Football legend Cantona plays in Paris stage debut

Eric Cantona, who thrilled thousands of Man Utd fans during the 1990s, makes his theatre debut this week at Theatre Marigny.

Manchester United legend Eric Cantona, in the latest twist in an artistic post-football career, makes his theatre debut this week as a dying man trapped in the rubble of a collapsed supermarket.

The charismatic Frenchman, who thrilled crowds of tens of thousands during his 1990s stint at Man Utd, will act before an audience of just 400 in a move the local press says may become the theatrical event of the year.

The 43-year-old will play a man called Max in a new two-hander play directed by his actress wife Rachida Brakni at the illustrious Theatre Marigny just off the Champs Elysees.

Cantona has had roles in several cinema and television movies, making the jump from green pitch to silver screen as effortlessly as his infamous 1995 leap over the crowd barrier to deliver a kung-fu kick to a heckling fan.

The pinnacle of his film career came last year when he played himself in Ken Loach's critically acclaimed comedy ''Looking for Eric,'' appearing like a vision to mentor a Manchester postman whose life is spiralling out of control.

But he has never performed live to a theatre audience, so Tuesday's premiere of ''Face au Paradis'' (Faced with Paradise) by Nathalie Saugeon, is a gamble.

It is a risk he is taking with typical Cantona panache.

Cantona has never shied away from putting himself in critical danger

- My aim as a kid was to play my part in front of 80,000 people and I did it. So a So a 400-seat theatre... If you don't put yourself in danger, you don't know yourself - he told Le Monde newspaper last week.

Cantona has never shied away from putting himself in critical danger. He ignored the snobbery that initially surrounded his move into acting after he hung up his boots in 1997 at the height of his soccer career.

Paris critics at first looked down on the provincial with a strong Marseille accent -- he is the son of Spanish and Italian immigrants -- who had the gall to think he could excel both on the sports field and in front of a camera.

He was also derided for his love of obscure aphorisms such as: ''When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.''

But he has won over many critics, particularly in the last couple of years with his portrayal of a maverick detective in a pair of movies for French television.

The former France striker's best known film internationally -- before ''Looking for Eric'' -- was his role alongside Cate Blanchett in the 1998 historical film ''Elizabeth.''

Renaissance man -- a painter, a lover of literature and writer

He is even sometimes touted as a Renaissance man -- he is also a painter, a lover of literature, and last month published a book of photographs he took of homeless people.

Cantona also likes to speak his mind on political matters.

In December he stuck his boot into the highly-charged debate on national identity instigated by the rightwing President Nicolas Sarkozy, deriding what he called the ''stupid'' nationalist approaches to the issue.

The producers of ''Face au Paradis'' hope its three-month run will draw in the crowds and boost the Parisian theatrical scene after a disappointing crisis-hit 2009.

Cantona's stage premiere will be matched next month by Audrey Tautou, the star of the global hit ''Amelie,'' who will make her first theatre performance in Ibsen's ''The Doll's House.''

Cantona: ''I am finding again what I used to feel in the stadium.''

The French press has been speculating that Tuesday's premiere will be Cantona's biggest artistic challenge to date, pointing out that the demanding contemporary play is all dialogue and no action.

He said he had a sleepless night last week after a poor rehearsal, but that his performance had since improved dramatically to the point where, he told a newspaper, ''I am finding again what I used to feel in the stadium.''

He sees it as just the first step in a theatrical career which he hopes will one day see him playing Shakespeare's King Lear.

- But I'm still a little young for that - Cantona told Le Journal du Dimanche paper.