Usually, we at the Comédie-Française like to say the house is built on three pillars: the Troupe, the Repertoire, and the Alternating Productions. The fourth one, not mentioned in this list, is the Comédie-Française’s raison d’être: the audience. The audience as a shared experience, as a whole making up the house’s diversity. This fourth pillar is fundamental for Éric Ruf, as someone who keeps wondering what on earth it means to lock yourself in a room, sit in the middle of a row you can’t move from surrounded by people you haven’t chosen, and turn off your phone to live an experience for which everyone tacitly agrees this way-too-narrow black box supposedly containing a landscape, castle, or an army at war does exude a deep truth whose accuracy surpasses that of real life. For this session, he and theatre historian Florence Naugrette, the author of Plaisir du spectacteur de théâtre (How the Audience Enjoys the Show), will muse about this odd beast we all make up together.

ONLINEJUNE 12 AT 8:30 P.M.