Pitoëff, Georges

Pitoëff, Georges (1887–1939), Russian-born French actor, who for two years directed his own amateur company in St Petersburg, where he was in contact with Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. From 1915 to 1921 he lived in Geneva, and then settled in Paris. With his wife Ludmilla (1896–1951), an excellent actress, he appeared in several theatres, including that of Copeau, until in 1924 he took a company to the Théâtre des Arts (now the Hébertot) and from there to the Mathurins, where much of his best work was done. With very little money, but a great deal of ingenuity and hard work, he attempted to enliven the French theatre, which he considered to lack both ideas and imagination, by bringing forward the best work of foreign dramatists, as well as such innovatory French writers as Claudel, Cocteau, and Anouilh. The value of his work lay not only in the plays but in the subtle and entirely personal interpretations he gave, often centred on some brilliantly simple piece of scenography or decorative technique. He was himself an excellent actor, and a complete man of the theatre, adapting, translating, directing, and acting at one and the same time. After his death his wife took the company on an extended tour of North America, her finest parts being Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, Marthe in Claudel's L'Échange, and the Hostess in Goldoni's La locandiera. In London in 1930 she played to perfection Shaw's St Joan in French, together with the younger Dumas's La Dame aux camélias.

Their son Sacha (1920–90) was an actor and director who continued his father's search for new authors. As an actor he conveyed a strange, fierce spirituality and was at his best in self-contained, solitary roles.