ABSTRACT

The T.N.P. is thus, in the first place, a public service. Exactly like gas, water and electricity. Furthermore: if you deprive the public of Molière, Corneille and Shakespeare-that public we call ‘the public at large’, the only one that counts: then without doubt a certain quality of spirit within it will be weakened. Now the theatre, if it is not at the same time popular and moving, is nothing. Our ambition then is evident: to share with the greatest number that which up until now had to be reserved, or so it was thought, for an elite. After all, the dramatic ceremony too draws its efficacy from the number of its participants.