Jacques Copeau
| Jacques Copeau | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | February 4, 1879 Paris |
| Died | October 20, 1949 (aged 70) |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | director, producer, actor, and dramatist |
Jacques Copeau (French: [kɔpo]; February 4, 1879 – October 20, 1949) was an influential French theatre director, producer, actor, and dramatist born in Paris. Before he founded his famous Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris, he wrote theatre reviews for several Parisian journals, worked at the Georges Petit Gallery where he organized exhibits of artists' works and helped found the Nouvelle Revue Française in 1909, along with writer friends, such as André Gide and Jean Schlumberger. He eventually organized a theatre school attached to his theatre and thus influenced the development of theatre through the training of the actor. Twentieth century French theatre is marked by Copeau's outlook. According to Albert Camus, "in the history of the French theatre, there are two periods: before Copeau and after Copeau."
The child of a well-off middle-class family, Copeau was raised in Paris and attended the best schools. At the Lycée Condorcet, he was a talented but nonchalant student whose interest in theatre already consumed him. His first staged play, Brouillard du matin ("Morning Fog"), was presented on March 27, 1897 at the Nouveau-Théâtre as part of the festivities of the alumni association of the Lycée Condorcet. The former president of the French Republic, Casimir-Perier, and the playwright Georges de Porto-Riche both congratulated him on his work. During the same period when Copeau was preparing his baccalauréat exams, he met Agnès Thomsen, a young Danish woman seven years his elder who was in Paris to perfect her French. They first met on March 13, 1896, and Copeau, then a seventeen-year-old high school student, quickly fell in love. Eventually, Copeau passed his exams and began his studies in philosophy at the Sorbonne, but the theatre, extensive reading, and his courtship of Agnès left him little time to study and kept him from passing his exams for the licence, despite several attempts. Against his mother's wishes he married Agnès in June 1902 in Copenhagen. Their first child, Marie-Hélène (called Maiène), was born on December 2, 1902.
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