Ni maître, ni maître

What if Julian Beck and Jerzy Grotowski had met? Two major figures who revolutionized theater. One, the founder of the Living Theatre, shattered the boundaries between art and politics, between the stage and the audience. The other, founder of the Laboratory Theater, developed the concept of “poor theater” and placed the actor at the center of a process of stripping away the superfluous.

They never actually met, but with the help of Jérôme Bidaux and Christophe Grégoire, Éric Lacascade imagines their encounter. Drawing on their theoretical writings, interviews, and personal archives, Ni maître, ni maître brings them into dialogue right in the midst of the audience. A vibrant face-to-face encounter between two radical visions of theater: a tool for rebellion, a tool for transformation.

Éric Lacascade, himself a major figure in European theater, former director of the Centre dramatique national de Normandie, and a renowned educator, continues here his rigorous exploration of the art of acting and the collective, posing a fundamental question: what is the function of theater?