX Centuries (2009), Symbolism and Martiros Saryan’s Art (2012), In the Space of Ervand Kochar (2013), From the History of Armenian-Russian Artistic Relations: St. Petersburg (2015), Enchanted by the Sea: Ivan (Hovhannes) Aivazovsky (2017). He is the author of around 100 scientific reports and articles published in Armenia and abroad.
**Margarita Kamalyan is a senior researcher and the Scientific Secretary at the Institute of Arts of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Yerevan State University Chair of History and Theory of Armenian Art. She holds a PhD in Arts (2014). Kamalyan has authored numerous articles and participated in national and international conferences in Armenia, the UK, Italy and Russia. Her interests include Armenian Fine Arts, particularly Armenian Diasporic art of the XX century, with a special focus on French-Armenian and Italo-Armenian stage and costume design, painting, and more.
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Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, #32, December 2025
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