Director and set designer Éric RUF from the Comédie-Française was the guest at ESRA's Jeudis de l'ESRA on October 22. The play Romeo and Juliet, directed by Eric RUF, was screened for the students prior to the meeting.
After training at the École nationale supérieure des Arts appliqués et des Métiers d'arts Olivier de Serres and the Conservatoire national supérieur d'Art dramatique, Éric RUF joined the Comédie-Française on September 1, 1993, becoming its 498th member on January 1, 1998, and honorary member on December 24, 2014. He has been General Administrator of the Comédie-Française since August 2014.
The Comédie-Française's mission is to make the great classics seem like fundamental works, with meanings that always touch and move us. Shakespeare, Racine, Molière and Victor Hugo remain modern in the ideas they convey.
Eric RUF from the Comédie-Française talked to students about his work as a set designer and stage director. The role of a set designer is to imagine the space that will convey feelings and emotions to the audience. In concrete terms, he creates a model of the set, then goes to a workshop to monitor its construction and ensure its technical delivery. He or she is also present when the set is assembled. The set designer works in collaboration with the costume designer. For the play Romeo and Juliet Éric RUF of the Comédie-Française was interested in the subject of revenge, as Juliette is ultimately the driving force behind the play's action. What's more, through the costumes and roles he wanted to crush the social hierarchies of the time, which no longer speak much to today's audience. As for the director, he or she may have to make cuts and changes to the text to emphasize certain scenes or dialogues. They oversee the entire production of the play.
Éric RUF from the Comédie-Française also spoke to the students about directing and filming plays. When cinema enters the theater, the camera can multiply meaning. The filming must show important moments, and the framing must be chosen with the spectator in mind. As for the link between cinema and theater, these are two very close parallel lines that are always looking for each other, sometimes complementing each other, but never crossing.
