The journey made by Eric Cantona from pitch to stage is an unusual one, but the kick he gets out of performing is identical in both arenas, he tells RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC

THE THEATRE is slammed into darkness, and a fiery roar goes up. We hear crumbling walls, shattering glass, twisting metal – the great cacophonous rumble of a building falling in on itself. Dust clouds rise, then stillness reasserts itself and the stage appears in a halogen half-light.

Amid the rubble, we see two human figures lying face down and barely stirring. A glance to the right finds the smaller, blonder, younger-looking of the pair, but all eyes are trained on the man on the left, his tall, thickset, suited frame familiar even before he lifts his bearded face out of the soot.

“Eric,” comes the whisper from a few rows back.

Thirteen years after he retired as one of the most compellingly played characters in modern football and reinvented himself as a screen actor, Eric Cantona was hitting another milestone in the Théâtre Marigny, off the Champs Élysées: his Parisian stage debut.

The theatre world here has been abuzz with talk of the performance for weeks. Advance sales have been strong, and such is the man’s hold on the public that the media build-up has been akin to what might precede a cup final.

What he wanted from the theatre, 43-year-old Cantona said in a recent television interview, was "a relationship, a real excitement, a direct relationship with people", the sort of bond between performer and audience that he hasn't had since he walked down the tunnel at Old Trafford for the last time. But the play he chose, Face au Paradis(Facing Paradise), came laden with risk.

Written by Nathalie Saugeon and directed by Cantona’s wife, Rachida Brakni, a classically trained and highly regarded actor making her directorial debut, the piece is one of the most intense 90 minutes Cantona is ever likely to experience. He plays Max, one of two men who find themselves trapped in the ruins of the supermarket where they work after its unexplained collapse. Rising star Lorànt Deutsch plays the chirpy, optimistic Lubin, a foil for Cantona’s gruff, irascible and darkly brooding (yes, that’s right) character. They’re separated by a wall, so they talk but cannot see one another. Lubin could escape, but to do so would bring the ruins down on Max.

It’s an austere and draining piece, though the script makes few physical demands of Cantona. He stands up briefly a few times, but mostly his badly gashed leg (breathe easy, fanatical reader, it’s only his left) has him lying prostrate amidst the debris.

Cantona's reputation as an actor has been hard-won, and only in recent years – particularly since his successful performance as himself in Ken Loach's Looking for Eric– has he convinced many doubters that he is an actor deserving of respect and admiration. Even so, there are many who would have quite enjoyed seeing the man make a fool of himself at the Théâtre Marigny.

AS IT TURNS out, such hopes are forlorn. He may have a tendency to mumble when delivering lines quickly, the script is a little uneven and critics will say the role of Max requires him to play merely an exaggerated version of Eric himself, but in a tricky role he gives a persuasive, credible performance.

His presence and charisma on stage are just as imposing as they were on the pitch, while the timbre of his voice and the man’s ferocious intensity play well against Deutsch’s skittish, flighty Lubin. It helps that he is bathed in goodwill. Throughout the performance, the audience – a mix of men and women, no Manchester United shirts – were willing him on, and you could feel his relief when the applause kept coming at the end.

Early press reviews of Face au Paradishave been encouraging. Le Figarohas praised Cantona's "intelligence, elegance and subtlety", while Le Nouvel Observateurhomed in on his "marvellous, gravelly voice" and his distinctive "sunny" (and often mocked) Marseille accent, so unusual on the stage that it gave him "a beautiful singularity, an authenticity."

It was that same honesty that struck Jacqueline Bérard, who attended Wednesday’s performance with her husband, Hervé.

“He doesn’t try to change his accent,” she says after the show. “What I like about him is that he doesn’t try to be anything other than himself. He was moving, he was sincere. He acts well. He’s quite funny in real life, and we were expecting he’d make us laugh, but his character would actually make you cry.”

His publicist refused an interview request from The Irish Timeslast week, but when Cantona emerged from the stage door half an hour after Wednesday's performance he was happy to stop and talk. Dressed in jeans and a khaki hoodie, he was relaxed, charming and clearly pleased with his night's work.

“It’s been a great experience,” he says. “But it’s a lot of work, a lot of preparation – a lot of work to get to that point where you can take pleasure in it.”

Between each sentence he leaves a deliberate pause. I used to wonder whether the persona he developed in England – gruff, intense, prone to pithy aphorisms – was partly down to his discomfort with English. But he’s just the same in French. “Confidence is borne out of work, and from confidence comes pleasure.”

He’s keen on pressing the link between football and the theatre: the proximity of the performer and his audience, the high-wire tension, the emotional investment and, ultimately, the elation. As a kid he dreamed of playing before 80,000 people – so what’s a room of 400 once that dream has been fulfilled?

“For me, they’re the same,” he replies. “I was telling you about the work that’s involved – it’s all for the same goal, which is that pleasure, whether you’re on the pitch or on the stage. The process is exactly the same. It’s only the rules of the game that change. It’s a different technique, but the process is exactly the same.”

CANTONA HAS AN interest in photography. Last year he published a collection of photographs of homeless people, the proceeds from which he gave to the Fondation Abbé Pierre charity, and he recently told Le Mondethat he plans one day ("in seven years" actually) to become a war photographer.

He is also a keen painter and has captained and managed France’s beach soccer team. But movies have become his career. Since his retirement from football, he has appeared in 11 films, as well as starring in two TV films and directing a short movie. Has it been difficult to adjust to the stage?

“It’s very different,” he says. “A big difference is that in the theatre you tell a story for an hour and a half without interruption. In the cinema you do a scene, then another one, and then a week later you might do another one. It’s a different way of working, with its own difficulties. In the theatre you don’t stop. It’s every day. Right now we can relax, but tomorrow we have to start all over again and concentrate again. Concentration is very important.”

When I tell him he seems content with himself tonight, he smiles, then mulls it over a little. It’s after 11pm; the cold is making itself felt. He returns to football. “You saw yourself tonight – the reception was good. It’s like a football match. When it goes well, I’m very happy. And the crowd is happy as well.”

And with that, he’s gone. Places to go, myths to renew.