In spite of the international acclaim for its spectacular productions of the early 'seventies, the Théâtre du Soleil has generally received less than adequate attention in English-language theatre journals. The original series of Theatre Quarterly included a lengthy interview with its leading member, Ariane Mnouchkine, focused upon its then-current production, L'Age d'or, in TQ18 (1975), and we now bring the story up to date – first, with a survey of the company's earlier work and its distinctive qualities by Adrian Kiernander, who recently spent a year with the Théâtre du Soleil on a French government scholarship, between working as a freelance director and his present position teaching theatre studies in the University of Queensland. Two complementary studies of the company's most recent production follow. In the first, Adrian Kiernander places The Terrible but Unfinished History of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia, within the context of his preceding analysis. In the second, David Graver, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Cornell University, and presently a Visiting Scholar at Clare Hall, Cambridge, describes and assesses the nature and qualities of the script by Hélène Cixous, as realized in the production.

One theatre company alone in France, since the end of Vilar's Théâtre National Populaire, continues to make us consider the relationships between theatre and life, the place of theatre in society, its ability to modify the order of things in some way. It is the Théâtre du Soleil, guided by Ariane Mnouchkine.

THE SEARCH for a contemporary popular theatre which has occupied the Théâtre du Soleil almost since its foundation 22 years ago has led the company at various times into innovations in both subject matter and performance style. Their latest production, The Terrible but Unfinished History of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Combodia, breaks new ground in both areas.

HELENECIXOUS's epic wittily and reverentially echoes elements of Shakespeare's history plays, but while Cixous maintains much of the formal patterns of interpersonal conflict and confrontation established by Shakespeare, she has a keen sense of how the tragic contradictions of the modern world differ from those of Renaissance England. Where Shakespeare's characters embody the collision between feudal, family-centred interests, the centralizing, rationalizing tendencies of absolute monarchy, and the anarchic displacements of the rapidly developing, individual-oriented entrepreneurial spirit, Cixous's characters embody the irreconcilable extremes of first-, second-, and third-world ideologies – multi-national capitalism, communist absolutism, and the indigenous cultural rhythms of an ancient, agrarian civilization.

Although a good deal of his work was seen in London and New York, the name of Max Reinhardt remains for most English-speaking theatre students all-too-vaguely associated with those innovations which helped to give a new importance to the ‘totality’ of the relationship between actors, audience, stage lighting and design, movement and music, in the earlier part of this century. Even less is known here about one of Reinhardt's leading collaborators. Ernst Stern – the longest-serving, most versatile, and most professional of his designers. Yet Stern settled in England in 1933, and left his papers to the Victoria and Albert Museum, upon whose resources Hugh Rorrison has drawn in assembling this view of Stern's contribution to Reinhardt's theatre in particular, and to twentieth-Century scenography in general. Hugh Rorrison, who was a regular contributor to the original series of Theatre Quarterly, teaches in the Department of German of the University of Leeds.

Our understanding of the idea of a ‘people's theatre’ in France derives mainly from Romain Rolland's seminal essay of that title, published at the turn of the century – from which excerpts were translated in TQ23 of our first series, together with other material on the subject going back to around 1870. Yet the French writer George Sand had evolved, more in practice than in theory, a very different approach at a considerably earlier date – and, notably in her play Old Man Go-It-Alone, she presented the working class as a ‘hero’ in its own collective right, as opposed to Romain's preference for portraying the heroic individualism of revolutionary leaders. Gay Manifold looks closely at this play within the context of Sand's life, career, and framework of beliefs. A theatre director, dramaturg, and writer, who is currently Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at California State University, Los Angeles, Gay Manifold has published a full-length study of George Sand's Theatre Career, just available from UMI Research Press, Michigan.

