✭✭✭✭✩

by Victor Hugo, directed by Brigitte Jaques-Wajeman

Comédie Française, Salle Richelieu

November 17, 2001-May 8, 2002

There are celebrations all throughout the 2001-02 season in honour of the 100th anniversary of Victor Hugo's birth.  For its part the Comédie Française is bringing back Hugo's 1838 tragedy RUY BLAS in a new production (seen January 25, 2002).  Director Brigitte Jaques-Wajeman fully admits in the programme notes that the main flaw of all of Hugo's plays is their lack of verisimilitude.  Yet, it is also true that he created meaty roles made famous by generations of French actors.  How  then can these be made available for younger generations?  Her answer is to turn their "invraisemblance" to an advantage, to approach them as dreams, consistent by their connection of images rather than by the logic of plot.

RUY BLAS, considered along with "Ernani" as Hugo's greatest play, is set in 17th-century Spain after it has already lost control of the seas to England and Holland.  The Queen of Spain, Maria of Neuburg (Rachilda Brakni), has just banished Don Salluste (Jean-Baptiste Malartre) from the country for not marrying one of her ladies-in-waiting whom he seduced.  Don Salluste plans to revenge himself on the Queen via his cousin the vagabond Don César (Denis Podalydès), but when Don César refuses to take revenge on a woman, Don Salluste contrives a scheme to present his own valet, Ruy Blas (Éric Ruf), to the court as Don César.  Knowing that Ruy Blas loves the Queen, Don Salluste seeks to compromise her honour and make her resign the throne.

Jaques-Wajeman's strategy is to underscore the poetry and imagery of the play while progressively undermining the naturalism of its presentation.  The primary imagery emphasizes how "fantaisie" can overcome all boundaries.  Consequently, all doors in Ezio Toffolutti's set are flush with the walls so that the characters are constantly appearing and disappearing not just through walls, but the floor, ceiling and even through the fourth wall into the audience.  The imagery depicts the palace as a prison, so accordingly the ceiling that looms above the floor gradually lowers as Ruy Blas and the Queen are caught in Don Salluste's trap.  As the play's plot becomes less plausible, Jaques-Wajeman calls increasing attention to the the artifice of the theatre.  In Don César's famous Act IV drinking bout, she has him push the ceiling back into place and interact directly with the audience.  The other actors, however, remain strictly in character and it is the intensity of their performances that propel us through the story even as Jaques-Wajeman shows us its artifice. 

It is a daring approach to a play considered a classic.  It succeeds because it parallels Hugo's own breaking of the rules of meter, language and character within the play.  It also helps that the actors of all the major roles give outstanding performances.  Even the lesser roles are well taken with Catherine Ferran giving a vivid portrait of the repressive Duenna in charge of the Queen and Michel Robin as the aged courtier in love with the Queen, the comic counterpart to Ruy Blas.  This is a rare example where a director's deconstructive approach actually gives one a greater appreciation of the play's virtues.  It was received with thunderous applause.  RUY BLAS runs in repertory at the Salle Richelieu of the Comédie Française until May 2002. 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in TheatreWorld (UK) 2002-02-03.

Photo: Jean-Baptiste Malartre and Denis Podalydès. ©2002 Jean-Paul Lozouet.