French comedy by Bertrand Usclat and Martin Darondeau about the chaos before the opening night of Shakespeare's Macbeth at the Comédie-Française.
Comedie Française comes to the Stephen Joseph Theatre on Wednesday 11 November, a comedy written by Bertrand Usclat and Martin Darondeau. It's a love letter to the theatre, and it gets its title from the Comédie-Française, the oldest active theatre company in the world, based in Paris.
The play takes place during the three hours leading up to the opening night of Shakespeare's Macbeth at that very theatre. If you've ever seen a show, you know that the time just before the curtain goes up is usually when everything starts to go wrong. That's exactly where this story lives: in the chaos, the panic and the frantic energy of a company trying to get a production across the line while the clock ticks down. It's a look at the side of the theatre that the audience never sees, the scramble behind the scenes that happens before the house lights go down.
Because it's set in the Comédie-Française, there's a bit of a double layer to it. You've got the pressure of opening Macbeth — a play famously plagued by bad luck and superstition — and you've got the weight of the venue itself, one of the most prestigious stages in France. The comedy comes from that gap between the high-culture prestige of the institution and the sheer, unvarnished mess of the people working inside it. It's a play for anyone who loves the theatre, whether you're a regular or you just enjoy watching things fall apart.
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It's at the Stephen Joseph Theatre on Westborough, Scarborough, YO11 1JW, on Wednesday 11 November. If you're around that week, it's a good one to keep on the radar.
