La Comédie-Française

Paris, sum­mer 2020. Actors from “la Comédie-Française”, France’s most pres­ti­gious the­ater, rehearse Christophe Hon­oré’s new play, an adap­ta­tion of Mar­cel Proust’s “The Guer­mantes Way”. When the show is sud­den­ly can­celed, the dra­ma group decides to go ahead with it any­way, in the name of art and for the joy of act­ing together.

The Forest is both a vibrantly spontaneous and brutally funny family drama, and a glorious tribute to acting and theater - in other words, an Arnaud Desplechin film. With Michel Vuillermoz and Denis Podalydès as the nephew and his friend, Adeline D’Hermy as the niece, and Martine Chevallier in a stunning performance as the sublimely selfish aunt Raissa.

Video recording of the stage play "Le Soulier de Satin", played by La Comédie-Française at Paris during the 2024-2025 season, and directed for the stage by Eric Ruf. The play was recorded by Arnaud Desplechin.

Three witches predict that Macbeth will ascend to the throne of Scotland. To fulfill this prophecy, Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to murder King Duncan, who has come to spend the night at their home. This crime plunges the new ruler into a macabre spiral that will lead him to sink into guilt and madness... The "Scottish play" is being shown live from the Comédie-Française theater in cinemas for the first time.

Cyrano has a prominent nose but also a gift with words by which he helps handsome Christian to conquer Roxane. Also in love with the girl he chooses not to reveal to her that every word of Christian comes out of his own heart. In cinema, this ROSTAND classic filmed live from the Comédie Française.

Woman hero Dom Juan lives a life full of excesses and love affairs. When he seduces the nun Elvire, but shows no interest in her a short time later, he gets to deal with her vengeful brothers. Dom Juan and his assistant Sganarelle have to flee and set out on a journey full of strange encounters.

New York, 1985. Against the backdrop of AIDS - divine punishment inflicted on gays according to puritan America -, angels, who epilogue on the emptiness of the American dream, cross paths with the ghost of the spy Ethel Rosenberg, separating lovers and destitute patients. Prior, suffering from the AIDS virus, loves Louis who is about to leave him. Roy Cohn, man of power, Jewish and homosexual lawyer, anti-Semite and homophobe, lives in denial of his HIV status. Harper takes refuge in drugs to soften her married life with Joe, whose uncertain sexuality clashes with well-established religious beliefs. Following the cancellation of "Angels in America"performances ​​due to the health crisis of 2020, the project became a TV movie: "Angels - Salle Escande" is shot in the privacy of rehearsals.

Accompanied by a child, the mathematician Galileo observes the firmament with a telescope. Ten years ago, the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned in Rome for having supported the idea of an infinite and centerless universe, based on the work of Copernicus. By dint of observations and calculations, Galileo seeks proofs for his hypothesis of a cosmic system where the Earth is "an ordinary celestial body, one among thousands". From Padua to Venice, the mathematician shakes certainties by confronting the power of a Church which wishes to maintain its absolute power in the "crystal spheres" where Ptolemy has hitherto locked up the world.

For her latest project, commissioned by Arte and starring members of the Comédie-Française, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (A Castle in Italy, Rendez-Vous 2014) shot an idiosyncratic, half-modernized adaptation of one of Chekhov’s greatest, most expansively melancholy plays.

Le Petit-Maître corrigé is a three-act romantic comedy by French playwright Marivaux. It was first performed on November 6, 1734, by the Comédie-Française in Paris. In this production Clément Hervieu-Léger makes the eighteenth century resonate with our era, all the more so given that the language is “simpler than in other Marivaux plays, while still as refined, precise and full of humour”. The story is that of a young Parisian whose parents have found a good match for him, a count’s daughter. But when he goes to visit her in her country home, the handsome boy – whose Parisian manners are far removed from the rules of decorum that reign in the provinces – cannot open his heart to his lovely intended. Stung, the latter decides to punish his arrogance while a former lover arrives to prevent the marriage. Between the alliance of master and manservant, and the complicity of mistress and maid, a romantic intrigue ensues full of light-hearted conspiracies and feverish emotions.

In this contemporary adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s brilliant, eponymous 17th century play, the enigmatic Alcandre is now a hotel concierge who uses the myriad in-house high-tech security cameras to show worried father Pridamant the whereabouts and travails of his son, Clindor. As Pridamant witnesses the conflicting romances involving his estranged son, Corneille’s modernist meta-narrative is transposed to contemporary Paris, underscoring the ambiguous nature of love, wealth and desire in an age of consumerism. (Chicago International Film Festival)

Tartuffe is a hypocritical impostor who manages to manipulate Orgon, a wealthy widowed bourgeois, by feigning devotion. Orgon ends up offering his daughter Mariane in marriage to Tartuffe, while he disowns his son Damis and intends to donate all his possessions to Tartuffe. Elmire, Orgon's young wife, whom Tartuffe is courting, will attempt to expose him, while the royal family intervenes to prevent the ruin of Orgon's family.

An adaptation of William Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet", staged by Éric Ruf.

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Molière’s birth on 15 January 2022, Ivo van Hove reunited with the Troupe for their third collaboration, a production of Le Tartuffe ou l’Hypocrite, the original version in three acts, banned at its premiere in 1664 and reconstructed thanks to the work of ‘theatrical genetics’ overseen by Georges Forestier and Isabelle Grellet.

Alceste loves Célimène, a flirtatious woman from the Parisian high society. He loathes this world for its hypocritical etiquette but, shaken by a public trial he is called to by this social circle, he must visit Célimène to ask for her help…

M. Jourdain is a cloth merchant who wants to become a gentleman, learning dance, music, fencing and philosophy. Mme Jourdain is worried about Dorante's expenses and prefers her daughter Lucile to marry Cléonte. The two young men's servants use subterfuge to get M. Jourdain to accept Cléonte as son-in-law. They fake the arrival of the Grand Turk's son in Paris, and, in an Oriental ballet, confer upon M. Jourdain the title of Mammamouchi, his daughter marrying the son of the Grand Turk, who is none other than Cléonte in disguise.

In 1965, Bob Dylan recorded "Like a Rolling Stone", one of the greatest songs of all time... A recreation of a show given by the troupe of the Comedie-Francaise from the book of Greil Marcus.