The actress revealed Ten percent brings a modern and fiery interpretation to Zweig’s famous heroine. A story that echoes a very personal episode.
He has the righteousness of an elf from Middle-earth. But the arrow she’s about to fire is a simple letter sent by the “unknown” to the man she’s loved all her life in complete secrecy. Alone on the Champs-Élysées Stage (1) Ophelia Kolb tells, plays, lives Stefan Zweig’s famous story, published in 1922. For twenty hours, the actress tells about this stranger, whose will. you never know the name. Our heroine says she was born on the 13th, the day the successful writer came to take up residence in her small building in Vienna at the turn of the century. After this youthful love at first sight, he will never stop living only for her, fueled by this one-sided love. A life she would organize in anticipation of meeting this man without ever openly declaring herself. There will be two meetings without a future, even a son will be born from the passing night shared “with him”.
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Viennese Tourbillon
But it wasn’t until he was dying that he decided to take up the pen in this posthumous letter. “If you get hold of it, you will know that it is a dead woman who is telling you about her life, about her life, which was yours from the first to the last hours,” he writes feverishly. One hundred years after its first publication, Ophelia Kolb revealed in the series Ten percentAs the girlfriend of the character played by Camille Cotin, she embodies this character of burning passion with sometimes incredible strength, sometimes with disturbing fragility, but always with boundless grace. If we know him mainly from his appearances on TV and in movies (he will be soon The river By Anne Le Nye, alongside André Dussolier, Ophelia Kolb built part of her career in the theater; In 2019, she won the Moliere Award for Best Supporting Actress. The Glass Menagerie. Here he holds his audience by a wire and leads them into the maelstrom of a Viennese waltz, where sparkles of joy illuminate this singular destiny. His modern interpretation of the text gives a new framework to the character, who is no longer passive, but the actor of his own destiny. Thus, Ophelia Kolb accepts the words of Zweig, who once wrote to a friend: Isn’t that exactly what our stranger does? Answers from an actress in total control.
Madame Figaro: Zweig’s text was published in 1922. Don’t you feel anachronistic about this “crazy” love story compared to our times?
Ophelia Kolb. The vision of a male-female relationship is definitely dated, but this deep connection that the heroine expresses is universal. It is a timeless story, a love story. The story of someone who got lost in something or someone will always exist; it could be a cause, a job, we all have this ability to lose ourselves to someone or something. It talks about love, but also about sacrifice. And the need for recognition.
Today we would try to look for the psychological sources of this obsessive personality…
The audience talks to me a lot about madness, really. But for me this love gave meaning to his life; Without this passion she could lead a bleak life… And there’s also this child she had after this man’s night with her. Raising him gives a reason to get up in the morning, gives hope.
This love gave meaning to his life, without this passion he could lead a gloomy life.
Ophelia Kolb
Doesn’t she feel anger towards this man?
He sees only goodness in this man who earns his living, who goes out, who is free, without having a plan to build a family. Above all, he wants to be recognized by her. It is possible that its pathology lies. she expects everything from him. At first I played more anger, but I developed it into more self-deprecation. I laugh on stage to make him laugh at himself. He does not see himself as a victim. It’s beautiful what she does for a living.
Is there no such thing? belief In his place?
Completely! I don’t have a religious education, I don’t know that well, but I thought about it during rehearsals. The character gives itself to this man as others will give themselves to God. She follows a very specific life path to please him and remain available like rituals.
When I was 15, I was madly in love with a boy in high school. Like him, I was watching him on the stairs
Ophelia Kolb
Why doesn’t he confess this love to her?
He is probably afraid to face reality, to discover who he really is, to be disappointed… It happened to me when I was young, 15 years old; I’ve been madly in love with a guy since high school, he never noticed. me Like him, I followed him on the steps of his parents’ house, I saw the lights of the apartment at night. And I was afraid of being disappointed that he was an idiot; we prefer to live in a myth.
The public as a partner in the game
The narrator has no name. Did you imagine he would build the character?
During rehearsals, I couldn’t think of a name, I didn’t miss it. And then one day I told myself that her name was Constance; I don’t really know why, but it is true that he is constant in his feelings, in his passion. But today I have mastered her so much that her name is Ophelia Kolb.
This is your first “alone on stage”, what are your impressions?
When I started, I was scared of being alone on stage with no one to lean on and talk to before the show. But actually I play with the public, it becomes my playing partner, and so depending on the public, how I treat the room, I change my intonations. I can speak calmly, be more intimate. I have a lot of fun, it avoids monotony.
(1) A letter from a stranger By Stefan Zweig. Adapted and directed by Bertrand Marcos, with Ophelia Kolb. Until December 30 on the Champs-Élysées, Wednesday to Saturday at 9pm, Sunday at 4pm, closed on November 30 and December 24 and 25. From December 1: Thursday to Saturday at 8:00 p.m., Sunday at 4:00 p.m.
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Source: Le Figaro
