Théatre Montansier - Prayer for the living

Entertainment/recreation

Saturday 15 November 2025

20:30 to 21:40

Location : Théâtre Montansier

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Presentation

A woman of the theatre and Louis Jouvet's assistant, Charlotte Delbo thought that if she reached the end of her memory, she would die. She remembered 57 poems and learnt Le Misanthrope by heart so that she could recite it to herself, in its entirety, when she was called up in the morning.

On 24 January 1943, two hundred and thirty women from all regions of France and from all political backgrounds, from all social strata, representing all professions, of mixed ages but dominated by youth, left Compiègne for Auschwitz, on a three-day, three-night train journey in locked cattle cars. Only forty-nine returned.

This one-woman show is a tale of resilience, told with modesty and poetry. A hymn to art as a form of resistance, to friendship as the only hope, to the beauty that can emerge from the worst. Charlotte Delbo chose to express the horror of the Nazis through art, and recounts the years she spent in deportation. A deeply moving testimony, moments at the very edge of life and death, trying to understand how she and some of her comrades found the strength they needed to survive. These women forged boundless solidarity in the midst of hell, and managed to conjure up glimmers of life, wisps of light, from the very heart of death. In their friendship, there is an overwhelming tenderness that is brought to light here.

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