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Roberto Zucco

Bernard-Marie Koltès, Robert Zucco, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1990, 125 p. (texte suivi de Tabataba)

« L’histoire réelle et ahurissante de l’assassin de 1988 donne à Koltès (dont c’est le dernier texte avant la mort) la trame de cette pièce qui mêle sans crainte plusieurs registres du théâtre. Loin de glorifier ou de condamner les actes (nous ne sommes pas dans la morale) de Roberto Succo, l’auteur retient quelques thèmes transversaux : le mystère de l’identité, la violence dans les échanges humains, ou la dimension tragique de l’amour entre Zucco et la Gamine, rôle largement aussi important que celui de l’assassin. Le destin d’un combattant solitaire va se mesurer à celui d’une adolescente qui accède à la féminité en même temps que sa famille implose dans le sillage de Zucco. »
(Résumé disponible sur le site Théâtre et traduction.)

Documentation critique

NOULAS, Vassilis, « La violence dans Roberto Zucco de Bernard-Marie Koltès », mémoire de maîtrise, département des lettres modernes, Université Paris III, 1999, 97 f. +++ Thèse de doctorat / mémoire de maîtrise

KOZAK, Kristof Jacek, « Philosophical aspects of the tragic subject : Its evolution and contemporary dramatic practice », thèse de doctorat, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta, 2003, 283 f. +++ Thèse de doctorat / mémoire de maîtrise

###Abstract
« This dissertation challenges the presumption of the death of tragedy from a philosophical perspective and illustrates the survival of the genre in contemporary forms of tragedy.

Beginning with an analysis of Aristotle’s Poetics , the argument traces the influence exerted by the Aristotelian tenets of tragedy. While I demonstrate the manner in which the history of tragedy in the West has emerged in light of this foundational treatise, I situate the importance of the inception of a post-Cartesian subject that became key to both philosophical reflections on human subjectivity and considerations about the possibility of representing tragic subjects in drama. This intertwining of philosophy and artistic representation is particularly pronounced in German Idealist thought that developed a philosophy of tragedy and established the subject as the essence of the genre. Critiques of Idealism inevitably led to the claim of the genre’s death.

These developments in the history of tragedy and conceptions of human subjectivity are pinpointed through a critical analysis of Hegel’s idealist conceptualizations of tragedy, followed by examinations of new visions introduced by Hebbel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Lukács that culminated in Modernist eradications of the subject, best demonstrated in Beckett’s plays.

Despite the institutionalization of the subject’s disappearance in poststructuralist hypotheses, theoreticians like Lévinas and Zima found a new basis for the self-constitution of the subject. I show how Lévinas’s ethical and Zima’s dialogical theories lay the groundwork for a post-deconstructive subject that can be found in contemporary tragedies whose central conflicts are at once unavoidable and irresolvable.

For a demonstration of my argument I turn to four contemporary tragedies, representing different national literatures (France, Canada, Britain and the United States) and tragic traditions: Bernard-Marie Koltès’s Roberto Zucco (1988), Sharon Pollock’s Doc (1984), David Greig’s Europe (1994), Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1991). The analysis of these plays focuses on the level of subjectivity their characters attain. The characters are read in light of the different philosophical formulations of the subject discussed in the theoretical part of the dissertation. Both the theoretical and the literary analyses prove that tragedy exists in contemporary dramatic works. »

La version PDF de la thèse est disponible pour les membres de communautés universitaires qui ont un abonnement institutionnel auprès de UMI - Proquest ###

REISINGER, Deborah Streifford, « French Literary and Cinematic Response to the Contemporary fait divers : Discursive Struggles and Resistance », thèse de doctorat, College of Arts and Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001, 309 f. +++ Thèse de doctorat / mémoire de maîtrise

###Abstract
« This dissertation focuses on the role of the fait divers  as a site of discursive struggle in France in the 1980’s. It illustrates how two sensational crimes, the Paulin and Succo affaires  , function as mobile signifiers about crime, insécurité  and the Other in contemporary France. Through an analysis of Claire’s Denis film,  J’ai pas sommeil (1994), and Bernard-Marie Koltès’ play,  Roberto Zucco (1990), this project demonstrates that these rewritings of the crime story offer alternative, complex readings of the fait divers that effectively subvert the media’s sensational coverage. The controversial reception of these works is testimony to these artists’ success.

This project employs a context-activated cultural studies model to situate these grandes affaires in the larger cultural and political context of the 1980’s; its objective is to underline how media and politicians use the fait divers as a tool for upholding dominant ideology. By emphasizing the immediacy of crime and creating a climate of insécurité , executive authority is constructed, legal control is increased, and alternative politics are quieted.

