Hosted by actor and star director Alexis Michalik, the 34th Molières ceremony particularly distinguished the Comédie-Française. Four awards, including three for Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, were awarded to him, on the public theater side: best actor for Christian Hecq, best show and best staging. The venerable institution was also rewarded for Frozen, the Forgotten History, directed by Johanna Boyé.
Behind Molière’s comedy stands “the golden couple” of the French scene: member Christian Hecq and director and visual artist Valérie Lesort, who have already received several Molières in recent years thanks to shows for all audiences acclaimed for their inventiveness (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Gulliver’s Voyage).
Still in the audience, Sara Giraudeau was crowned best actress against Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Carré, and Catherine Hiegel, for her performance in Le syndrome de l’oiseau, inspired by the Natascha Kampusch affair.
On the private side, the play Forget me by Matthew Saeger, a nugget created at the Avignon “off” Festival in 2022, with a modest budget, won three Molières: best private show, best actor for Thierry Lopez and best actress for Marie-Julie Baup. This is a moving melodrama about a couple’s turmoil due to Alzheimer’s disease.
Alexis Michalak for a more dynamic image
Among the other winners of the evening, the new version of the cult show Starmania won two Molières (best musical show, visual and sound creation), a consecration for Thomas Jolly, director who will be at the helm of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. He received one of the prizes alongside the co-creator of the original show, Luc Plamondon, very moved.
Master of ceremonies, the director Alexis Michalik, who has won several Molières in his career, tried to give a more dynamic image to this evening, opening the ball with a song he performed himself, escorted by a group of comedians, in the style of the musical.
In particular, a succession of jokes followed (“the planet is not like the Minister of Culture that you can change every two years”, launched an actress claiming to be an eco-warrior), sketches (a Molière “broken” replaced by a Caesar), a drag performance, a tribute to theater legend Peter Brook or another to African American music by the singers of the musical Black Legends.
Minister Rima Abdul Malak takes the microphone
Before the start of the ceremony, a few dozen demonstrators gathered in front of the Théâtre de Paris, where the evening was taking place, to protest against the pension reform. The CGT-spectacle had notably called for a “welcome committee” to be reserved for the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak.
During the ceremony, two artists challenged her on stage about the pension reform. “Actors are not dogs, said [French actor] Gérard Philipe, to denounce the precariousness in our careers,” said actress Toufan Manoutcheri. “All alone, in his good ultraliberal logic, from the top of his ivory tower, he decided to postpone the retirement age to 64,” she added, referring to the president of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron. The two artists then addressed the minister present in the room: “When are you going to decide to come out of your silence? Since January 13, you have not answered the questions posed by our unions on the consequences of this reform for our intermittent workers. They then left the stage saying “Long live the casseroles!” »
Seconds later, something extremely rare at a ceremony like this, Rima Abdul Malak stood up and took a microphone to defend her record. “Usually the role of the minister is to sit around and say nothing. But, there, it is not possible,” she said. “This sentence by Gérard Philipe, it dates from 1957. There was not even a ministry of culture at the time”, she added. The ministry was created two years later. “Today, there is a Ministry of Culture which loudly defends the French cultural exception, which defends the system of intermittence which is a source of pride for our country. You have a ministry that provided massive aid during the [health] crisis to support you all,” hammered the minister, who also mentioned aid released in the current inflationary context. She also accused the unions of having decided to cancel two meetings with her themselves, including one scheduled for April 27. “There is still time to change your mind, my door is open,” she concluded. Both the two artists and the minister were applauded by the audience.
The ceremony was also marked by French-Iranian playwright Aïda Asgharzadeh’s tribute to the “revolution in Iran”, enjoining the room to dance briefly in support of five women detained for having danced in “crop top” and whose video – which went viral on TikTok – was broadcast on a giant screen. Aïda Asgharzadeh was awarded the prize for the best living French-speaking author for her play The Persian Dolls, which is freely inspired by the story of her parents, who were politically committed against the Shah before they fled the country with the establishment of the Islamic regime.
