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Jean-Marie Serreau was a French theater actor and director, born April 28, 1915 in Poitiers and died May 22, 1973 in Clichy. He is first the husband of Geneviève Serreau, author and director, and the father of Dominique, Coline and Nicolas Serreau. His last wife was Danielle Van Bercheycke with whom he had two daughters, Raphaele and Kaloussai Serreau.
Having obtained his baccalaureate in 1936, Serreau went to Paris to enter the Beaux-Arts in the architecture section. He was discharged in 1939 because he lost an eye following an illness. Under the cover of theatrical teaching, he took part in the Resistance in Lyon. In 1942 he returned to Paris to complete his studies, and took lessons from Charles Dullin. In 1944, he was one of the creators of the association Travail et Culture, which campaigned for an education and a popular culture based on the union. In 1949 he created a company in his name and staged, among others, Molière, Brecht (l'Exception et la Ordre in 1949, the first Brecht staged in France since 1930), Kafka, Vian and Jarry. He allowed Roger Blin to create Waiting for Godot in his Théâtre de Babylone, in 1953, and staged "La Maison Brûlée" by Strindberg, in an adaptation by Boris Vian. He gives new authors a chance: Michel Vinaver, Marguerite Duras, Max Frisch. He introduced Brecht into the repertoire of the Comédie-Française, and staged Mère Courage at Jean Vilar's TNP. He is one of the first French directors to broaden, through audiovisual contributions, the framework of his stage shows.
He also became the spokesperson for the Third World by staging plays by Kateb Yacine "Le Cadavre Encerclé" (1958), Aimé Césaire "La Tragédie du Roi Christophe" (1964), or by playing "Les Bonnes" by Jean Genet by a West Indian troupe. In 1971 he founded the Théâtre de la Tempête at the Cartoucherie de Vincennes, where in 1973 he gave his last production, Le Printemps des bonnets rouges, by the Breton poet Paol Keineg. He died in Paris in 1973, after a long illness. A documentary directed by Alexandre Hilaire is dedicated to him in 2015: entitled "Jean-Marie Serreau, Discoverer of Theaters", the film focuses on his collaborations with Aimé Césaire and Kateb Yacine; there appear in particular Coline Serreau, Michael Lonsdale and Edgar Morin. A Serreau retrospective took place in 2021-2022, on the occasion of installations at the Théâtre de la Tempête and the Comédie-Française. One of the rehearsal studios at the Théâtre l'Odéon in Paris now bears his name.