This dissertation draws on John Fiske’s understanding of contemporary discourse as a struggle, Tony Bennett’s notion of “the activated text” (as a mobile signifier), and Janet Staiger’s distinction between real and imaginary readers. It analyzes the complex processes of production, reception, and literary and cinematic re-articulation that contribute to the representation of crime in contemporary French society. Both Denis’ and Koltès’ works function to subvert the dominant discourse on crime that contrasts an evil criminal with a sane public. Through characters who seek out the criminal despite the warnings of media and law enforcement, these rewritings empower the individual character by challenging the subjectivity of media and law enforcement. Characters’ frequent dismissal of police, guards, and the media (and thus their relative powerlessness over the public) reveals not a passive boredom with the fait divers , as Jean Baudrillard has erroneously claimed, but rather a growing cynicism with the institutions that generate its representations. This project concludes that the fait divers is an important indicator of social and political resistance for readers and artists alike in contemporary France. »

La version PDF de la thèse est disponible pour les membres de communautés universitaires qui ont un abonnement institutionnel auprès de UMI - Proquest ###

JOUANNY, Sylvie, « De la réception des Paravents et de Roberto Zucco : quelques réflexions sur la censure dans le théâtre du XXe siècle », Revue d’histoire du théâtre, vol. 1-2, n° 221-222 (automne 2004), p. 145-156. +++ Article de revue

LEICH-GALLAND, Claire, « Bernard-Marie Koltès Testament », Sites : the Journal of Twentieth Century Contemporary French Studies, vol. 3, n° 1 (printemps 1999), p. 119-126. +++ Article de revue

PAPRASAROVSKI, Marija, « Roberto Zucco : entre le mythe individuel et la tradition », Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia, vol. 41 (1996), p. 187-199. +++ Article de revue

FAERBER, Johan, Roberto Zucco de Bernard-Marie Koltès, Paris, Hatier (Contemporain), 2006, 128 p. +++ Monographie

### Sommaire
I. Résumé et repères pour la lecture
II. Problématiques essentielles
1. Roberto Zucco dans la vie et l’oeuvre de Koltès
2. De Succo à Zucco
3. Zucco, saint et martyr
4. Une composition en zigzag
5. Une dramaturgie du dénouement
6. Un combat contre le théâtre
7. La quête d’un ailleurs
8. Un nouvel Hamlet ###

KOZAK, Krištof Jacek, Contemporary Tragedy: The Tragic Subject in B.-M. Koltès, S. Pollock and D. Greig, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2015, 240 p. +++ Monographie

### Quatrième de couverture
The changes in our contemporary world, especially the devolution of the previously absolute values, led us to believe that the conditions for the tragedy we used to know disappeared. Consequently, the mentioned process gave rise to the increasingly popular idea of the “death” of tragedy. Yet, our every-day life keeps proving that these theories missed the mark : in addition to sundry events that deserve to be called tragic, our lives have not changed much in this sense either. All that brings the question of the dramatic tragic genre back to life again.
This study attempts to establish the foundation for the contemporary tragedy by following two paths: the first re-evaluates the conditions that Aristotle established for the genre while the second examines the present-day state of the subject as the basic carrier of the tragic sentiment. The outcome of this study suggests that instead of the Aristotelian “character” and the Hegelian “action,” it is the tragic “situation” that establishes the contemporary tragedy.

Table of contents
Part 1: Tragedy

  • Tragedy’s Theoretical Straight Jacket
  • Tragedy and Myth
  • Death of Tragedy?
  • Before the Hell’s Door
  • Tragedy, Art, Life

Part 2: Character

  • Dramatic Character as Individual Entity
  • Dramatic Character as Autonomous Subject
  • Idealistic Totality
  • Modernity

Part 3: Tragic Subject and Tragedy Today

  • In the Shadow of Poststructuralism
  • Self-Awareness and the Truth of the Self
  • Salvation of the Subject
  • New Subject in Tragedy
  • Contemporary Tragedy

Part 4: Contemporary Tragic Dramas

  • Bernard-Marie Koltès, Roberto Zucco
  • Sharon Pollock, Doc
  • David Greig, Europe ###

JONSSON, Andrea, « Performing home: Affective intervals in 20th and 21st century French theatre and slam poetry », thèse de doctorat, University of Pittsburgh, 2014, 248 f. +++ Thèse de doctorat / mémoire de maîtrise

### Abstract
In my dissertation, I argue for an understanding of text as performance in contemporary French theatre and slam poetry by drawing attention to sound, writing, and the parallels between stage and page. While much of scholarly discourse in performance studies is allergic to textual study, I analyze text as a performance, and performance as text, by underscoring how textual sound creates affective memory. Organized into a section on theatre and a section on poetry, my dissertation includes a series of case studies that function as individual models of what I call textual performance. My analysis bridges the intervals between Performance studies and Affect studies, specifically using the concepts of ritournelle and chez soi from Deleuze and Guattari’s “De la ritournelle.” The concept of home is what connects the theatre texts to the slam poetry. Through home’s spatial counterpart—the domestic in the theatre chapters and the city in the slam chapters—both genres repurpose citations to create familiar repeated refrains that anchor audience and performer in space.

