Jean Cocteau

The Human Voice

Photo: Jan Versweyveld

Toneelgroep Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

Original title La voix humaine

Première
12. 2. 2009 Monty, Antwerpen (BE)

Running time 1 hour 10 minutes. No interval.

Translators Halina Reijn, Peter van Kraaij
Director Ivo van Hove
Dramaturg Peter van Kraaij
Set and Light designer Jan Versweyveld

Performer
Halina Reijn

In Jean Cocteau’s play The Human Voice a lone actress talks on the phone to a lover she has just broken up with. She keeps getting interrupted by a bad connection – the piece was written in 1930, but anybody who has ever experienced a lost signal will empathise. For about an hour, the unnamed woman goes through emotional storm as she addresses the man who left her, and herself. It is uncommonly, uncomfortably voyeuristic, even for theatre. Ivo van Hove drives the point home by placing his performer, Halina Reijn, in a small boxlike room and behind a big glass window, through which the audience scrutinises her. It feels as if she is imprisoned in her own apartment, and at times she paces her limited space like a caged animal.