Performing a New France, Making Colonial History in Marc Lescarbot's Théâtre de Neptune (1606)

Abstract

This essay examines the role of performance practices in the making of colonial history through an analysis of the first French-language theater piece staged in the New World, Marc Lescarbot's Théâtre de Neptune (1606). The form of performance in this work offers a radically different way of crafting and engaging with history, simultaneously “restoring” the past via reenactment in the present and implying the possibility of future reiterations. Lescarbot's script presents a useful case study of performance's challenges to more traditional configurations of literary and cultural history.