Rudlin, John.

Jacques Copeau was born on February 4th, 1879 in Paris. He had a brief career as an art dealer, but between 1904 to 1906 worked as drama critic for the periodical L'Ermitage . From 1907-10 he wrote the same sort of material for La Grande Revue, but it was also during this period (1909) that he was co-founder with André Gide, Jean Schlumberger and Paul Claudel of La Nouvelle Revue Française . He edited this new journal until 1911, becoming well known as a literary critic.

Copeau was interested in the work of André Antoine, who founded the Theatre Libre for the production of the new naturalistic plays by Ibsen and Strindberg. However, he was very much against the realist theatre, and antagonistic to the 'well-made play' of Eugène Scribe and his followers. He railed against 'frenzied commercialism' and spectacle for its own sake. In the autumn of 1913 he opened his own theatre near the Place Saint Sulpice on the Left Bank, and named it after its location at 21, Rue du Vieux Colombier. The Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, according to Copeau was 'the brain-child of a group of artists whose ideological understanding and collective practical inclination ... brought them under the same banner'.

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