The Théâtre du Soleil remains a reference point in contemporary theatre under the leadership of Ariane Mnouchkine, founder of the company in 1964. Now 87, Mnouchkine continues to mount ambitious productions: the company is presenting the second part of Ici sont les dragons, a multi‑year saga that maps political forces leading to the invasion of Ukraine. The piece is on stage until 26 April, and the rehearsal room where we met her was full of the same disciplined, searching energy that has marked the troupe for decades. Across rehearsals the ensemble combines historical research and theatrical invention to turn complex pasts into shared experience.
Mnouchkine’s public life has always mixed art and engagement. She supported social movements such as the 1996 Saint‑Bernard defense of undocumented migrants, and she continues to speak out on issues from laïcité to European solidarity. Last November 2026, an investigation by Mediapart gave rise to accusations of sexual violence by former company members; Mnouchkine publicly expressed regret and initiated internal inquiries in spring 2026 whose findings were submitted to the Paris prosecutor, who opened a judicial probe in the summer of 2026. Despite this shadow, she keeps working on stage and insists the theatre must fulfill a civic function.
Theatre as a civic laboratory
For Mnouchkine, the theatre is inseparable from public life: it informs, questions and encourages action. She refuses to begin a project with a fixed ideological program; instead the troupe follows rigorous historical inquiry to imagine the human consequences of decisions and policies. That method treats the stage as a kind of civic laboratory where spectators and performers test moral choices together. The aim is not simple propaganda but to give audiences the tools—documents, testimony, narrative clarity—to form judgments. This approach also presumes responsibility: the company must check sources and shape scenes so the ethical dimension of history is neither flattened nor sensationalized.
Method: truth, perspective and responsibility
Mnouchkine speaks of approaching an historical truth while recognizing that any retelling uses a particular eye. Her work on Ici sont les dragons focuses on the Soviet legacy and the continuity of imperial ambitions reaching back through Russian history; the production chooses 1917 as a practical starting point for tracing how revolutions and consolidations of power shaped the present. She acknowledges Soviet achievements but insists on examining the passif—the record of repression, mass violence and totalitarian structures—that informs current dangers. The decision to foreground that legacy is an editorial choice intended to illuminate contemporary crises, not to deny complexity.
Staging Russia: origins, scope and artistic choices
The immediate trigger for this work was the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2026, which forced many artists to ask how the unthinkable could become reality. Mnouchkine opted against an encyclopedic journey to figures like Ivan the Terrible and instead started in 1917 to map the transition from tsarism to Bolshevism and the making of a modern imperial project. On stage she blends documentary fragments, enactments of political moments and lyrical tableaux so that audiences can sense the structural forces at play. The troupe’s practice—months of research and rehearsal—aims to equip spectators to follow a three‑hour performance that carries the weight of lengthy investigation.
Performance practices: drag, improvisation and sacrality
Mnouchkine also values theatrical forms that unsettle norms. She has long admired drags for their aesthetic intelligence, humor and refusal of hypocrisy; they model a carnival-like challenge to conformity. In rehearsal she allows actors the freedom to be « sacrilèges »—to test extremes during improvisation—so the final piece can be carefully edited for public reception. That process involves filtering moments that might harm or stigmatize the vulnerable: an actor’s decision to exaggerate a physical trait for dramatic effect will be tempered in performance to avoid turning disability into moral shorthand. The company’s discipline protects both artistic risk and ethical limits.
Politics, threats and a vision for Europe
Mnouchkine speaks with historical alarm about echoes of the 1930s: the danger of appeasement, the rise of aggressive nationalism and the corrosive spread of hatred. She names today’s principal threat as the aggression from Russia, while warning that figures like Donald Trump exacerbate tensions by weakening transatlantic solidarity. She is also vocally critical of resurgent antisemitism since 7 October 2026 and condemns slogans that deny the Jewish people’s right to a homeland. Inside France she worries that parts of the left are abandoning universalisme and laïcité, trading principles for short‑term clientelism in ways she finds dangerous.
Despite her anxieties, Mnouchkine keeps articulating hopeful, concrete ideas: a more federal Europe with shared defense, a cultural pride that honors artists and scientists on currency, and a theatre that remains open to all citizens, including those with different political choices. She refuses to mimic younger generations’ language but counts on them to carry memory and responsibility forward. Ultimately, her work at the Théâtre du Soleil insists that art can sharpen understanding, strengthen civic bonds and awaken people to act with conscience, beauty and courage.