L'entrée libre à l'ex-thèâtre de France

the occupation of the Odéon and the revolutionary culture of the French stage

Käte Bredeson

pp. 299-315

in: Julian Jackson, Anna-Louise Milne, James Williams (eds), May 68, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Abstract

On the evening of 15 May 1968, an exuberant mob of three thousand² ascended the stairs of the Odéon National Theatre in Paris at the end of a performance by the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Well-dressed guests of the dance concert tottered on heels and clutched jackets as they emerged into the heart of the Luxembourg Gardens district, while a carnival of students, committee members and international theatremakers stormed the same stairs, carrying signs, flags, tracts and visions of utopia. The interlopers arrived unannounced, ticketless and after hours; they spilled onto the theatre's stage and into the twelve hundred velvet seats. Their goal: to occupy the theatre at the geographical heart of Paris, to seize it and make it a permanent meeting place where they would discuss the general strike and plan the anticipated revolution.

Cited authors

Taylor Paul