The Heartache
Vincent and Julie have recently lost their father.
Julie has lived in Paris since she was 18. Today she is 30.
Vincent never left his home village. He took care of his father during his illness and found a job at Gamm Vert, a garden store, in a nearby village.
Brother and sister meet 3 days after their father’s death.
Text Caroline Guiela Nguyen with the whole artistic team
Direction Caroline Guiela Nguyen
With Dan Artus, Caroline Cano, Chloé Catrin, Mehdi Limam, Violette Garo
Scenography Alice Duchange
Costumes Benjamin Moreau
Sound design Antoine Richard
Collaboration in musical composition Teddy Gauliat-Pitois
Light design Jérémie Papin
Video Quentin Dumay
Dramaturgy Mariette Navarro
Artistic collaboration Claire Calvi
Artistic follow-up Julien Fisera
Stage manager Serge Ugolini
Light manager Corentin Schricke
Dresser Barbara Mornet
Costumes makerDominique Fournier and Barbara Mornet
Construction of the decor Les Constructeurs (chef constructeur Gabriel Burnod, serrurier Gilles Petit, menuisier Denis Collas, peintre Stéphane Boucherat)
Production Les Hommes Approximatifs ; La Comédie de Valence, CDN Drôme-Ardèche
Coproduction Centre dramatique régional de Tours – Théâtre Olympia ; La Colline – théâtre national ; La Comédie de Béthune, CDN Nord-Pas-de-Calais ; Théâtre de la Coupe d’Or, scène conventionnée de Rochefort.
With the support of DRAC Rhône-Alpes, ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, du Conseil général de la Drôme, de la Ville de
Valence, du collectif 360 et des Subsistances, Lyon.
Le Chagrin (The Heartache) premiered at the Comédie de Valence Theatre on 31 March, 2015, then was presented at the Théâtre Olympia at Tours from 21 to 24 April and in Paris at the La Colline Theatre from 6 May to 6 June 2015.During the 2015-2016 season the show was on tour and given 68 performances.
When I was a child there was a lake next to where we lived, the lake of Sainte-Croix. We knew that it was an artifical lake and that there used to be a village on the spot that was now covered in water. It was the village of Sainte-Croix, a submerged village. People said that during the full moon you could make out the tip of the church steeple emerging from the water. I liked to bathe there with my cousins. I would dive in without giving it a second thought. As I grew older I started to feel more afraid. It was completely irrational, the fear that something would come back, that the dead would rise to the surface of the water, though it never looked anything other than calm and peaceful.
Caroline Guiela Nguyen
It’s comforting to know that our love will not diminish, that we will never be consoled, that we will remember more and more
Marcel Proust in a letter to Georges de Lauris