Aurélien Lugné-Poe
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Aurelien François Marie Lugné-Poe (1869 - 1940) was a French actor and theatre director.
At age 19 he entered the Paris Conservatoire and became part of the Théâtre Libre a private naturalist theatre run by André Antoine.
He also organized a group of painters known as The Nabis. He spread word of the group by writing articles about their work for them.[1]
Lugné-Poe added the name "Poe" to his own out of admiration for the American poet. He also claimed to be a distant relative.[2]
He later created a group called "La Maison de l'Œuvre" or "Le Théâtre de l'Œuvre" (1893-1929). This was a private group of spectators and an experimental theatre that went against the naturalist movement and that contributed to the symbolist movement in theatre and to the discovery of new playwrights. He worked notably in new stagings of the following playwrights:
- Maurice Maeterlinck
- Paul Claudel
- Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
- Oscar Wilde
- Henrik Ibsen
- August Strindberg
- Gerhart Hauptmann
- Alfred Jarry
In 1895, Jakub Grein and the Independent Theatre Society invited Lugné-Poe and his troup to present a season of Ibsen's Rosmersholm, The Master Builder and Maurice Maeterlinck's symbolist L'Intruse and Pelléas and Mélisande in London.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Bettina Knapp. Maurice Maeterlinck. (Twayne Publishers: Boston). 67.
- ^ Knapp. 67.
- ^ Styan, J. Modern Drama in Theory and Practice: Realism and Naturalism pp. 55–57 (Cambridge University Press, 1981) ISBN 0521296285
