Jean-Marie Besset

Jean-Marie Besset is a French contemporary playwright, translator and theater director.

He has been nominated ten times for the Molière award (France's Tony Award) - six times as Best Playwright and four times as Best Translator. He won in 1999 for his adaptation of Michael Frayn's Copenhagen. He won the Best New Play award from the Syndicat National de la Critique Dramatique (Association of French Critics) for Ce qui arrive et ce qu'on attend in 1993, the New Theater Talent prize from the SACD (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers), also in 1993, and the Grand Prize for Theater from the Académie française in 2005. He was named Chevalier (1995) and Officier (2002) in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and Chevalier in the Ordre national du Mérite (2009) by the French government.

Early life and career

Born in Carcassonne on November 22, 1959, Besset spent his youth in Limoux, a small town in the southwest of France and continued his studies in Paris following the baccalauréat. After graduating from the École supérieure des sciences économiques et commerciales (ESSEC) in 1981 and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris in 1984, he began to pursue his career as a playwright. After fulfilling his national service at the French Institute in London (1984–85), he lived in New York from 1986 to 1998.

His first play Villa Luco, directed by Jacques Lassalle, with Hubert Gignoux as Philippe Pétain, Maurice Garrel as Charles de Gaulle and the author himself as a young warden, premiered at Théâtre National de Strasbourg in May 1989. It was subsequently produced in Paris, Théâtre Paris Villette, and on tour throughout France and Belgium (1990). The author was profiled in the International Herald Tribune that same year (Of Television, Molière and de Gaulle by Thomas Quinn Curtiss, November 26, 1990).^[1]

American career

His first American production came in 1992 when UBU Repertory Theatre showcased his The Best of Schools, translated by Mark O'Donnell, directed by Evan Yionoulis, starring Jonathan Freedman, Gil Bellows, Mira Sorvino, Danny Zorn. This debut was praised by Clive Barnes in the New York Post and got a mixed review in the New York Times, March 11, 1992 by D.J.R. Bruckner.^[2]

His first American success was the New York Theatre Workshop's production of What You Get And What You Expect translated by Hal J. Witt, directed by Christopher Ashley. The play was very favorably reviewed by Bruce Weber in the New York Times,^[3] Michael Feingold in the Village Voice,^[4] and Clive Barnes in the New York Post.^[5]

His play Perthus premiered in French at the Spoleto Festival in 2008, directed by Gilbert Désveaux starring Alain Marcel, Jean-Paul Muel, and newcomers Jonathan Drillet and Robin Causse.^[6]

Film

At the invitation of Ismail Merchant, he wrote in 1996 the original screenplay of The Proprietor a Merchant Ivory Production starring Jeanne Moreau.^[7]

Two movies based on his plays have been released in the US: Grande École directed by Robert Salis (2004, based on The Best of Schools) and The Girl on the Train directed by André Téchiné (2009, based on RER)^[8]

References