La Voix Humaine

This year’s Sydney Festival opened in extravagant style. It welcomes the Toneelgroep Amsterdam, under the visionary director Ivo van Hove. We are also privileged to see Halina Reijn’s gripping, bravura performance of Cocteau’s intense monologue (written in 1928 and first performed in 1930) and here performed in a Dutch translation from the French with English subtitles. It has a timeless yet contemporary feel, is seemingly simple, yet searingly emotional and universal.

The setting is an empty flat, with only a phone and a roll of toilet paper, many floors up, with a large sliding window through which we can see. Sterk’s contemporary city soundscape is broadcast partly on iPod that ‘the woman’ hears. Other sounds range from sirens to Beyonce to throbbing beats.

Reijn portrays a deeply suffering “every woman” in a passionate examination of love, loss, courage and despair. It is the last phone call (with annoying technical hitches and interference) between Reijn as The Woman and her unseen, unheard lover, who, after five years of a gloriously happy relationship has left her and is about to marry someone else .

Dark-haired Reijn is extraordinary – pale and luminous, she ranges from a wickedly delicious laugh and giggle to tears and silent screams of heartbreak and despair. For most of the show she pretends to put on a brave, understanding appearance for her lover – or does she? Still recovering from the failed suicide attempt the night before, at one point she is so stressed she throws up again. Her performance is full of fragile yet sustained control. We also learn about their dog who is hiding inside somewhere. Reijn is mostly casually dressed in a cardigan, striped tracksuit pants and a Mickey and Minnie Mouse t-shirt and blue socks. (She also has an exquisite filmy blue gown). At times she darts around the apartment, fleetingly across our field of vision. She paces angrily or perches on the window sill. Sometimes she stands or crouches agonised against the wall (enabling a great use of shadows and other subtle, delicate techniques by Smolder ).

An astonishing and enthralling theatrical tour de force.

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

La Voix Humaine