Six personnages en quête d'auteur ・ Comédie-Française

As the master of plays within plays, Luigi Pirandello devised an original plot for this piece which premiered in Rome in 1921. A rehearsal is stopped by six characters looking for an author willing to write their ever-tragic story. Pirandello had the brilliant idea to add another conflict to the clashes of a dysfunctional family: the characters speak up against the false truth of the actors playing their story.

According to Marina Hands, the pressing desire to be “embodied” is a direct questioning of our time and the constant need to show off.
“What is a stage? […] A stage is a place where you play that you’re being serious”, as one of Pirandello characters says. As an immense admirer of the Italian playwright’s work, she offers her own take with an immersive setting and a relationship to space in which off-stage moments create images of places backstage. In a Pirandello-like spirit, Marina Hands pictures the point up to which real life can infringe on the realm of theatre. She recalls the Mais quelle Comédie! rehearsals in an empty theatre during the 2021 lockdowns; this show, which she created with Serge Bagdassarian, is back this season at the Salle Richelieu. This experience led her back to Pirandello; she directed this same play in 2021 in a Théâtre à la table session and will be presenting The Mountain Giants in June 2023. As she constantly questions the meaning of her craft, this story of actors, director and company head, technicians and prompter in a rehearsal allows her to tackle the basis of the art’s necessity, for the artists and for the audience, while the future of theatre is uncertain.

NEW PRODUCTION

TICKETS CAN BE PURCHASED STARTING
JAN 24

With the generous support of Aline Foriel-Destezet, great patron of the arts.