The "Theatre as a public service": the Invention of a Tradition

The "Theatre as a public service": the Invention of a Tradition by Laurent Fleury Thanks to its relentless activity and numerous productions, Vilar's National Popular Theatre (T.N.P.) imposed the notion of the "Theatre as a public service" as at once an idea, a practice and a state of mind. This achievment demonstrated how Vilar was able to affect a revolution in terms of representations in the battles that he fought, and how he also defined by his actions the notion of the "Theatre as a public service" as a practice at the service of the public. Vilar was able to confer meaning and value on the idea the "Theatre as a public service" by transforming it into a "way of being", or in Weberian terms, on ethos. Because the T.N.P. became vehicle for values, Vilar's charimastic initiatives were a factor in the development of an ethics of public service, that, since he first took his inventive position, has become a potential tradition.