Abd'Elkader Farrah
Abd’Elkader Farrah was a self-taught painter who later became a theatre designer of international standing. Farrah taught theatre design at Strasbourg and, as guest, at the National Theatre School of Canada. In over three decades as designer, Farrah worked with some thirty directors on more than 250 productions, including designs for plays, operas, ballets and musicals around the world. After his death in 2005, Tom Fleming of the Scotsman called him "the most complete man of the theatre it has been my privilege to know".
Biography
Farrah was born in Ksar al-Boukhari, Algeria on 28 March 1926, the second of three sons born to Brahim Farrah and Fatima-Zohra Missoumi. He ran a touring theatre company with his brothers, which performed across Algeria until it was censored and forced to close in 1950. As the political security in Algeria deteriorated, Farrah moved to Paris. He worked as a theatre designer, and taught the subject at the invitation of Michel Saint Denis at the École d’Art Dramatique in Strasbourg in the 1950s. In 1955 Farrah was made head of the theatrical design course at the National Theatre School of Strasbourg. It was during this period that he married Simone Pieret, with whom he had two children, Safi and Leila.In 1960, still working with Michel Saint Denis, Farrah designed Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex at Sadler’s Wells, London. The production caught the attention of Peter Hall, who invited him to join the company he was in the process of setting up – the Royal Shakespeare Company. Farrah was closely associated with the Royal Shakespeare Company from that point onwards as Associate Designer, working with directors such as Peter Brook, Terry Hands and Clifford Williams. A number of other world-class designers joined Farrah at the RSC, with one such designer John Napier commenting that "Abdel’s the wisest of us all".
Farrah continued to work closely with the RSC until his departure in 1991, and between 1994 and 2000 was a visiting lecturer on the European Scenography Centre’s Masters programme at London’s Central Saint Martins. Farrah died on 18 December 2005.