ARLETTY, a very busy heart

The scene takes place in 1970. An elegant living room, a hushed atmosphere.

A young man photographs the portrait placed on a chest of drawers of a man in uniform.

The owner arrives. Quickly, he puts away his camera …
It is a journalist who has come to interview Arletty.

Icy welcome. The first questions provoke the fury of the actress who tries to chase away the intruder, who intrudes and skillfully, manages to approach the sensitive subject of the “Letters”.

More than 600 letters that a Nazi officer, Goering’s trusted man in Paris, addressed during the Occupation to the woman who had become his lover.

Love letters written in perfect French, a passionate correspondence, full of poetry and sensuality.
Wanting to know everything about this relationship, the journalist reads some of her letters with her.

She reprimands him, makes fun of his diction, acts very annoyed…
But little by little, the relationship between the two characters evolves, the atmosphere relaxes.

She relives her romantic past, her impulses, her passion.
From disdain, Arletty will move to curious attention, which even becomes tenderness.

Slowly, the haughty and mocking old lady gets closer to the audacious young greenhorn who ends up seducing her.

“I hate you with all my heart”, she exclaims in a Cornelian understatement, like Chimène addressing Rodrigue.

The 2 actors form a brilliant duo who, from funny moments to moving moments, make us live intensely the gradual evolution of their relationship through their subtle and playful acting.

Arletty, a great passionate lover who, at the time of the Occupation, was an actress with a “very – too? – busy heart” … as the author mockingly titles it.

Guilty? Traitor? Let’s not judge again the one who was arrested by the FFI at the Liberation and interned for collaboration, an accusation that many other French artists knew…

Let’s rather remember the beautiful talented actress of Hôtel du Nord, of Le Jour se lève, of Les Enfants du Paradis, the artist with the unique voice, a mocking and rascally Parisian kid, who left her mark on the cinema of the 1930s and 1940s as well as on operetta songs and theater.

And let’s remain moved by a young woman who, in the heart of the war, experienced this love at first sight and this devouring passion that freed itself from all borders.

Author: Jean-Luc Voulfow
Directed by: François Nambot
With: Béatrice Constantini and François Nambot
Lights: Jacques Rouveyrollis
Théâtre des Mathurins until December 28, 2024
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m.

PS. These letters were returned to Arletty by the wife of the German lover around 1960. After the actress’s death, an autograph dealer acquired them, then the famous Swiss collector, Anne-Marie Springer, bought them back and, in 2008, published them in a book entitled “Amoureuse et rebelle”.

© IMPACT EUROPEAN

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Gerard CROSSAY

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