The first and second chapters establish a model for reading a performative text through an analysis of the emphasis on sound and cruelty in the play Roberto Zucco (1990) by Bernard-Marie Koltès. The third chapter analyzes the writing process highlighted within the spoken dialogue of the four characters of Le Dieu du carnage (2007) by Yasmina Reza. In the fourth chapter, using the lens of Apollinaire’s “Zone” I analyze Grand Corps Malade’s first album Midi 20 (2007), arguing that much of the orality of slam poetry has origins in urban textual poetry and drafted musical structures. The fifth chapter investigates the interval between the particular and the universal idea of community in work by women slam artists such as RiM (Amélie Picq Grumbach) and Cat Mat, one of the founders of Slam ô féminin, an association that takes writing workshops and slam sessions to groups of marginalized women in Paris and around France.

Jonnsson, 2014, PDF ###

WODNICKA, Natalia, « The New Epic Theatre in French: Myth, History and Contemporary News in the Theatre of Bernard-Marie Koltès, Hélène Cixous, Koffi Kwahulé and Wajdi Mouawad », thèse de doctorat, New York University, 2013, 293 f. +++ Thèse de doctorat / mémoire de maîtrise

### Abstract
My dissertation articulates a unique trend in contemporary French-language theatre centered on a return to myth, literature and History as well as a strongly structured storyline. This ‘New Epic Theatre,’ as I have named it, is a theatre which, in a distinct way, tells the story of contemporary man caught in the contradictions and violence of the world around him. In my inquiry, the term ‘Epic’ refers to an identifying attribute of this theatre, which, through the activation of common mythicoliterary references and a return to lyricism as manifested in the story of one or more central characters, attempts to provide a context through which to grapple with the complex realities of the world. I present four exemplary plays and consider each play’s unique variations on the New Epic: Roberto Zucco (1990) by Bernard-Marie Koltès, La Ville parjure (1994) by Hélène Cixous, Bintou (1999) by Koffi Kwahulé, and Incendies (2003) by Wajdi Mouawad.

Common to the works I examine is a confrontation with violent contemporary news stories which ground these plays in a recognizable reality. Whereas plays outside the New Epic present highly gratuitous violence without offering to the spectator any structuring mechanism, the authors of the New Epic Theatre seek precisely to guide the audience’s reception. In response to the absence of universal organizing belief systems, Koltès, Cixous, Kwahulé and Mouawad reconfigure and repurpose elements from the seminal stories of the Western tradition, at once acknowledging the untenable nature of these grand narratives and drawing on them. In so doing, they suggest the possibility of constructing identity and community based not on meta-narratives, but rather on shared narratives, as re-imagined in the theatre.

La version PDF de la thèse est disponible pour les membres de communautés universitaires qui ont un abonnement institutionnel auprès de UMI - Proquest ###

RODRIGUEZ-ANTONIOTTI, Greta, « L’homme-chien ou la fraternité du désespoir », L’Annuaire théâtral : revue québécoise d’études théâtrales, n° 31 (2002), p. 33-44. +++ Article de revue

### Résumé
Sony Labou Tansi et Bernard-Marie Koltès, le premier originaire d’un Sud appauvri et négligé, le second natif d’un Nord tout-puissant et altier, ont chacun à leur manière témoigné de leur siècle à travers, entre autres, l’écriture théâtrale. Si ces deux écrivains ne se sont jamais rencontrés, le regard, très critique, qu’ils ont porté sur leurs contemporains a montré que l’Histoire n’a jamais tourné au profit de l’être humain. L’Afrique est au cœur de leur œuvre ; elle en est le creuset poétique. Il sera question ici de tenter un rapprochement des pièces Je soussigné cardiaque, de Labou Tansi, et Roberto Zucco, de Koltès, à travers, entre autres, la figure du chien, de l’homme-chien, récurrente dans leurs œuvres.

Abstract
Sony Labou Tansi comes from the poor and neglected South ; Bernard-Marie Koltès was born in the almighty and haughty North: each in his own way, through his writings, especially his plays, is a witness for the twentieth century. These two writers never met; however, their critical view of their contemporaries shows that History has never profited mankind. For both, Africa is at the heart of their writings, it is their poetical crucible of sorts. This article attempts to find connections between Je soussigné cardiaque, by Labou Tansi, and Roberto Zucco, by Koltès, using, among other things, the figure of the dog, the man-dog, which is recurrent in these plays.

Rodriguez-Antoniotti, 2002, PDF ###

STARAK, Grażyna, « L’oeuvre dramatique de Bernard-Marie Koltès face aux grands tragiques grecs et français », dans Tomasz SWOBODA, Ewa WIERZBOWSKA et Olga WRONSKA (dir.), Autour des “livres que l’on n’a pas lus”, Sopot, Cahiers de l’équipe de Recherches en Théorie Appliquée (ERTA), 2011. +++ Chapitre de collectif

Roberto Zucco (oeuvre)
TitreRoberto Zucco
AuteurBernard-Marie Koltès
Parution1990
TriRoberto Zucco
Afficheroui

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