Sorcières et sorcellerie dans le théâtre de Michel de Ghelderode
Sorcières et sorcellerie dans le théâtre de Michel de Ghelderode

Summary/Abstract: This article (Witches and Witchcraft in Michel de Ghelderode’s Theatre) aims at presenting and analysing the important part played by the figure of the witch in Ghelderode’s theatre, through the example of three of his plays: La Pie sur le gibet. Farce d’après Breughel l’Ancien (1935), Mademoiselle Jaïre (1934) and D’un diable qui prêcha merveilles. Mystère pour marionnettes (1934). Taking as a starting point an interesting parallel hinted at in the play Escurial, which places on the same level the Dionysian rituals and the sabbatical dances, the reader may reconstruct the portrait of the witch the way it has been imagined by the Flemish playwright: foolish and scary, medieval and childish, malefic and tender, the witch is an ambiguous character, always manipulating the others, but who is herself a puppet in the hands of the Devil, a prisoner of her own condition. Often being the core of the farce-like conflict, her presence high-lightens the deep discrepancy between the manifestation of a human desire and phantasm and the actual powers of witchcraft, illusory but real at the same time, mirroring the powers of the stage, mirroring the powers of theatricality.

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