Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1993 - 30

USITT's Golden Pen award at the 1987
Conference for his collected works. '
In the early '60s, Denis (with Jean
Jacquot) instiruted a series of production
studies, the Voies de la creation thMtrale,
whose 17 volumes (ro date) focus on
designers, direcrors, and productions of
works from differenr arrisric poinrs of
view. Denis was gener:d editor of the
series and also individually responsible
for eight of the volumes, including those
on Mnouchkine, Krejca, Brook, Kanror,
Ulusoy, Roben Wilson, and a major
research work on European productions
in the '20s and '30s.
In 1979, Denis created a special
series on twenrieth cenrury thearrehard-cover porrfolios which include a
book, slides, commenraries, and a longplay record "ro demonsrrate the thearre
of our time, its means of expression, its
most significanr trends, its most original
experimenrs" (from the fronrispiece). As
pan of his commitmenr ro performance
documentation, Denis (with Jacquie
Bablet) has also produced and direcred
ten films, including rwo fearure-Iength
works on Svoboda and Kanror (shown on
his USITT rour).
Bablet edited the CNRS series on
performing ans, the Choir of Muses,
which won the gold medal at the
Inrernational Triennale in '85. He directed collections on Thearre/Research and
Thearre of the Twenties (L'Age
d'Homme), and Theatrical Practices
(Analeph), and was general editor of
Adolphe Appia: Oeuvres Completes (four
volumes). He organized and panicipated
in major inrernational conferences and
e;.chibitions on thearre space, expressionism, sound and light in the theatre, Appia, and painrers in the thearre; the most
recenr of these, on Svoboda, opened at
the Cenrre Pompidou in Paris last spring.
Denis was an "impeccable scholar"
(Oscar Brockert), critical in the best
inrellecrua! sense. Yet he could speak of
thearre in terms other than literary, with

an understanding as much pracrical as
analytical. His creative interest was
boundless. It was characteristic of Denis
ro regularly break away from the homogeneity of his "own work." He was
among the first critics ro treat European
scenography of the interwar years,
among the earliest ro look beyond western Europe for aesthetic nourishment.
He continually experimenred with new
audiovisual techniques for analysis and
presentation of the theatrical event.
Michel Corvin says of Denis (in
Dictionnaire eIIqclopedie du thMtre) that
he was "thoroughly arrenrive to [those]
technical-aesthetic processes likely ro
bring ro the thearre the same renewal
that he had largely brought to it through
his writings and his many projecrs."
At Denis's cremation, theatre people
from allover Europe crowded inro Pere
Lachaise chapel-not ro celebrate his
accomplishmenrs, but to mourn the passing of the man.
For all those accomplishments,
Denis was a simple man; he was who he
seemed to be. He was not elitist, never
terrirorial about his work. He disdained
the bourgeois skin that his situation
might have made necessary. While always
courteous, he was rigorously honest,
something he expected of others. He was
fair, at least once at the expense of his
position. Although an exigenr menror, he
was affectionate and genrle-a pere de
.fllnille even to his studenrs.
Denis was famously popular as a
teacher. His seminars were the first
inscribed, the first filled-and they
stayed full unril the end of semesters that
his studenrs pressed him to lengthen. In
the ancienr audirorium at the Instirute
Charles V, he gave fonh on a list of subjects that reflected his inexhaustible inrerests. He would stride in, push the lectern
aside and speak from a perfect outline in
his head-his delivery as clear as his writing. With only words, he could evoke an

Appia set or a Bayreuth production and
conrinue on to an incisive analysis of
them. He rook the srudenrs seriously,
answered them kindly. And if someone
could challenge him, he would resume at
a nearby cafe, ready to lift his glass to a
new idea.
)\Iore than anything, Denis was a
passionate man-engaged in life in its
grand outline and its smallest details. He
defied his sickness with the same prodigious energy he brought ro all that he
loved. I remember a recenr trip ro Belgium with Denis and Jacquie: After an
arduous meeting, he drove 300 kilometers in twO hours, singing at the top of
his considerable barirone (Wagner by
hean and then the Beatles and his takeoff of the Platters), gOt to Louvain, lectured, led a two-hour seminar, ate a
heany dinner, and then hit sleep like a
wall. He ran up against the ends of his
days as he did his life, fully alive unril the
last moment.
After the cremation, Svoboda stood
alone, his face fixed in deep sadness. The
one he mourned-whom we all mourn
-is not the scholar, but the man whose
inrense humanity overshadowed even the
significanr dimensions of his work.
ffi
Mary Beth Tallon lUas a student of
Bablet~· in Paris; he directed her doctoral
dissertation, Adolphe Appia: de la scene Iz
L'Art Vivant. A member of USfTT's
fntel'llational Liaison Committee, Talloll
teaches at /l1arquette University.
Spc'odl rlhlllks fO

X"d

BOll'mall for

cucorlfllgtmnll ill the' Ii'r;,i"g of (his

his rOllrriblUiolJ flud

IITtic!f.

A .\/emoritll SeIJa/IIrs/up ill DOlis'l1tlUlt has beell fstablis!Jrd
~)' the' /11lr'Tllluiollld The-flirt' Insrilltlc' ill Paris. For information, plfllS(, comtlCl !\lllr)' Bt'/h 71111011, -11..;-962-8696.

Endnotes
BJbkt is survived Jlso by his
Anne. and rwo grandsons.

SOil

.\13r(, his d3uglHcr

.~nd Jlso ,he L:SITI Herb Greggs Award for his ani·

cle. "Probl~ms of Contemporary Theatre Space,"

( TDcH: Fall 198").

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1993