The theatre of Bligny from 1934 to 2023!
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, sanatoriums, like lepers, were morbid places, where people were relegated like pariahs to wait for death, to the good care of some compassionate and rigid nuns, and to doctors on the road.
People were depressed, often in sordid premises; bored all day long, with nothing to do but ruminate about their fate..
.
In inventing the revolutionary concept of the Bligny Sanatoriums in the last days of the twentieth century, the founders-patrons and the learned doctors at the origin of its glorious history have implemented what medical historians will remember as Bligny Method.
Thus, in contrast to what was practiced at the time, it was considered that taking into account the psyche and morale of tuberculosis patients was as important as trying to heal their bodies, at a time when the disease was not cured.
After a long selection period, Dr Louis Guinard was chosen to give shape to this project.
The doctors of Bligny then integrated into the therapeutic process of the time a whole series of obligatory cultural and artistic activities in order "to maintain an optimistic and joyful spirit, and all kinds of cultural and playful activities.
Bligny is not the inventor of art therapy, but Bligny is the first to have put his principles into action on such a scale, mobilizing so many human and logistical resources, and financial means. Against and against all.
Between the two wars, the «Bligny method» was adopted by almost all sanatoriums in France, radically transforming the life and future of long-term residents of sanatoriums, whatever their social condition.
It was Bligny again who invented the concept of «project of exit» when traditionally one never got out of a sanatorium, except feet in front.
We did everything: painting, singing, music, poetry, engraving, photography, dance, sculpture; we played chess, we composed crosswords, we confronted each other in eloquence contests, there was cinema...
There was a library, one of the few discotheques of the time, we had all the board games, fashionable magazines...
We spent the year between competitions and competitions: we received medals, cups, diplomas.
We were living again.
Thus, from the opening of the sanatoriums of Bligny, with the encouragement and the financing of the management, the residents (they were not called patients) began to make shows of all kinds, in total autarky.
They did everything: costumes, sets, direction (we were talking more about the region1 at the time); they formed teams, distributed functions -artistic and technical- rehearsed, learned, played comedy, sang, played music, drew posters and printed booklets...
Several periods of the year were dedicated to great festivals where our artists performed in the Bligny concert halls, in front of their audience of tuberculous, during concerts, operettas, plays, ballets, even operas of very good quality.
This was the heroic period that lasted until the construction of the Bligny Theatre in 1934.
The second period which lasted from Wednesday, September 19, 1934 -the day of the inauguration of the Theatre of Bligny"- to the end of World War II can be described as "apotheosis".
Indeed, the famous doctor Louis Guinard, the first physician-director of the Œuvres des Sanatoriums Populaires de Paris on the hill of Bligny had succeeded in convincing patrons that the time had come to make available to artists-The European Commission’s Directorate-General for the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, has published a report on the European Union’s role in the fight against tuberculosis.
Here again Bligny was a precursor and this again upset the situation.
The shows took on an outfit that could never be called amateurism again.
The exceptional technical means available to the artists of Bligny, gave their productions an unprecedented scope and the patrons -skilfully sensitized by Bligny- wanted to contribute to the building, multiplying the means put at the disposal of the creation of plays of theatres, recitals of songs and other operettas.
In 1930, the piano builder Pleyel offered a Grand-Concert piano worth 6000 francs to the Sanatoriums of Bligny -a considerable sum at the time.
The instruments of the orchestra (now all gone) were offered by the most renowned instrument makers, while record companies regularly gave their last editions to sanatoriums and the Bligny Theatre’s discotheque had hundreds of titles, not to mention the film library.
After the Second World War, curative treatments for the disease -which had been expected for centuries- finally arrived and the Bligny Sanatoriums were able to open on the outside.
It happens -the story is written like this- that the famous Professor Georges Canetti of the Institut Pasteur (the co-inventor of the triple curative therapies of tuberculosis) had a brother named Jacques. (the other brother was Elias Canetti, Nobel Prize in literature)
He was also the brilliant producer who was able to find young artists who became mythical like Jacques Brel, George Brassens or Juliette Gréco, to speak only of those. Here they are: Jean-Louis Barrault, Bourvil, Noël-Noël, Maurice Bacquet, Jean Nohain, Fernandel, Louis de Funès, Jean Poiret, Michel Serrault, Pierre Dac. But also Jean Amadou, Pierre-Jean Vaillard, Raymond Soupleix, Jean Breton, Anne-Marie Carrière, and all the others we remember today, or not.
They all came to Bligny in their early days.
Their producer had cleverly managed to get them to integrate that «Si Bligny rit, Paris rira. If Bligny likes, Paris will like».
And they didn’t just come by philanthropy (and volunteering) to distract the sick.
No, they came with their authors and their team to test their device before facing the fangs of Paris: validate their artistic choices, try their scenic tricks, check the laughter; sometimes correct their texts or the order of their songs; rode their sketches, strengthen the cohesion of their orchestra and "flee Paris".
Other Parisian cabarets including the Caveau de la République also participated in this movement.
Again, Bligny played his historic role as a show factory.
Bligny on the edge of the 21st century.
And then the sick of tuberculosis were now cured and the sanatoriums had been depopulated for the first time in France in more than a thousand and five hundred years.
Bligny began its slow transformation into a general hospital, and in 1971, the Théâtre de Bligny closed after a final screening.
For thirty years.
It will take the warning issued by a local elected official, then the ambition of the presidency of the Association of the Medical Center of Bligny, and the financial support of the municipalities partners, the department, the region and the state to finally, After two years of work leading to a total rehabilitation of the building’s interior, the Bligny Theatre reopened in September 2004.
The modern period confirms the historical momentum.
In 2004, the presidency of the Association of the Medical Center of Bligny authorized the foundation of the Association of the Theatre of Bligny which is now the operator of the theatre, and made the strategic choice (historical) entrust the direction of the Bligny Theatre to an artist rather than a manager.
This choice, which at first seemed incongruous to some, allowed the continuation of the glorious history of the Bligny Theatre as a theatre factory.
Indeed, these creators -delegates of the Bligny Theatre- will not only produce their own creations.
They will -it is a request of the hospital- welcome artists in residence, who create their shows there for theatre, dance and music, reinventing an art of doing, installing the best possible conditions in order to offer artists a true freedom; thus perpetuating the tradition established on Bligny Hill at the very beginning of the 20th century.
And now?
The confirmation of the support of local, departmental, regional and national institutions for the perpetuation of this historic momentum allows the Théâtre de Bligny - a cultural exception in rural Essonne - to confirm its vocation as a residence of artists in creation, for the theatre, dance, music, circus and all innovative forms of multimedia performances; to strengthen its means and the quality of its support for artists, without altering its vocation of broadcasting shows of all types to the public of patients of the hospital, and the inhabitants of the villages in the surrounding countryside.
Today, after its uncertainties, we can say that the Théâtre de Bligny is saved.
However, we must not rest on laurels valiantly earned...
