“L’impromptu” di Ionesco

Abstract

The paper analyses the relationship established by Eugène Ionesco, one of the foremost figures of twentieth-century theatrical neo-avant-garde, with Molière, through the act of remaking his Impromptu de Versailles into Impromptu de l’Alma. A remake that was not meant as a rewriting but as a way to find in Molière’s play a concept of theatre shared by Ionesco himself: an attack on the stereotype in the name of the archetype. Outside of an oppositional logic between tradition and innovation in which the critics had attempted to enclose Ionesco’s theatre, failing then to demonstrate their thesis.