Nicolas Bataille

Nicolas Bataille (14 March 1926 – 28 October 2008) was a French actor and director. Biography The son of a Parisian architect, Nicolas Bataille (born Roger Bataille) debuted as an actor during the Occupation of France while following the dramatic teachings of René Simon, Tania Balachova, and the comedian . Appearing in Children of Paradise by Marcel Carné, he obtained his first notable roles at the Liberation of France. In 1948, he staged A Season in Hell from the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, with and received a prize for avant-garde young theater companies. The next year, he forged with Akakia-Viala a fake text by Rimbaud: The Spiritual Hunt, which was published in the French resistance newspaper Combat (newspaper), on 19 May 1949 and subsequently in Mercure de France. At the start of the 1950s, he received L'Anglais sans peine, the first unpublished work by a still unknown French author of Romanian origin, Eugène Ionesco. He directed this absurdist, which would be called The Bald Soprano, on 11 May 1950 at the Théâtre des Noctambules in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. His ability to do so was largely thanks to his friendship with Claude Autant-Lara's family, who also provided him the costumes for Occupe-toi d'Amélie!. The play was initially a public and critical failure, but he resumed it starting on 11 May 1957 at La Huchette, thanks to the growing success of its author and the financial support of Louis Malle. He remained the lifeblood of La Huchette until his death, more than half a century after introducing Eugène Ionesco to the public, and he performed the role of Monsieur Martin until June 2007, before a total of more than one million five hundred thousand spectators.