The Théâtre du Soleil has been guided for decades by director Ariane Mnouchkine, whose work treats performance as a civic tool. Leading the company for sixty years, she continues to make theatre that seeks to inform public debate rather than only entertain. In an interview published 19/03/2026, Mnouchkine described how the new project, staged during current rehearsals, aims to provoke thought and action by confronting audiences with unsettling patterns from the past. The interview appears in the spring issue of têtu and accompanies the ensemble’s return to a monumental historical inquiry on stage.
Her production, titled Ici sont les dragons — specifically the second epoch that covers the years 1918 to 1933 — continues a multi-year investigation into the origins of mass violence and authoritarian rule. Initiated in autumn 2026, the project takes the form of a long-form theatrical fresco that mixes recorded voices, live manipulators, masks and image-rich scenography. The company uses these tools to map how propaganda, organized terror and economic violence combine to destroy democratic life, making the show feel painfully relevant to present-day geopolitics.
Theatre as civic interrogation
For Mnouchkine the stage is never neutral: theatre must engage with society’s pressing questions. Her company deploys ensemble techniques to create a polyphonic stage where multiple languages and perspectives coexist. The result is a forceful reminder that performance can serve as a public laboratory for ethical thought. The piece asks spectators to take in complex historical entanglements rather than offering a single moralizing argument; it invites reflection and collective conversation about responsibility, memory and civic vigilance.
Form and craft
The production relies on an artisanal approach cultivated at Théâtre du Soleil. Thirty performers work with meticulously crafted devices: large masks designed by the late Erhard Stiefel with assistance from Simona Vera Grassano, puppet work that turns leaders into figures of study, and a recorded vocal tapestry in several languages. These formal choices create a distance that allows historical characters to be seen as symptoms of broader forces rather than just personalities. The use of multilingual recorded voices and shifting tableaus turns the stage into a map of international connections underlying the rise of dictatorships.
Digging the roots of totalitarianism
The piece traces the arc from the end of the First World War to the moment authoritarianism consolidates power in Europe. By spanning 1918–1933 the Ici sont les dragons project examines how economic displacement, ideological radicalization and targeted propaganda fuse to produce mass violence. The show foregrounds recurring mechanisms — scapegoating, centralized terror, and manipulative media strategies — that helped propel regimes to power. Mnouchkine and her company expose those mechanisms with surgical clarity, allowing the audience to recognize the architecture of coercion and fear.
Voices that appear on stage
The ensemble stages a wide cast of historical figures and lesser-known witnesses to the era’s brutalities: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Goebbels, industrialists like Ford, writers such as Mikhail Bulgakov, and journalists like Gareth Jones who reported on the Holodomor. The production also recalls the policies of dékoulakisation and the rise of the gulag system. On the other hand, voices of resistance — political leaders who warned against submission, independent journalists and artists silenced by censorship — are presented to show how dissent and moral clarity persisted amid repression. These dramatic juxtapositions aim less to lecture and more to sharpen historical recognition.
Why this production matters now
Theatre here functions as a warning and a civic tool: by making the mechanics of authoritarianism visible, Mnouchkine asks audiences to consider contemporary vulnerabilities. The work’s attention to propaganda — summed up in the project subtitle referencing choc et mensonges — stresses how shock tactics and systematic falsehoods can erode democratic habits. The show resonates with current geopolitical anxieties and with the struggles of nations defending democratic aspirations, including concerns about Ukraine’s sovereignty. Mnouchkine presents theatre as a communal act that helps societies remember, debate and prepare to resist the repetition of past crimes.
In closing, the production’s power comes from its craft and ambition: a collective of performers, designers and technicians turning archival research into a living, urgent spectacle. For those seeking a theatrical experience that combines historical excavation with moral urgency, Ici sont les dragons offers a demanding but clarifying encounter. The interview with Ariane Mnouchkine and further reportage are available in the spring issue of têtu, published 19/03/2026, accompanying the company as it presents this resonant chapter of its long project.