The Confessional Rite as an Apology for the Theater in Marivaux’s Utopian Plays

Abstract Although Marivaux’s oeuvre is typically assigned a passive role in relation to the social norms represented in his plays, and Marivaux himself is not depicted as a participant in debates about the moral standing of the theater, or la querelle de la moralité du théâtre, his utopian plays L’île des esclaves (The Island of Slaves) and L’île de la raison (The Island of Reason) constitute apologies for the theater when analyzed through the lens of early modern religious culture. Based on a close reading using the performance-studies concept of the scenario, this article argues that by injecting elements of a religious practice—confession—into the comic formula, L’île des esclaves and L’île de la raison reveal the Catholic ritual of truth telling as theatricalized and theorize the theater as a medium ideal for the transmission of a secularized morality capable of renewing the polis.