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LA TRILOGIE DE LA VILLÉGIATURE. By Carlo Goldoni. Translated into French by Myriam Tanant. Directed by Alain Françon. La Comédie-Française, Théâtre Éphémère, Paris. 11 March 2012.
With its main stage theatre, the Salle Richelieu, under renovation, the Comédie-Française has constructed a temporary theatre building dubbed the Théâtre Éphémère, dexterously placed between the arcades of the Galerie d'Orléans next to the Jardin du Palais Royal. Carlo Goldoni's rarely produced Holiday Trilogy was its inaugural production. Despite its simplicity, the "ephemeral" theatre is a very impressive architectural accomplishment, as time-lapsed video of its delicate construction attests. Costing nearly euro3 million (much of which is to be recouped when the building is dismantled and resold) and taking almost four months to construct, the structure's design and decoration revels in its temporary purpose, but nonetheless allows the troupe to continue its usual repertory schedule. Fabricated from cross-laminated solid timber, the exterior is adorned simply with a red neon sign, bright red doors, and vertically striped canopies that echo Daniel Buren's once-controversial columns in the courtyard of the Palais Royal. If for nothing else, the siting of the temporary theatre provides an occasion to reconsider the nature of public art that Buren's recently renovated work, Les Deux Plateaux (1986), represents. When first installed, Buren's work incited a rigorous debate about the aesthetics of contemporary art situated in historic sites, just as I. M. Pei's more famous pyramid later prompted at the Louvre just across the street. In theatrical terms, this same problematic has been the realm of the Comédie-Française almost since its inception, and certainly since the time it permanently arrived at the Salle Richelieu in 1799 (several years after Goldoni's death in Paris).
Unlike the traditional, more intimate seating arrangement of the Richelieu, with its salle à l'italienne, the interior of the Théâtre...