Two recent creations of Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard : a semiotic reading

The Marivaux’s theater has a range of plots of socio-psychological significance that can fit into a semiotic system open to multiple modern interpretations, which is why it continues to arouse the interest of current directors. The work on the revival of Marivaux's comedies questions the representation of the game in two recent productions of Le jeu de l’amour et du hasard : the first, by Jean Liermier, performed at the Carouge Atelier Theater in Geneva in 2008, offers a new vision of the instability of social relations. The second show, created by Galin Stoev, presented in 2011 at the Comédie Française, focuses on female characters, as organizers of an event redefining the foundations of love.
In both cases, the scenographic creation reflects a desire for aesthetic innovation by reconstituting in its own way the stages of a specific female game which favors the use of a carnival perspective, orchestrated by tricks, in order to question patriarchal power. The choice of the components of the show : decor, lighting and costumes, inscribes the characters in an informational and pictorial polyphony testifying to the validity of this perspective. A disguise mechanism takes place, conditioning an antagonism between the characters, which increases the dramatic tension, but ends up confirming the axial idea of ​​a return to the starting point in Marivaux's dramaturgy.