La Voix Humaine

A character, a telephone, and a rollercoaster of emotions. That was all the writer Jean Cocteau needed when he wrote La Voix Humaine. It would become one of the most famous monologues in the world. Performed countless times, the play is still the challenge for many actresses today. Because behind this drama that seems so simple, there is a whole world of thoughts and emotions.

A woman has the most important conversation of her life. Not from person to person, but over the phone. On the other end of the line: her ex-lover. He is soon to marry someone else. The woman calls him for an hour. We do not hear his voice. But as we watch and listen to her, a picture emerges of the relationship they had.

Claire Hordijk plays the heartbreaking role of 'the woman' in this intense, but also comforting production by Eva Lemaire.

Jean Cocteau was a visual artist, poet and filmmaker. His works and ideas were highly influential. La Voix Humaine was first performed in 1930. He wrote it as a reaction to the fact that there were so few major, challenging female roles in the repertoire. The setting was new: a telephone conversation. This monologue is actually a conversation. But we as listeners can fill in the other side of the dialogue ourselves. In this way, Cocteau stimulates our imagination. La Voix Humaine poses questions about human communication at a time when our relationships with others are increasingly determined by technology. Are we really together if our only connection depends on a thin thread? And what does this mean a hundred years later, now that even that thread has disappeared?