Jacques COPEAU. Autograph manuscript signed, with L.A.S. to Pierre Barlatier, Pernand-Vergelesses June 27, 1936; 9pages in-8 and half-page in-4 with vignette. Important reflection on a new theater, in response to a survey by Pierre Barlatier for the journal Comœdia, "À temps nouveaux arts nouveaux", on the situation of the arts after the Front Populaire came to power. Copeau's response appeared in Comœdia on July 24, 1936. "If the young ministers, on whom the education of the. If the young ministers, on whom the people's education and leisure now depend, are aware of the greatness of their task, if they approach it with enthusiasm and piety, if they propose in particular to encourage a renaissance of the dramatic art, we have only one wish in our emotion and the anxiety of a hope so often disappointed: that their intentions be well enlightened, their decisions well studied, their actions well freed from routine and complacency"... Copeau recalls that, for more than twenty years, he never stopped fighting for the renaissance of the theater, which had to go hand in hand with a social revival. "The theater needs to be decabotinized, de-bourgeoisized, de-encompanied. And it needs to be organized. The state can reign over individual differences, which are petty, in favor of a professional community of interests. It must not be content to draw its information from commissions that are often incompetent and sometimes subject to dubious influences"... Copeau called for "the creation of a center of theatrical culture, a great school where all forms of dramatic invention and representation would be studied, where each section would be directed by the most qualified man, regardless of official titles or political recommendations"... It was also necessary to proceed without delay with "a radical reform of the Comédie Française"... Etc. Copeau then reflects at length on "the question of a popular theater"... He concludes: "The program, in its purity, is for the moment to associate a great audience with a great spectacle: under the same roof, in the same building, men who need to see and hear something, brought into contact with men who have something to show them and to tell them, and who will know how to invent the means to tell them and show them as sincerely, as simply, as honestly as possible". A final paragraph was not published: "This meeting place between two dramatic wills, that of the author and that of the community, can be built without great expense, on a plot of land on the outskirts, using perishable or demountable materials. It will be like a first hypothesis, like a life-size model, easy to modify and complete, of the theater of the French people. When it exists, in its well-calculated proportions, equipped with its essential organs, obeying recognized laws and conventions, we'll ask the poets to extend the inventions of their genius onto this model, and the stage directors to construct poetic fiction in this free field". In his letter of transmittal, Copeau asked that his text be published in full.