2013 Simon Chemama ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 2013
Simon Chemama
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

LE THÉÂTRE DE L’IMMANENCE:
DU POÉTIQUE AU POLITIQUE DANS L’ŒUVRE DE MICHEL VINAVER
by
SIMON CHEMAMA
A dissertation submitted to the
Graduate School-New Brunswick
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Program in French
Written under the direction of
Mary Lewis Shaw (Rutgers University) and
Catherine Naugrette (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3)
and approved by
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New Brunswick, New Jersey
JANUARY 2013

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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
Le théâtre de l’immanence: du poétique au politique dans l’œuvre de Michel Vinaver
(The Theater of Immanence: From Poetry to Politics in the Work of Michel Vinaver)
By SIMON CHEMAMA
Dissertation Directors:
Professor Mary Shaw, Rutgers University
Professor Catherine Naugrette, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3
How can a work of art be politically efficient without being militant? Vinaver’s answer to
this question, formulated at the end of the 1940s, is unusual: the work will be political
through its own materiality; its ideas will be immanent to the writing itself. But the
playwright does not leave it at that and suggests that the true question can to be rephrased
in even simpler terms: “how can a work of art be politically efficient?” (“militant” works
of art can’t be said to be really efficient, and if they are for a while, their action does not
last for very long). My work has therefore been to examine the materiality of Vinaver’s
work. Its main principle is that of collage (juxtapositions and non-intentionality). A
whole body of archives had to be closely looked at. And yet, why did Vinaver choose
theater, and why did he stand by that choice? Specifically because, as a genre, theater
allows the voice and the ideas of the author to be subdued. For 11 September 2001,

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Vinaver’s last play, he no longer invented anything anymore but limited his work to
cutting and pasting ; the author disappears behind the composer. This play is essential to
the whole understanding of Vinaver’s poetics – this is where we find more collages and
more poetry, more of the real and more of the ritual (the efficiency of his theater is
notably expressed through the creation of a community, or a “society against the State”).
The fact that the four comprehensive studies of his work (Ubersfeld, Elstob, Bradby et
Göbler-Lingens) were published before 2001 was decisive in deciding to start and
complete this PhD thesis.
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Je remercie Michel Vinaver pour l’incroyable générosité de son accueil. Il m’a donné accès à ses
archives personnelles (à celles qu’il n’a pas encore remises à l’IMEC, comme à celles qu’il ne
remettra pas à l’IMEC) et a toujours été disponible pour répondre à mes questions.
Je remercie Catherine Naugrette et Mary Shaw, qui m’ont accompagné pendant ces quatre années
et m’ont prodigué des conseils fort précieux. La complémentarité de leurs approches
(dramaturgique et littéraire) m’a beaucoup apporté.
Merci aux metteurs en scène qui ont bien voulu répondre à mes questions : Xavier Brière, Robert
Cantarella, Jérôme Hankins, Oriza Hirata, Lucie Lahoute, Christian Schiaretti, Claude Yersin,
Ève Weiss. Mention spéciale à Arnaud Meunier, qui m’a fait découvrir de l’intérieur ce qu’est
une mise en scène.
Merci également à tous les chercheurs qui, à un moment ou un autre, m’ont assisté, éclairé, dans
des discussions fugaces ou au contraire approfondies : Luc Boltanski, Cécile Bosc, Marion
Boudier, Marie-Isabelle Boula de Mareuil, Fabien Cavaillé, Michel Charles, Nicolas Charlet,
Hervé Charton, Marco Consolini, François Cornilliat, Joseph Danan, Patrick De Vos, Sylvain
Diaz, Irène Favier, Clare Finburgh, Shintaro Fujii, Pierre Giuliani, Jeanyves Guérin, Nathalie
Koble, Marie-Pierre Litaudon, Claude Mouchard, Romain Piana, Lorraine Piroux, Matthieu
Protin, Jean-Loup Rivière, Jean-Pierre Ryngaert, Derek Schilling, Fabien Spillmann, Susan
Suleimann, Laurent Thirouin, Olivier Todd. Mention spéciale à Jean-Pierre Sarrazac.
Merci à l’IMEC, fantastique lieu de mémoire, d’érudition et de rencontre.
Merci à la bibliothèque Gaston Baty et sa directrice, Claude Chauvineau.
Merci à ma famille et mes amis, et en particulier à Cécile et Émile (bienvenue à Hector).