Even to sympathetic theatrical observers, ‘feminism’ in France at the turn of the century was often regarded as merely incidental to the larger concerns of the ‘social’ drama; and dramatic debate tended to focus on the issue of a woman's assertion of ‘freedom’ versus her presumably ‘natural’ functions as wife and mother. In this article, Elaine Aston illuminates such attitudes, utilizing both the texts of contemporary plays and discussion in journals current at the time. But she also detects early theatrical evidence of a slow shift towards a questioning of prevailing assumptions – and a belief (which today strikes her as enviable) in the power of theatre to effect social change.

knowledge of the theatre of South America tends to be shamefully scanty in the English-speaking world: yet the forces of rapid political change, both revolutionary and repressive, often provoke innovative theatrical responses. NTQ intends to pursue the study of theatre in this huge continent. The following interview was conducted by Glenn Loney with the young director Carlos Gimenez – a refugee from Argentina presently working with his Rajatabla troupe in Caracas, Venezuela – whose production of Bolivar was brought to the Public Theatre in New York last summer, with a return visit planned to include The Death of Garcia Lorca, both discussed in the following conversation. Glenn Loney is a widely published American drama critic, teacher, and writer, presently teaching on the doctoral theatre programme of the City University of New York, and working on the American volume in the Documents of Theatre History series for publication by Cambridge University Press.

Our knowledge (or pervasive ignorance) of theatre in Czechoslovakia is. sadly, still shaped in part by its being perceived as a faraway country of which we know little – almost as little as when Chamberlain thus identified it at the time of Munich. But there is also the fact that its theatre has been distinguished less by the work of individual dramatists than through collective creation, through ‘small forms’ such as cabaret, and through scenography and other aspects of technical innovation. While fully analyzing such features of Czech theatre, Barbara Day relates them to the political and social conditions of a country in which various forms of repression and censorship have made it difficult for the all-too-identifiable dramatist to become spokesperson for a national theatre. Having herself lived in Czechoslovakia for several periods between 1965 and 1969, Barbara Day returned to the study of Czech theatre in 1980, when she read for a research degree at Bristol University, also collaborating with the University's drama department in staging a Czechoslovak Festival in Bristol during October 1985.

Of all Shakespeare's plays which touch on raw contemporary nerves, The Taming of the Shrew is probably the most contentious – and arguably the least acceptable, in a period of crystallizing feminist consciousness. Yet the play stubbornly remains in the repertoire, almost demanding to be reinterpreted – either against the perceived grain of the text, or by clarifying subtextual sympathy for a less chauvinist point of view than Petruchio's. Here, Geraldine Cousin, who teaches theatre studies in the University of Warwick, and contributed a study of the Footsbarn company's Hamlet and Lear to NTQ1, discusses the problems involved in staging The Taming of the Shrew at the present time, taking a closer look at two recent itinerant productions – by the Medieval Players, and by the touring group of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

David Hornbrook's articles in NTQ4 and 5 offered a challenging perspective to the history of drama in education, a critique of present practice and practitioners, and some positive proposals for the future place of the subject in the curriculum. These have provoked widespread interest, and we are now publishing a first selection of comments from fellow drama in education workers, and offering a welcome to further contributions in subsequent issues. These initial responses are from David Morton, adviser to the Leeds City Council's Department of Education; Jon Nixon, a research fellow in the Department of Education at the University of Sheffield; and Tony Graham. Head of Drama at Haverstock School, in the Inner London Education Authority's area.

DAVID HORNBROOK has usefully helped us to ‘look back to the future’. He ends with a claim that drama teaching should be about ‘the making of meanings’ and ‘providing satisfactory interpretive structures’. That it should! And David H. leads by example, for he has ‘satisfactorily’ interpreted the short history of drama in education to support his argument. Nothing wrong with that, and he is more honest than most drama teachers. However, I fear they will ‘interpret’ much of his piece to suit their own ends – namely the continued development of drama syllabuses for examination.

DAVID HORNBROOK'S articles in New Theatre Quarterly are a timely and significant contribution to the debate on drama in schools. They articulate a persuasive critique of the ‘progressive’ roots of educational drama, raise important questions about where drama should be placed in the curriculum, and rightly stress the need for teachers to define clearly the content of their discipline.

BASED ON A critique of the progressive North-East orthodoxy, David Hornbrook has made an excellent contribution to the debate on the future of schools' drama. His is an eloquent and lucid case for an alternative direction that should be read by all drama teachers and advisers. Yet there are problems with his proposals, which need to be rescored in the light of the very worrying trends in state education that he correctly identifies.