Cap d'Ail - Théâtre de plein air Jean Cocteau
- department: Alpes-Maritimes
- town: Cap d'Ail
- appellation: Théâtre de plein air Jean Cocteau
- address : chemin des Oliviers
- Author: Jean COCTEAU (poet)
- date: 1959-1962
- labelling: 28 November 2000
Founded in 1952 by Jean Moreau, the Mediterranean Centre for French Studies is a language learning centre conceived as a place for Franco-German cultural and artistic meetings. In the context of post-war reconciliation, it was a matter of fostering exchanges and relying on culture to bring young people together. Personalities from the world of art, music and theatre were regularly invited to perform in front of students, or to attend performances. In 1957, on the occasion of a theatrical performance, the director invited Jean Cocteau, who regularly resided in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the villa Santo-Sospir. The latter accepted and was won over by place and experience, so that he proposed to draw and create a theatre adapted to the site.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was indeed a poet whose passion for art had led early on to experiment with other forms of creation, including drawing, theatre or cinema. In addition to his literary work, he left an abundant work of painting and drawing, many of which are found in the Alpes-Maritimes (frescoes of the villa Santo-Sospir in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, wedding hall of the Menton Town Hall, chapel Saint-Pierre de Villefranche-sur-Mer, etc.).
For the open-air theatre of Cap d'Ail, he wants to capture the wild essence of the site without distorting it and to set up a stage theatre, in the ancient style, that allows the summer performances to have a perennial setting.
Drawing inspiration from ancient theatres and his own experience as an actor and director, Jean Cocteau drew up the first sketches in 1958 and quickly drew up the plans. Work began in 1959 with the construction of a first stage. Jean Cocteau then took over the direction of the work, and, in particular to reduce costs, organized the workshops of production of the theatre with the students staying in the center. He repeated the shots repeatedly, seeking to obtain the best possible acoustics by adjusting the height of the stage and the stage wall. The final result, completed in 1962, is an interpretation of the ancient theatre, in which the spaces dedicated to the stage (the proskenion) and the orchestra (theorchestra) merged, and the stage wall was split in two. The enamelled decorations, inspired by Greek mythology, are designed in parallel with the construction. There is the «Great God Pan», Orpheus and Minerva, recurring figures of the poet’s imagination. On the stage wall decorated with a golden Greek, the inscriptions «Comedy» and «Tragedy», in Greek letters, complete the composition.
The theatre, still active today, retains its original destination within the Mediterranean center of French studies, which has become an international center.
Editor: DRAC PACA, Eve Roy, 2018
Sources:
Jean COCTEAU, The Walls of Jean Cocteau, Paris, Hermé, 1998
DEL ROSSO Laurent, Garlic cap, collection Images du Patrimoine, Paris, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage, 2003