Jean Meyer

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Jean Meyer (born June 11, 1914 in Paris , † January 8, 2003 ) was a French theater director , actor and playwright .

Life

The son of a baker's family wanted to be an actor even as a child. In 1934 he began his training as a student of Louis Jouvet at the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique and after three years became a member of the Comédie-Française . He stayed there for 22 years, from 1937 to December 31, 1959. Jean Meyer played 200 roles, and most of all he appeared in plays by Molière . Meyer became one of the most important directors of the Comédie-Française.

In 1960, Jean Meyer was appointed artistic director of the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris. From 1967 to 1985 he was director of the Théâtre des Célestins in Lyon.

Jean Meyer also worked as a film director ("Der Bürger als Edelmann").

Comédie-Française

From 1937 to 1959, Jean Meyer was at the Comédie-Française. His first major role was Harpagon in The Miser by Molière . Eighteen months after joining, he staged his first play, The Doctor Against Willing Molière, with Fernand Ledoux as Geronte and Pierre Dux as Sganarelle. In the course of his career, Jean Meyer worked with the great French writers of his time: André Gide , Jean Cocteau , François Mauriac , Jules Romains - and with the greatest actors and actresses of the 20th century. He played more than two hundred roles, including more than fifty in works by Molière.

In 1944 he was appointed artistic director of the Center d'art dramatique in Paris.

In 1945, after the end of the war, he staged classics in Germany such as Die Streich des Scapin in Konstanz and Stuttgart . At the request of André Gide, he staged the dungeons of the Vatican with himself and Jeanne Moreau .

In 1955 he became professor at the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique ; one of his first students was Annie Girardot . In his last role at his last performance at the Comédie, he played Arnolphe in The School of Women .

During this time he adapted two theater classics for the cinema: 1958 Der Bürger als Edelmann with Louis Seigner and 1959 The Marriage of Figaro by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais .

Théâtre des Célestins de Lyon

After working at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal and the Théâtre Michel (co-director since 1964), he became director of the Théâtre des Célestins in Lyon in 1967 . Here he staged a. a. Jean Marais in Les Misérables . It was here that Jean Meyer made the acquaintance of the actress Claude Jade , who played Helena in Jean Giraudoux's The Trojan War Does Not Take Place in 1975 at the Théâtre des Célestins . He worked with her in 1977 in Port Royal by Henry de Montherlant and in 1978 in Intermezzo by Jean Giraudoux . With Claude Jade he staged at the Paris Théâtre Marigny Volpone , with her as Colomba and himself as Corbaccio. In 1980 he brought Claude Jade for Britannicus from Jean Racine to Lyon, 1983 for Exiles from James Joyce and finally in 1984 for The Maker of Honoré de Balzac , where he played the Mercadet himself. After this piece, Meyer, now 71, withdrew and switched to writing.

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personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French theater director, actor and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 2003