at the Mikro Horn Theater
Loukia Michalopoulou reunites with Nikorestis Haniotakis in a very special new collaboration, following the huge success of the play “Gida, or Who Is Sylvia?”
This time, the two of them bring to life Jean Cocteau ’s great monologue,“The Human Voice.”
The winner of the Merkouri Theater Award (2011) will take on an iconic role previously portrayed by some of the world’s greatest actresses, such as Simone Signoret, Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Julia Michénes, Denise Divall, Renata Scotto, and others.
Case
The heroine of the play is a young woman talking on the phone with her lover, who is leaving her to marry someone else. Consumed by thoughts of death, she experiences the pain of love, which, though once a source of life, has turned into a devastating emotion.
“TheHuman Voice”is a one-act play written in 1928 by Jean Cocteau and first performed two years later at the famous Comédie-Française by Berthe Bovy.
In Greece, it was one of Elli Lambeti’s greatest theatrical successes in 1978, along with two other one-act plays by the same author, “The Liar” and “I Lost Her,” translated by Marios Ploritis, in which, as they say, the great leading lady gave the best performance of her life!
“The Human Voice”has inspired Francis Poulenc’s opera, *La voix humaine* (1958), Gian Carlo Menotti’s *The Telephone*, and Roberto Rossellini’s film starring Anna Magnani, *L’Amore* (1948). Pedro Almodóvar ’s film *Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown* is also inspired by this work.
The writer Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau was a poet, novelist, playwright, painter, and film director. Manos Hadjidakis described him as “a diabolical acrobat of art.” He was a larger-than-life figure—a narcissist, a dandy, ambitious, solitary, and possessed of a sparkling wit. His work remains relevant today as it explores timeless existential anxieties, the fear of death, and redemption from one’s passions.
“TheHuman Voice”is also a prophetic work because in it Jean Cocteau has managed to perfectly capture the relationship between the individual and the telephone, the means of communication that would define a new way of life decades later.
In this iconic monologue, a woman passionately struggles for the person she loves; she pretends, laughs, and cries all at once, while being both timid and bold. The play is imbued with feelings of abandonment, betrayal, adoration, and passion, as well as rejection and the hopelessness of relationships. Timeless, unchanging emotions.
