A small theatre at 38 boulevard Raspail, founded by Jean-Marie Serreau in 1952 and gone within a few years. On 5 January 1953 it staged the first performance of Samuel Beckett's En attendant Godot, directed by Roger Blin — the night modern theatre changed.
The Théâtre de Babylone was small, new and short-lived. Jean-Marie Serreau founded it in 1952 at 38 boulevard Raspail, and audiences reached it through the porch and courtyard of the building rather than off the street. It lasted only a few years.
On 5 January 1953 it gave the first performance of Samuel Beckett's En attendant Godot, in a production directed by Roger Blin, who also played Pozzo. The cast was Lucien Raimbourg as Vladimir, Pierre Latour as Estragon and Jean Martin as Lucky.
It is hard to overstate what that evening did. A play in which nothing happens twice, in which two men wait for someone who does not come and are given no explanation of who he is, arrived on a Paris stage and made the conventions of the well-made play look suddenly optional. Beckett had written it in French, his second language, partly to strip his own prose of facility. He was forty-six and known to almost nobody.
The success at the Babylone is where his international reputation begins, and it begins in a borrowed courtyard theatre with almost no money behind it — Blin had struggled to fund the production at all.
Nothing survives. The theatre closed, the company dispersed, and the address is an ordinary boulevard building. What can be said is that the premiere of the most influential play of the twentieth century happened behind that door, and that no one at the time expected it.
Jean-Marie Serreau founds the Théâtre de Babylone at 38 boulevard Raspail.
Les Éditions de Minuit publishes En attendant Godot.
The play is performed for the first time here, directed by Roger Blin.
The theatre closes after only a few years of operation.
At the Théâtre de Babylone, 38 boulevard Raspail in the 7th arrondissement, on 5 January 1953. It was directed by Roger Blin, who also played Pozzo, with Lucien Raimbourg as Vladimir, Pierre Latour as Estragon and Jean Martin as Lucky.
No. It was founded by Jean-Marie Serreau in 1952 and closed within a few years. The building at 38 boulevard Raspail stands, but the theatre — which was reached through the porch and courtyard rather than off the street — is gone, and there is nothing to attend.
Because it made the conventions of the well-made play look optional overnight. Two men wait for someone who never comes and are given no explanation of who he is. Beckett had written it in French, his second language, partly to strip his prose of facility; he was forty-six and known to almost nobody. His international reputation starts with that run.
You can stand at 38 boulevard Raspail, but that is all — the theatre is gone and there is nothing marking it. The coordinate here is address-level rather than the position of the former auditorium, since the evidence establishes the property and its courtyard rather than the hall's exact footprint.
Exhibited here · 1953
En attendant Godot was performed for the first time here on 5 January 1953, directed by Roger Blin, who also played Pozzo. Beckett was forty-six, writing in French as a second language, and almost unknown; his international reputation begins with this run.
The restaurant-above, bar-below house on the rue du Cherche-Midi that became the centre of gay Paris in the 1950s, and one of two bars named as models for Guillaume's bar in Giovanni's Room.
Visit the place
The cheap bar across the boulevard from the Café de Flore where James Baldwin drank through his first Paris years, and where he met Lucien Happersberger in 1949.
Visit the place
Beer, potato salad, and choucroute after a day's work. Ernest Hemingway considered it one of the best places in Paris.
Visit the place
A few doors from Les Deux Magots and part of the same Left Bank circuit. Later became more associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
