Adriana Asti
Beno�t Jacquot

THE HUMAN VOICE
THE BEAUTIFUL INDIFFERENT

by Jean Cocteau

translation René De Ceccatty

with Mauro Conte

director Beno�t Jacquot

set designer Roberto Platé

costume designer Nicoletta Ercole, Christian Gasc

lighting designer Daniele Nannuzzi, Jacques Rouveyrollis

assistant director Geneviève Dufour

assistant set designer Luisa Paglialunga

assistant light designer Jessica Duclos

assistant to Adriana Asti Chiara Mogavero

costumes made by fbg 22-11 studio de costumes, D’Inzillo Sweet Mode s.r.l., Agnès Dominique Dit Cabannes

scenes created by the laboratory of stagecrafts and painting of the Festival dei 2Mondi di Spoleto

a project by Spoleto56 Festival dei 2Mondi

coproduction Spoleto56 Festival dei 2Mondi, Teatro Metastasio Stabile della Toscana, Mittelfest

After the great success of Happy Days (by Samuel Beckett, directed by Robert Wilson), Adriana Asti, icon of Theater and Cinema, returns to Spoleto with another unforgettable proof of fine acting dedicated to the great French writer Jean Cocteau, with the prestigious French director Beno�t Jacquot, acclaimed author of the film Les Adieux à la reine (Farewell, My Queen) which inaugurated the Berlin International Film Festival 2012.

The Human Voice

In the famous one-act there is a woman, alone in her bedroom, talking on the phone to the man who has just left her for another woman. Clinging to the lover’s feeble voice, the protagonist recounts the parable of the love gone with an intense and dramatic soliloquy.

The Beautiful Indifferent

Written for Edith Piaf, another famous female monologue about the end of a love story; in the silent indifferent presence of a male figure.

"The two pieces follow one another, first The Human Voice, then The Beautiful Indifferent. No interval , just the time to see the change of scene. The actress will descend from the stage, assist the change of furniture from a seat in the front row, as soon as the scene is set, she will return on stage.

In The Human Voice a sloping floor shows the corner of a room. The walls of the theater with their doors, stairs, fire extinguishers can be seen in the darkness. The actress, barefoot, can only go up or down on the floor slope. A bed, a light with a lampshade, an armchair, another light with a lampshade, a telephone with a cord.

Cocteau: "... one bedroom, one character, love, and the commonplace accessory of modern rooms, the phone ... (the author) would like the actress to give the impression of bleeding, loosing blood just like a crippled beast, and then finishing the act in a room full of blood".

In The Beautiful Indifferent the same furniture is placed otherwise, on the same sloping floor, inserting some elements of the scene like doors, windows and keeping the theater walls visible. The play starts at the end of a day and continues into the night illuminated by neon lights from the exterior urban environment.

The two plays, presented one after the other, represent a test for a single actress and express the same complaint of a woman who is alone.

Voilà."

Beno�t Jacquot

Two types of loneliness. The Human Voice, often considered the expression of a female’s passion for an unfaithful male, should be read and then recited with a certain irony. In fact, when Cocteau wrote this monologue in 1930, he was inspired by a personal matter. In love with a young poet, for whom in 1928 he had signed the preface of J´adore, he had transfigured that unhappy love into the woman’s despair on the telephone. One day, the surrealist poet Paul Eluard, who attended the "rehearsals" together with the Russian director Sergej Ejzenstejn, protested loudly: "Enough! Enough! It is Desbordes that she is calling! " Somehow, across the female character, Cocteau had put himself and his own despair on stage. Jean Desbordes died on July 16, 1944, tortured by the Germans and refusing to give the names of his French comrades of the Resistance. He died heroically. But he was not a frivolous man.

Very different The Beautiful Indifferent, written in 1940 for Edith Piaf and her partner of the time, the actor Paul Meurisse (famous for his very detached way of acting, in fact almost indifferent). The style is more slang, less "bourgeois", less compassionate. With a witty and humorous tone. Another voice is heard, which is more brutal and hazy. The man this time is present, but silent. While the former was absent, or at least abstract, on the legendary phone. However, in both cases, the woman is alone. But her solitude is not the same.

René de Ceccatty

Beno�t Jacquot is definitely one of the most refined French film directors.

Since he started working with Marguerite Duras, when towards the mid-sixties he began his career in films, to date, he has shot twenty-three films so both European and American audiences have got to know him.

In Europe, his cinematography is much better known in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe than in Italy, where the news of his successes spreads quickly, such as Farewell My Queen at last year´s Berlin Film Festival.

This theatrical staging is an absolute premiere for him on stage and is dedicated to the great Adriana Asti.

If Beno�t Jacquot does not need any introduction, neither does Adriana Asti, because she is without a doubt one of the greatest Italian actresses.

It would be pure reminiscent rhetoric to get lost in quotes going through the huge number of roles she has masterfully interpreted, but it seems interesting to underline, in addition to the immense talent, the refined intellectuality which belongs to a highly educated Rome, almost dispersed in the past. To that Rome of Natalia Ginzburg, Moravia, Pasolini and Elsa Morante that she constantly met, profoundly assimilating the essence of poetry.

Maybe not everyone knows that Adriana Asti is well known and loved in France, where she has often recited in French and this makes the Asti-Jacquot collaboration exceptionally natural.

And with these two artists, Jean Cocteau’s work will certainly form a perfect triangle. His Human Voice and Beautiful Indifferent will find now more than ever, the desire to talk about our lives with unheard-of intensity and poetic wickedness.

The Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto and the Teatro Metastasio Stabile of Tuscany have joined forces to launch this brand new sparkling production, which after its debut at the Festival will go on a long national and international tour.

