Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, Minister of Culture, expresses her emotion at the announcement of the death of Robert Abirached, writer, university professor, thinker of theatre and its evolutions.

All of Robert Abirached’s activities have served and contributed to the growth of French theatre.

An ardent defender of public service, Robert Abirached taught continuously for more than fifty years: both in France, notably at the University of Caen where he founded an Institute of Theatre Studies and at the University of Paris-Nanterre where he headed the Performing Arts Department for 10 years, and abroad where he enjoys a solid reputation as a smuggler. As a testament to his constant attention to the issue of transmission, he had recently bequeathed a large part of his library to the Institut Supérieur d'Art Dramatique in Tunis and to the University of Caen.

Between 1981 and 1988, Robert Abirached put his expertise and his convictions at the service of the Ministry of Culture where he is the director of the «Théâtre et des Spectacles». He then actively contributed to the vast decentralization movement of which he was, until then, an attentive observer.

Robert Abirached, a normalist and an associate of classical letters, studied theatre from a new angle, considering it a political object and a public policy issue. He wrote several founding essays on modern theatre studies: The Character Crisis in Modern Theatre (Grasset, 1978); 1981 – 1988: Theatre Decentralization (collective work for Actes Sud, 1992 – 2005); The Theatre and the Prince (Actes Sud, 2005).

A literary and dramatic critic in several magazines (Etudes, La nouvelle revue française, Le Nouvel observateur), Robert Abirached shared with passion his thoughts on theatrical creations that combine his vision of lovers and expert experts in the field. Robert Abirached was also a formidable playwright: the play You know the music is performed at the Théâtre national de l'Odéon in 1973 and in the national drama centres of Nice, Dijon and Besançon.

Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin salutes this committed man to whom the French theatre owes a great deal.