On February 16, 1987, more than 30 actors gathered for a performance on the tiny stage of the Theatre de la Huchette in Paris. The oversized troupe consisted of all the actors who had at one time played in Eugene Ionesco’s “The Bald Soprano,” which had been running seven days a week at the Huchette for exactly 30 years. Politicians, the Parisian literati, members of the press, even the reclusive aging author crowded into the tiny performance hall.

Written in 1951, “The Bald Soprano” was a savage send-up of the commercial “boulevard drama” that dominated Parisian theater at the time. By 1987 boulevard drama had long since disappeared. It didn’t matter: The performance was a celebration of French culture and the French avant-garde, an insular dramatic universe fiercely committed to its own legacy even at the expense of being ignored by the rest of the world.

This year’s Lincoln Center Festival, which opens today, achieves a remarkable feat, as it brings to New York two transfers from the French stage: Ariane Mnouchkine’s “Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssees)” and Robert Wilson’s “I La Galigo.” Along with Peter Brook’s “Tierno Bokar,” which played at Barnard College earlier this year, that makes three new French productions that will have made it to New York this season. That’s more than have played here at any one time since 1993, when Ms. Mnouchkine presented a triad of Greek tragedies.

Here in this city that prides itself on attracting the best of world theater, French drama is notably absent. But the reasons have as much to do with Paris as with New York. Since the 1950s, France has produced little in the way of easily transferable commercial theater. It has no equivalent to Broadway or the West End, and Parisian directors openly shun commercialism. Modern French drama has proved particularly insular, meditating on issues primarily of interest to French audiences: the status of former colonies, France’s refugee crisis, tensions in assimilating Muslim immigrants.

But by far the biggest difference between France and New York is the status of the director. The figures, like Ionesco, who banished the boulevard drama, were writers; but the second generation of avant-gardists took to directing. The grandfather of French avant-gardism, Antonin Artaud, had sought to decrease the importance of playwrights as far back as the 1930s, insisting that theater needed to end its “fixation” on language.

As Artaud’s writings gained influence in the 1960s, the corps of French dramatists quickly dwindled. Visionary directors took to the stage instead, remaking classic texts without the assistance of authors. Though a new generation of traditional-minded playwrights like Yasmina Reza, author of “Art” and “Life x 3,” is bucking the trends, they are far from the norm. France remains a director’s paradise, and it’s no coincidence that the three latest premieres are known for their directors.

Ariane Mnouchkine, who creates most of her pieces out of workshops, is the premier example. For “Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssees)” she collected letters from refugees seeking asylum in Europe, originally attempting to create a formal script. When those efforts failed, she and her company turned to improvisation. The result is a six-hour epic, told in a dozen languages and based largely around wordless vignettes. The opening scene shows in detail the experience of refugees trying to cross a river.

The resources Ms. Mnouchkine has at her disposal – a seventy-five member company and subsidized rehearsal periods of up to six months – are the kind directors dream of. Most other countries simply do not have the resources – or the inclination – for lavish productions of noncommercial material. French auteurs have little reason to seek productions abroad, and prominent directors from other countries want to work there.

Of Ms. Mnouchkine’s 29 pieces, only a handful have toured international festivals, and she hasn’t come to New York for more than a decade. But though the French may not travel abroad, they have no trouble welcoming foreign directors into their midst: they consider the British Peter Brook and the American Robert Wilson to be French national treasures.

Mr. Brook, who once ran England’s National Theatre, has made his home in Paris since 1971, presenting original French-language works with an international team of actors. Rarely these days does he stray outside of France, where his small company is provided enough money to present as many as three simultaneous productions. Mr. Brook’s last New York premiere was five years ago, and only the promise of Columbia University’s first artistic residency lured him to Manhattan.

Robert Wilson has never set up shop in Paris, but he claims to owe his career to the support he has received there. Mr. Wilson, who has produced plays in three continents, has worked in Paris more frequently than in any other city. He is virtually a celebrity there and is regularly stopped for autographs. Even though “I La Galigo,” an adaptation of the Indonesian epic poem “Sureq Galigo,” premiered abroad, the French press refers to it as a French work “created in Singapore.” It comes to New York via a special engagement at the Nuits de Fourviere Festival in Lyon, and was produced with the financial support of Parisian backers.

What Ms. Mnouchkine, Mr. Brook, and Mr. Wilson have in common is a commitment to experimentation and internationalism – the dual hallmarks of contemporary French theater. Each of the three works that have transferred to New York focuses on former colonial subjects, and all feature international troupes of actors. Today the former Francophone colonies have come to dominate Parisian theater, and Paris regularly plays home to theatre and dance companies from Africa and Southeast Asia.

It was Artaud who, smitten by the Balinese dancers he saw at a colonial exposition, argued that Asian performance techniques should be the basis for a new European avant-garde – but I have to wonder, did he imagine one quite so insular as this?

What’ s On at the Lincoln Center Festival

THEATER

La bella dormente nel bosco (Sleeping Beauty in the Woods)
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, July 12-16

I La Galigo
New York State Theater, July 13-16

Symposium: I La Galigo
Asia Society, July 14

Symposium: La bella dormente nel bosco (Sleeping Beauty in the Woods)
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, July 14

Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssees)
Damrosch Park, July 17-19, July 21-24, 27-31

Symposium: Arlecchino and the Italian Commedia dell’Arte
Italian Cultural Institute, July 18

Symposium: Ariane Mnouchkine: Does Art Matter?
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, July 19

Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters
Alice Tully Hall, July 20-23

Symposium: Modern Noh Plays: Ninagawa
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, July 22

My Life as a Fairy Tale
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, July 27, 20

Modern Noh Plays
Rose Theater, July 28, 29, 30

DANCE

Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Rose Theater, July 12-16

Symposium: Merce Cunningham
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, July 15

Mugiyono Kasido
Clark Studio Theater, July 18-20

Shen Wei Dance Arts
New York State Theater, July 19, 23 & 24

Random Dance
New York State Theater, July 21 & 22

MUSIC

Symposium, Africa-America: Hip Hop
Rose Studio, July 13

Symposium: America-Africa: Hip Hop’s Journey from Terra to the Streets
Avery Fisher Hall, July 14

Rahayu Supanggah in Concert
Clark Studio Theater, July 17

Symposium: Shadowtime
Paul Recital Hall, July 18

The Music of Brian Ferneyhough
Paul Recital Hall, July 18

Symposium: Shadowtime: Why Benjamin Now?
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, July 20

Shadowtime
Rose Theater, July 21, 22

Icebreaker
The Allen Room, July 23

Alarm Will Sound
The Allen Room, July 24

For more information, visit www.lincolncenter.org or call 212-875-5766. For tickets, call 212-721-6500.