#MeToo Theater Campaigners Stage a Drama of Their Own

In 2021, the hashtag #MeTooThéâtre began trending on social media in France. Thousands of stories about sexual abuse and harassment in the country’s theaters and drama schools poured in. Calls for change followed, starting with an open letter signed by 1,450 public figures in the newspaper Libération.

The movement quickly coalesced into a collective that took the hashtag as its name and has remained a prominent presence over the past three years. It published an eponymous book of essays in 2022, and has pushed theater institutions to stop hiring aggressors and better protect victims, holding demonstrations in front of playhouses including the Théâtre de la Colline in Paris.

Still, many in the French theater world know #MeTooThéâtre best through its Instagram presence: terse statements in black letters over a yellow background, which read like a running commentary on the abuse cases that have come to light.

Now, the collective’s five most active members are putting faces to the hashtag. This season, they have crafted their first stage production, “Les Histrioniques” (“The Histrionic Ones”), which is playing at the Théâtre de Belleville in Paris through Jan. 28. In it, the group pulls no punches, while also lifting the veil in witty, revelatory fashion on other aspects of its activism — starting with the personal cost.

That is no easy feat, because a social movement is tricky to capture in real time onstage. In the case of #MeTooThéâtre, there is the added threat of being sued for defamation — a very tangible prospect in France, where a number of men charged with abuse have won judgments against their accusers.