It is the story of a love drama, that of a young bourgeois, Armand Duval, captivated by the beauty of Marguerite Gautier, a courtesan. It is a story haunted by what was, what might have been.

In this ambiguous space between truth and lies, reality and illusion, Arthur Nauzyciel wanted to stage La Dame aux Camélias without pathos, even with harshness, to bring out dimensions that are sometimes hidden: the place of money in the relationships of oppression and submission between men and women; the trivial dimension of the dialogue behind a flowery and romantic language; how a social class, the bourgeoisie of the time (the Second Empire), conceived this infernal machine for its own entertainment, the commodification of the body and at the same time its moralization.

In this work, we find Dumas fils, with his family novel, alternately defender of lost girls and defender of the dissolution of morals. Through the sensual and poetic force of his stage writing, Arthur Nauzyciel thus opens up spaces to give voice to the absent, body to the disappeared.

Official photos: Philippe Chancel

Production (performance): Théâtre National de Bretagne
Coproduction: Les Gémeaux – Scène nationale de Sceaux, Théâtre National de Strasbourg, les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Comédie de Reims, Le Parvis scène nationale Tarbes Pyrénées
Coproduction (movie): Elzévir Films, Théâtre National de Bretagne
Director: Corentin Leconte
Acknowledgements: The statue presented on the stage is inspired by Herman Makkink’s Rocking Machine with kind permission of Julia Blackburn.

The screening is presented in cooperation with the French Institute in Prague.