Comédie-Française, La, foremost theatre of France, founded in 1680 by Louis XIV, who ordered the fusion of the company at the Hôtel de
Bourgogne with the already amalgamated troupes of
Molière (who had died in 1673) and the Théâtre du
Marais. Also known as Le Théâtre-Français and La Maison de Molière, it was apparently called the Comédie-Française to distinguish it from the Italian company who took over the Hôtel de Bourgogne as the
Comédie-Italienne. At first the new company continued to play in the theatre in the rue Guénégaud, with Mlle
Champmeslé, Armande
Béjart (Molière's widow),
Baron, and the elder
Poisson as its leading members. In 1689 they moved to a new theatre specially built for them in the tennis-court of the Étoile, St Germain-des-Prés, where they remained until 1770. After some years in the
Salle des Machines, at the Tuileries, the company moved in 1781 to a new theatre on the present site of the
Odéon. The Revolution caused a split, the more revolutionary actors headed by
Talma going to the
Palais-Royal renamed the Théâtre de la République, while the others under
Molé remained
in situ in what was renamed the Théâtre de la Nation. The second group soon lost the favour of the public, who considered them ‘aristos’, and in 1799 the company of the Comédie-Française was reconstituted in the theatre occupied by Talma, though in the process it lost the monopoly it had enjoyed for so long.
The organization by Louis XIV of the Comédie-Française, formalized by Napoleon in 1812, resembled that of the medieval
Confrérie de la Passion. The company is a co-operative society in which each actor holds a share or, in the case of younger or less important actors, a half or quarter share. Admission depends on merit, and aspiring players are allowed to choose their own parts in tragedy and comedy for their début. If successful the newcomer is then on probation as a
pensionnaire, drawing a fixed salary. After a time, which may vary from weeks to years, they may be admitted to the company as full members or
sociétaires, taking the place of former members who have died or resigned. On retirement, which is not usually permitted under 20 years' service, the
sociétaires are entitled to a pension for the rest of their life. The oldest actor in years of service is the nominal head of the company and is known as the
doyen (though a director under contract now handles its day-to-day running). Some reorganization took place in 1945 and again in 1959, when the Odéon, till then the second theatre of France and attached to the Comédie-Française, was separated from it under Jean-Louis
Barrault, only to be returned in 1971. In the 1970s and 1980s the company's evolving repertoire included
Brecht, T. S.
Eliot,
Arrabal, and
Genet. Antoine
Vitez was its Director from 1988 until his death in 1990, staging
Beckett's Fin de partie.