Paolo Magelli

Artistic Director Teatro Metastasio Stabile in Tuscany

ADRIANA ASTI

During her theatrical career she has been directed, among others, by Strehler, Visconti, Ronconi, Harold Pinter, Susan Sontag, Alfredo Arias interpreting with recognized mastery great characters of classical and modern theater. She has inspired writers such as Ginzburg, Siciliano, Patroni Griffi , Cesare Musatti and Franca Valeri, who created unforgettable protagonists of our scenes for her. For many years she has also been acting in French language on stages in Paris introducing some of her heroines with great success. She wrote two plays, Caro Professore and Alcool, which ran for more than 200 performances, and two novels published in France, Rue Ferou and Se souvenir et oublie. She has participated in over 60 films directed, among others, by Visconti, De Sica, Pasolini, Bertolucci, Bolognini, Brass, Giordana, Techiné and Bunuel. Her new role as singer has been demonstrated with Stramilano her city in nostalgia music, and Ja das Meer ist blau, poems and songs from Brecht and Weill, shows conceived by her. For her performances she has won the prize Ennio Flaiano, three Maschere d’oro, four Nastri d’argento, the David di Donatello, the Grolla d’oro, the Premio De Sica and the Ciak d’oro. Since 2004, she is Grande Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana. In 2009 Robert Wilson directed her in Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. In 2011 she was awarded the title of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et de Lettres.

MAURO CONTE
Mauro Conte begins his career as a stage actor in 2007. Among his performances: "Mercury Fur" directed by Carlo Emilio Lerici, "ll caso Braibanti", directed by Giuseppe Marini and "L’Uomo della Sabbia" , directed by Luca De Bei. In 2007 he participates in the TV program "Decameron" by Daniele Luttazzi. Since 2010 he has been playing Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet" by Giuseppe Marini, now in its third year of replicas. Also in 2010 he was chosen by the French director André Téchiné as co-star of "Impardonnables" (presented at the Festival de Cannes 2011 - Quinzaine des Realizateurs/Directors’ Fortnight section) alongside André Dussollier, Carole Bouquet and Adriana Asti. In 2010 he was among the winners of the award Oscar dei Giovani. In 2012 he participates in the short film "Fratelli Minori" by Carmen Giardina (with Paolo Sassanelli and Alessio Vassallo) and is in the cast of "I sogni delle ragazze" by Mirca Viola. In 2013 he was chosen once again by André Téchiné to join the cast of "L’homme qui l’on aimait trop", starring Catherine Deneuve.

BENO�T JACQUOT

Beno�t Jacquot’s debut is in 1965 as assistant director. Between 1970 and 1976 he deals with making documentaries and in 1975 directs his first film, inspired by a story by F. Dosto�esvski, L’Assassin musicien. After Les Enfants du placard (1976), he films Les Ailes de la colombe (History of Women, 1981) based on the novel by Henry James, and starring Isabelle Huppert, Dominique Sanda and Michele Placido; then it is the turn of Corps et biens, a thriller adapted from the novel Tendre femelle by James Gunn, and Les Mendiants, based on the novel by Louis-René Desfor�ts (1986). With La Désenchantée (1989), starring Judith Godrèche, he moves away from the professional cinema. La Fille seule (1995), with Virginie Ledoyen, is praised by the international press. Le Septième ciel (1997) with Sandrine Kiberlain and Vincent Lindon is his first great public success. In 1998 he finds Isabelle Huppert again for the adaptation of a novel by Y Mishima, L’école de la chair, presented at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1999, he directs Fabrice Lucchini, Vincent Lindon and Isabelle Huppert in Pas de scandale. A rather prolific period follows, marked by the direction of films in costume: La Fausse suivante by Marivaux, with Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Kikerlain and Mathieu Amalric (2000), Sade (2000) starring Daniel Auteuil, Tosca (2001) with Angela Georghiu and Roberto Alagna and Adolphe (2002) starring Isabelle Adjani and Stanislas Merhar. In 2003, he shoots Princess Marie with Catherine Deneuve and Heinz Bennent, and in 2006 Gaspard le bandit, with Jean Hughes Anglade and Natacha Régnier. The female figure � central in Beno�t Jacquot’s films - is celebrated once again in A tout de suite (2004), in L’intouchable (2006) with Isild Le Besco, in Villa Amalia (2008) with Isabelle Huppert. In 2012 he adapts Les faux-Monnayeurs - from the novel by André Gide for a film starring Melvil Poupaud, and shoots Au fond des bois with Isild Le Besco. His most recent work, which opened the Berlin Film Festival 2012, is Les Adieux à la Reine, from a novel by Chantal Thomas, with Lea Seydoux, Diane Kruger and Virginie Ledoyen. Beno�t Jacquot is also a television writer: he has made documentaries on Jacques Lacan, Alfred Deller, Merce Cunningham, Marguerite Duras. For the small screen he has adapted many plays: Voyage au bout de la nuit by Louis-Ferdinand Celine and L’étonnant voyageur, both interpreted by Fabrice Lucchini, La b�te dans la Jungle based on a novel by Henry James (with Delphine Seyrig, and Sami Frey), Dans la solitude des champs de cotton by Bernard-Marie Koltès, Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée by Alfred de Musset, La Place Royale taken from Pierre Corneille. In the year 2004 he staged Werther de Massenet at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden with Marcelo Alvarez in the title role. The same production was staged at the Opéra Bastille in January 2011, with Jonas Kaufmann in the role of Werther. In 2014 he will stage La Traviata at the Opéra Bastille.

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THE HUMAN VOICETHE BEAUTIFUL INDIFFERENT

THE HUMAN VOICE
THE BEAUTIFUL INDIFFERENT