Awards ceremonies are like retirement speeches. We don’t seem to be able to do without it when, most of the time, boredom is the guest of honor and satisfaction is only born when it comes to the end. Fortunately, there are exceptions to the rule. This was, unfortunately, not the case on Monday May 6, of the 35th evening of Molières, broadcast on France 2 from the Folies Bergère in Paris.
Of course, handing out 19 trophies is no easy feat and, even if the time allocated to the thank-you speeches of the lucky winners was theoretically limited to one minute, the viewer will still have spent more than two hours in front of their small screen. The comedian Caroline Vigneaux, mistress of ceremonies, had the mission of injecting energy into the program but her gags lacked originality and momentum, poorly enhanced by attractions reminiscent of the cabaret of yesteryear, minus the charm . Is it being grumpy to be surprised that the dressing of an evening dedicated to the theater, the actors, the texts and the magic of the stage, is so uninspired and so uncreative?
Political messages and women’s causes
Obviously, priority was given to political and social messages, Minister Rachida Dati having been, on several occasions but very correctly, questioned about the 204 million euros “slashed” from the culture budget or the need to guarantee the intermittent regime. Even more, it is the fight against violence against women and, more generally, the feminist cause which will have served as the common thread of the ceremony. Its project manager, Jean-Marc Dumontet, insisted on “the French cultural exception that we really need in our fragmented societies”, recalling the importance of freedom of creation and expression, these pillars of theater. Earlier in the evening, Sophia Aram received the Molière for comedy show for The World After and castigated, amid applause, the silence of cultural circles following the massacres perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Political again, the Molière of private theater handed over to 4,211km by Aïla Navidi on the exile of an Iranian family following the 1979 revolution, a show which also earned the female breakthrough trophy for Olivia Pavlou-Graham. Aïla Navidi recalled with emotional indignation the fate of Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, sentenced to death by the regime of his country… On the public theater side, two Molières – best show and best director for Louis Arene – returned to 40° below zeroa multidisciplinary, squeaky and insolent proposal from the Munstrum Théâtre company, based on two plays by the Argentinian Copi.
Glory to the actors
Loyal theatergoers will be happy that actress Cristiana Reali, nominated seven times in recent years, will finally obtain the statuette for private theater for A Streetcar Named Desirewhile her colleague Vanessa Cailhol, despite being an “outsider” against Emmanuelle Bercot, Laetitia Casta and Marina Hands, was crowned, on the public theater side, for Zucchini. Among the men, Micha Lescot won the Molière for best actor in a public theater show for his incarnation of Richard II of Shakespeare, and Vincent Dedienne that of the private theater for the delectable Italian straw hat de Labiche, which the actor presented as “the best time of (her) professional life “… Please note that the show will be broadcast on May 10 at 9 p.m. on France 5 and on france.tv.
Eclectic, the list also highlighted Snowthe show by the very gifted Pauline Bureau which revisits the well-known tale of Snow White – Molière young audience and Molière of visual and sound creation –, as well as one of the great successes of the season, Dead Poets Society. Its director Olivier Solivérès and one of his young actors, Ethan Oliel, left with a statuette.
Every ceremony includes its sequence of tribute to the deceased, evoked by a sober gallery of portraits projected at the back of the stage, but also an honorary reward addressed to a great figure in the profession. Francis Huster will have received his from the hands of Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, both giving a well-organized speech. Where the spectator suddenly found himself immersed in the friendly and civilized atmosphere of the “theatrical evenings” of yesteryear.
