Philippe Adrien

Philippe Adrien (19 December 1939 – 15 September 2021) was a French stage director, actor and playwright. He was associated with the La Tempete company in Paris.

Adrien appeared in the 1959 war film, Green Harvest.

Adrien began to write plays in the late 1960s. In 1967, La Baye was staged by Antoine Bourseiller, featuring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Suzanne Flon. It was staged again in 1997 by Laurent Pelly. La Baye had elements of disorder which would be reflected in Adrien's later work.

Adrien's play, Le Défi de Molière (1979) was dedicated to Moliere.

Adrien has co-written two plays with Jean-Louis Bauer. The first, Bug! creates a dream-journey through memory, current scientific and artistic issues, to provide an overview of civilization. The second, La Grande Nouvelle, is a contemporary variation on Le Malade imaginaire, which plays on the ironies of the present-day desire for immortality.

Adrien's directorial career began in the 1970s. He conducted experimental workshops such as L'excès, a work adapted from Georges Bataille; L'oeil de la tête—effet Sade (which he revisited in 1989 with Enzo Cormann's text Sade, concert d'enfers); Le Pupille veut être tuteur by Peter Handke; and La Résistance.

Adrien directed Molière's works, Dom Juan and George Dandin in Germany.

In the early 1980s, Adrien directed works by Alfred Jarry (Ubu roi and Ubu cocu) and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (La poule d'eau) At this time, Adrien's direction desired to liberate and provoke. He saw theatre as the scenic transcription of thought processes.^{[citation needed]} In Une Visite, adapted from Franz Kafka's L'Amerique, Adrien's direction showed screwball comedic and jubilatory elements. He also directed Kafka's Rêves.