A representative genre of French theater spanning the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the morality has nevertheless been marginalized as an overly didactic, abstract drama, following the decline of the allegorical exegesis in which it was grounded, and the rise of the classical canon in the seventeenth century. Doudet's richly documented and elegantly written study aims at shedding new light on this corpus, providing a valuable complement to the multivolume edition that she is directing at Classiques Garnier.

Perceptibly described as a “théâtre désactualisé” (“outdated theater”) depicting “l'actualité humaine” (“timely human affairs,” 10–11), the paradox of the morality as an old news outlet receives special emphasis as a source of ideological and artistic renewal. Based on the unique case of the Condamnation de Banquet, a play preserved in multiple forms, including a printed text, stained glass window panels, and tapestries, Doudet convincingly argues that moralities consisted of multimedial performances involved, like royal entries and tableaux vivants, in shaping early modern public space, while also heralding modern and contemporary avant-garde experiments. She skillfully combines a wide variety of theoretical approaches, including classical, medieval, and early modern rhetoric and poetics, particularly the fifteenth-century Instructif de la seconde rhétorique, Benjaminian and Brechtian allegory, Foucauldian archaeology, Deleuze and Guatarri's cartography, and contemporary inter- and transmediality, to illustrate these points. An index of notions would help the reader to navigate through such broad-ranging theories. Doudet argues, moreover, that moralities formed open-ended “constellations” (34) rather than traditional genres, including not only typical plays, such as Bien Advisé Mal Advisé, but also the hybrid jeux moraux (moral plays), farces moralisées, bergeries, etc., totaling 125 works. This is a significant increase compared to Werner Helmich's canonical anthology, which is limited to twenty-two pieces gathered under the aegis of allegorical representation.

The study unfolds as a roadmap offering four main parcours (itineraries). Part 1 provides a comprehensive overview of the rhetorical, poetic, and dramatic definitions of the moralities, while also presenting new data on the time frame—the years 1430–1560—and the geographic areas—the French-speaking regions of the period—in which they developed, as well as their ethical impact on other works with which they shared the stage or the page. Part 2 examines the development of the morality's didactic authority as a transmedial process through which urban institutional discourses, particularly sermons, were integrated. Rather than a transfer, however, this involved an increasingly free adaptation of such discourses to the specific ideological objectives and artistic conventions of the morality. In the Protestant play Verité cachee, this resulted in a polemical attack on Simonie (Simony), represented as an authoritative preacher.

Part 3 analyzes the specific features of dramatic allegory, which developed independently from its narrative counterpart, as the visual arts moved to the forefront of the cultural scene. The discussion of the paradoxes of dramatic embodiment is particularly stimulating. While conveying a sense of authenticity to the personified moral values, the actions performed by such characters ultimately undermined their signifying power, despite the interpretative codes embedded in the accompanying gestures, music, dance, costumes, and accessories. Used interchangeably, however, such codes created confusion, leading to the downfall of dominant authorities, as illustrated by the burlesque rebellion of the lower senses in the Farce moralisee des cinq sens de l'Homme. What motivated the Théophiliens, a theater company originally directed by drama historian Gustave Cohen, to restage in 1943 the Condamnation de Banquet, a mordant satire of gluttony, for a Parisian audience suffering from the hardships of the Second World War? Part 4 provides an intriguing answer to this question based on the classical notion of kairos used in combination with contemporary theories of time: moralities consist of multimedial “montages” (451) that can be adapted to the changing dynamics of universal moral ideals and the contingent events they encapsulate. The conclusion focuses on the political, religious, and aesthetic factors that led to the restoration and/or reinvention of French morality plays in twentieth-century European avant-garde movements.

Nine illustrations and approximately three hundred references documenting performances of morality plays and their contexts in French-speaking territories from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries further support the compelling arguments developed in the study. In sum, Doudet's monograph makes a significant contribution to the history, theory, and practice of theater by providing ample evidence of the capacity of allegorical drama to reinvent itself in any given period.