The eighteenth century is widely reputed to have been the Age of
Theatre in France. A unique form of entertainment and mass communication,
theatrical productions brought together representatives from all degrees of
social and economic status in one building to share a common experience.
Despite an attitude that emphasized the glorification of French culture, the
government viewed the theatre primarily as a form of entertainment and sought
to prevent any deviation from this main emphasis. Although plays were monitored
through censorship of scripts, the agents of authority made little attempt to
shape popular views on specific political issues through drama. In contrast,
practitioners of bourgeois drama aimed at converting the theatre into a
schoolhouse for moral values and virtue in social interaction. Parisian
audiences, especially those standing in the open parterre area in front of the
stage, often used the theatre as a forum for voicing their own opinions on
political issues. Far from being mindlessly molded by any agenda by their
government. Theatre in France is far from what we recognize it in America.
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