Christophe Triau’s chapter accounts for the state of the art of mise en scène in contemporary theatre. Triau explains how contemporary mise en scène is characterized by its marked refusal to construct immediately legible meaning or recognizable reference points on stage. Instead, with reference to the works of four major directors – Claude Régy, François Tanguy and the Théâtre du Radeau, Joël Pommerat, and Gisèle Vienne – Triau argues that stage direction tends to place audience members’ sense of perception under pressure. The stage is transformed into a destabilizing space of uncertainty, dream, hallucination or fantasy, which questions and renews the audience’s experience of perception, opening it out to other possibilities distinct from ordinary perception. In their very different ways, these directors bring into play not only what is seen but how the audience sees: the frameworks and activity of perception both in the theatre and in life.

In conversation with Estel Baudou’s performance, artist Phia Ménard offers insights into the key moments of the live performer’s career, from her training days to her international success. Describing herself as ‘undisciplined’, she explains how her work challenges the categories of circus, dance and theatre, in so doing pushing the boundaries of contemporary theatre. It is fitting to end this Introduction with Phia Ménard’s call for the invention of new formats and aesthetics, for the performance of ‘strange things’ and for a form of agitation that ‘feels like love’.