Rose Royal: Romane Bohringer's show at the Studio des Champs Elysées

She walks into a bar with a gun in her bag and a past that weighs heavily... On stage at the Studio des Champs-Élysées, Anne Charrier lends her voice and presence to Rose Royal, a free adaptation of Nicolas Mathieu's short story, from September 12, 2025. Directed by Romane Bohringer, the show features the author's powerful words, embodied in a monologue of silences, suspended gestures and confidences. This theatrical score is based on a sober device, withÉric Caravaca's voice-over, set design by Rozenn Le Gloahec and a staging designed to resonate with the intimacy of the text.

Anne Charrier's solo performance is the fruit of a close collaboration with Romane Bohringer, who describes this adventure as a shared journey, imbued with delicacy and sincerity. Music by Benoît Delacoudre, choreography by Gladys Gambie and lighting by Thibault Vincent complete this deliberately pared-down picture, centered on a direct, sometimes abrupt, often deeply moving female voice.

Rose Royal : le spectacle de Romane Bohringer au Studio des Champs Elysées — ©François Fonty

A woman, a bar, a gun

Rose is fifty years old. She's beautiful, she knows life, and above all, she's not waiting for anything. In her handbag, a revolver. It's her protection, her way of saying she won't let anything happen to her again. In the evenings, she drinks at the Royal, a bar like any other. Then came the shock. A thud in the street. The door opens. A man enters. He's wounded, he can't speak, he's got blood on his shirt. He has beautiful hands. His name is Luc.

This almost cinematic point of departure opens up a tale of banality and tension, where an encounter turns a woman's life upside down. Through Rose, the show evokes an entire generation: those who grew up with the promise of emancipation but came up against the brutality of reality. The text focuses on details, sensations and hesitations, gradually revealing the contours of an intimacy in resistance.

A voice for free, clear-sighted women

Rose Royal will appeal to those who love inner portraits, short, intense narratives where every word counts. The show could appeal to audiences sensitive to feminine themes, issues of emancipation, solitude, desire and survival. Audiences curious about literary theater, where the text takes center stage, will find a sober, concentrated form, almost minimalist in its staging.

On the other hand, this show is not for those looking for spectacular, lavish, dialogue-heavy, character-driven theater. The absence of supporting characters, the introspective rhythm and the economy of scenic means could confuse fans of comedies or choral narratives. Rose Royal feels like a plunge into an embodied, frontal, assertive monologue.

A coherent artistic path

Anne Charrier, who co-adapted the text with Gabor Rassov, is returning to a more intimate style of theater after having navigated between television, film and stage, from Maison Close to Berlin Berlin, via Le Canard à l'orange and En attendant Bojangles. Here, she defends a personal project, matured over time, driven by a strong desire for interpretation. For her, Rose is more than a character: she is the mirror of a generation, of an inner struggle, of a sometimes violent lucidity.

Romane Bohringer, the show's director, is part of an artistic continuity. After exploring film writing with L'Amour Flou, she returns to the theater to accompany a female word she says she wants to convey with " sincerity, simplicity and humanity ". The choice of this short story by Nicolas Mathieu, winner of the 2018 Goncourt Prize for Their Children After Them, is rooted in a theater of the real, where personal stories reflect collective failings.

A woman, a story, a suspended moment

Rose Royal immerses us in the life of a woman on the brink of change, between muted rage and the desire for attachment. In this closed psychological space, everything seems both held together and ready to explode. Nicolas Mathieu's text, faithfully and freely adapted for the stage, becomes the raw material for a theater of words, feelings and intimacy. Carried by a committed performer and an attentive director, the show is like a suspended moment, between lucidity and poetry.

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