On ne sera jamais Alceste ・ Comédie-Française

Since 1680, the Comédie-Française has given nearly 2,500 performances of “Le Misanthrope” and there is not a single actor in this house who has not worked on either Philinte or Alceste to prepare for their drama school auditions.

This play is an inexhaustible source of material for acting and directing. When he taught at the Conservatoire in the 1940s, Louis Jouvet told Michel, one of his young students: “You can never be Alceste. Alceste is a character who existed before us, and who will exist after us. When you become a great actor and a great man, you will play Alceste, but you will not be Alceste; you will die and Alceste will live.”
Director Lisa Guez offered this acting class to three of the Troupe’s sociétaires, inviting them to go back in time by experiencing the faults of actors-in-training and to revive Jouvet’s fiery classes. When the show premiered in 2022, she noted: “Asking well-seasoned actors to portray stumbling, out-of-breath 20-year-olds is where character study truly begins.”
Act I. Scene 1. On stage, Michel and Léon tirelessly rehearse the first scene of Le Misanthrope under the worried gaze of their teacher. Jouvet stops them, notes an “o” that is too open, an overly cerebral instinct, the meaning behind an “indignant breath” – striving to make them display the infinite rigour that comes with being an actor.
This production offers the audience the unique and exhilarating experience of witnessing these performance sketches, of entering the actor’s workshop and discovering what it means to work on a great scene from the repertoire.

This show premiered on March 24, 2022 at the Studio-Théâtre

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