Le Soulier de Satin

A monumental work of literature, theater and for the public, written from 1918 to 1923, Le Soulier de satin was not premiered until 1943, at the Comédie-Française, by Jean-Louis Barrault, who then made every effort and faced every risk to obtain Claudel's authorization and have it performed in the midst of the German occupation.
This "love drama" in the form of a twenty-year crossing, built in four days, tells the story of Rodrigue and Doña Prouhèze, wife of the governor Don Pélage, in the era of the conquistadors and navigations on more or less known seas. "We tackled this epic with humility and greed," says Éric Ruf, "approaching the poet's secret hidden within these four Journées, or how Claudel inscribes his illicit loves in a liturgy as learned as it is personal." The author's language, with which the director has always worked - its musicality and splendor - seems to him above all extremely concrete. It unfolds in a set design that draws on the historical relationship between theater machinery and the sailing ship, giving pride of place to these words from the preamble to Soulier: "Everything has to look provisional, in progress, slapdash, incoherent, improvised in enthusiasm! With successes, if possible, from time to time, because even in disorder we must avoid monotony. Order is the pleasure of reason: but disorder is the delight of the imagination."