Philippe Adrien

Philippe Adrien (19 December 1939 – 15 September 2021) was a French stage director, actor and playwright.

He was associated with the La Tempete company in Paris.

Adrien appeared in the 1959 war film, Green Harvest.

Adrien began to write plays in the late 1960s.

In 1967, La Baye was staged by Antoine Bourseiller, featuring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Suzanne Flon.

Adrien's directorial career began in the 1970s.

Adrien's play, Le Défi de Molière (1979) was dedicated to Moliere.

Adrien has co-written two plays with Jean-Louis Bauer.

The first, Bug! creates a dream-journey through memory, current scientific and artistic issues, to provide an overview of civilization.

The second, La Grande Nouvelle, is a contemporary variation on Le Malade imaginaire, which plays on the ironies of the present-day desire for immortality.

In the early 1980s, Adrien directed works by Alfred Jarry (Ubu roi and Ubu cocu) and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (La poule d’eau) At this time, Adrien's direction desired to liberate and provoke.

He saw theatre as the scenic transcription of thought processes.

In Une Visite, adapted from Franz Kafka's L'Amerique, Adrien's direction showed screwball comedic and jubilatory elements.

He also directed Kafka's Rêves.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Adrien directed the works of authors including Shakespeare (Hamlet, then Le Roi Lear), Marivaux (Les Acteurs de bonne foi and La Méprise), Claudel (L’Annonce faite à Marie), Brecht (La Noce chez les petits bourgeois), Beckett (En attendant Godot), Vitrac (Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir), Gombrowicz (Yvonne, princesse de Bourgogne), Copi (L’Homosexuel ou la difficulté de s'exprimer ), and Armando Llamas (Meurtres de la princesse juive).

In 1981, Adrien was named Director of the Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry, replacing Antoine Vitez.

There, Adrien presented Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (Molière), Homme pour homme (Bertolt Brecht), La Funeste Passion du professeur Forenstein (Adrien), and La Mission (Heiner Müller).

In 1983, Adrien was invited to La Comédie-Française to direct Molière’s Amphitryon and Le Médecin Volant.

He worked with the same troupe to produce Jean-Claude Grumberg’s Maman revient, pauvre orphelin, Véronique Olmi’s Point à la ligne, Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s L’Incorruptible, Molière’s Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, Werner Schwab’s Extermination du peuple, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, and Genet’s Les Bonnes.

in this time, Adrien directed two productions of Tennessee Williams: Un tramway nommé désir, with Caroline Cellier, at the Théâtre Eldorado, then Doux oiseau de jeunesse, with Claudia Cardinale, at the Théâtre de la Madeleine.

In 1985, Adrien founded the L'Atelier de Recherche et de Réalisation Théâtrale.

He conducted experimental workshops such as L’excès, a work adapted from Georges Bataille; L’oeil de la tête—effet Sade (which he revisited in 1989 with Enzo Cormann’s text Sade, concert d’enfers); Le Pupille veut être tuteur by Peter Handke; and La Résistance.

Adrien directed Molière's works, Dom Juan and George Dandin in Germany.

In 1993, Adrien directed Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot at the Théâtre de la Tempête.

In 1996, Adrien became the artistic director of the Théâtre de la Tempête, located in La Cartoucherie, Paris.

Adrien has staged Chekov's La Mouette and Ivanov, Claudel's Partage de midi and Protée and Molière's L’École des femmes.

It was staged again in 1997 by Laurent Pelly.

La Baye had elements of disorder which would be reflected in Adrien's later work.

In 1997, Adrien directed Arnold Bedouet's Kinkale at the Théâtre National de la Colline.

The production received the award for best new play and the award for the best playwright at the Moliere Awards of that year.

He went on to direct Philippe Auger’s Mélédouman and Le Projet Conrad, an adaptation of the short story Un Avant-poste du progrès.

In 2001, Adrien collaborated with the blind actor, Bruno Netter and Netter's Compagnie du Troisième Oeil, a company of handicapped and normally abled actors.

Together, they produced Molière's The Imaginary Invalid, Franz Kafka's The Trial, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, and Eugène Ionesco's The Chairs.

In 2005, Adrien directed a production of Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth, which starred Claudia Cardinale.

In 2010, Adrien directed Feydeau's Le Dindon.

Adrien's interest in African works continued with Boesman et Lena, by the South-African playwright Athol Fugard in 2014 and a stage production of Amos Tutuola’s novel L’Ivrogne dans la brousse.

The production received four nominations at the Molière Awards, toured for three years, and had a revival during the 2014 summer season at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin.

Adrien died on 15 September 2021, at the age of 81.

Adrien received a nomination for the award for Best Director at the Molière Awards in 2014.

The play toured in France until 2016.