The Romeo of this Juliet was called Victor, and was the most illustrious writer of the Nineteenth century. In 1833, the young actress was going to fall in love for the life of her dear Mr Hugo. The meeting took place at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin for the first of Lucrezia Borgia . He is the author, she plays a small role, the princess Negroni. For nearly half a century, their love will survive all the storms. What’s left of it? 22.000 letters, in which the authors Thierry Sforza and Jean Eve were happily drawn to tell, the time of a piece of an hour and a quarter, entitled simply Juliette Drouet , their immortal romance.

» READ ALSO – The overriding passion of Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo, in his «admirable » Toto»

as We have seen, the «landmark theatre» helps to shed light on the personalities of the arts and sciences. Of the personalities so sacred that their humanity is gradually erased over time. But also discover figures of unknown remained in their shadow, yet complicit, of their influence, the image of the precious scribe Auguste Maquet in Signed Dumas . In recent years, the staging of the story also displays a smart tendency to exhume the female figures a little forgotten. «Behind every great man lies a woman», says the proverb. Juliette Drouet is a little more than that. Love Victor Hugo for fifty years… What a life! What a mission! What a burden also and sometimes!

Victor Hugo, a lover, a difficult

Kareen Claire, our Juliette Drouet of the Twenty-first century, therefore, is a singer and a musician in training. In this original adaptation, it is also a very convincing actress. From the figure cleared and submitted that the Story could keep Juliet, she composed a heroin thrilling and passionate. Because of this eternal love had two faces: Miss Juju and Mrs Drouet, both théâtreuse of great beauty but a talent less secure, a courtesan and mistress of the powerful ; and the muse true of its «Foo».

Juliette will be fighting. Lover kept cloistered in Paris in the garçonnières of her lover (this is the setting shown on stage), it will also be the companion of his exile to Jersey and Guernsey, when the writer will be placed under the ban of the Empire under the reign of the one he called desperately, Napoleon the little. Carefully orchestrated by Cyril Duflot-Perez in a musical comedy for a single-en-scene, supported by the beautiful voice clear and powerful Kareen Claire, the play tells a love story that is spread out in the time that the events hugoliennes. The musical compositions are fed from the song lyric from cabaret, and strung on a torrid pace.

» Book here your tickets for Juliette Drouet at the Studio Hébertot on Ticketac

not Everything was rosy, far from it. Hugo was dark, selfish, and fickle. Juliette had rivals. In the first place, his wife Adele, aware of their liaison, as well as the countless mistresses of the author. We remember this sentence, incredible, launched by the incorrigible seducer of the daughter of Théophile Gautier, Judith, forty years his junior: «We are both neighbours of heaven, Madame, since you are beautiful and since I am old».

It’s regrettable that the music often pompière of musical americans, added to the use of the microphone, which detracts somewhat theatrical art. Kareen Claire is quite charismatic and talented, his sidekick Cyril Duflot-Perez quite a virtuoso, not to have need of these artifices. All the feelings of Juliette Drouet sound infinitely more just when her voice trembles in silence, accompanied by a few notes on the piano. But it is also the hybrid character of this show, which is like no other.

Victor Hugo had the sense of the formula. «If my name live, thy name shall live», take t-he in the last few years. The last letter addressed to Juliet, as she lives on the avenue d ‘ Eylau, was renamed avenue Victor Hugo in the author’s lifetime, is more romantic: «I don’t know where I’ll be next year at this time, but I am very happy and proud of you to sign my certificate of life by this one word: I love you.»

BOOK >

● «Juliette Drouet», in the Studio Hébertot, 78bis Boulevard des Batignolles (Paris, Xviith)
The Monday 21 and Tuesday at 19h. 01.42.93.13.04