La chair est triste hélas at the Théâtre de l'Atelier with Anna Mouglalis - our review

The new theatrical season in Paris is shaping up to be a busy one. Among the events not to be missed is " La chair est triste hélas ". This play, written and directed by Ovidie, runs from September 9 to October 25, 2025 at the Théâtre de l'Atelier in Paris.

" La chair est triste hélas " is a cathartic text by Ovidie, published in 2023 by Éditions Julliard (edited by Vanessa Springora). Both author and director of fiction and documentaries, Ovidie is also a Doctor of Letters and Film Studies, specializing in questions of the body, feminism(s) and sexuality(ies). In " La chair est triste hélas ", Ovidie explains the reasons behind her sex strike. Described as a text " at the crossroads of feminist pamphlet and sociological study ", revealing incisive prose, " La chair est triste hélas " takes to the stage at the Théâtre de l'Atelier this autumn.

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Ovidie chose to call on actress Anna Mouglalis to bring this committed text to life in this new one-woman show. The young actress first came to public attention in 2000, in Claude Chabrol's"Merci pour le chocolat". Since then, Anna Mouglalis has played a series of roles:"La vie nouvelle" (2002) by Philippe Grandrieux,"Novo" by Jean-Pierre Limosin,"Dans la compagnie des hommes" (2003) by Arnaud Desplechin,"En attendant le déluge" (2004) by Damien Odoul, and later"Coco Chanel et Igor Stravinsky" (2009) and"Gainsbourg, vie héroïque" (2010).

This autumn, Anna Mouglalis returns to the Théâtre de l'Atelier. A Parisian theater she knows well. In 2019, she played alongside Julie Brochen in August Strindberg's"Mademoiselle Julie". Then, in 2022, she took part in Mona Chollet's"Sorcières". This summer, Anna Mouglalis took on a new genre as part of the 100% all-female Draga collective, and caused a real sensation at the Cité de la Musique in"Ô Guérillères".

Our review:

Heterosexuals, if you're going to see this one-woman show, get ready, because you're in for a real treat! For 1h10, Anna Mouglalis powerfully conveysOvidie 's sometimes cruel, sometimes mocking words, as well as feminist thoughts and societal and sociological reflections in " La chair est triste hélas ". Here, the subject is sexuality, and more specifically heterosexuality. " I say it loud and clear, there's nothing gratuitous about heterosexuality, it's a purely venal system, and since the world began, women have been exchanging sex for something. Material goods, security, love, self-esteem. They never fuck totally for free, and for one simple reason: straight men fuck badly ".

In this corrosive monologue, with its sometimes crude details, Ovidie recounts the reasons why she embarked on this sex strike and decided to renounce heterosexuality. " Stopping sex with men isn't just about stopping coitus, it's about stopping everything that's involved in being a woman and constantly fighting to remain desirable ".

Touching on the relationship between beauty and seduction, but also the fear of abandonment and"voluntary servitude",Ovidie 's highly personal and powerful text is also intended to be political. " Yes, I affirm it, we live under a regime of terror, the term is hardly an exaggeration. Terror that they harass us in the street or on social networks, that they hit us, that they rape us, that they kill us. Terror that they'll decide for us on contraception or abortion. We've taken on board the fear, we don't know how to dress anymore, whether we're too covered up or not, in a miniskirt or with a veil, they'll always find something to complain about. "

But " La chair est triste hélas " is also a lot funnier than you'd think, with striking, biting lines from . " For the moment, I'm still only in my early forties, that cruel age for women, that sell-by date when male consumers wrinkle their noses at us like yoghurts that are still edible but not far from being emptied of their water " or " The most pathetic, I think, are those who are desperate for massages, for example. When a lover offers me one, I either run off or take a Xanax, but either way, I decline."

In the Théâtre de l'Atelier auditorium, women - young and old - are in the vast majority. But a few men, sometimes alone or accompanied by their partners or friends, did make the trip to see this one-woman show.

In choosing Anna Mouglalis to bring her text to the stage, Ovidie hit the nail on the head. In a masterful performance, Anna Mouglalis multiplies the emotions in her deep voice: at times funny and mocking, at times furious and raging, at times bruised and deeply touching, Anna Mouglalis truly puts herself at the service of this poignant and very intimate text, and at the same time so evocative in the eyes of many women.

The actress doesn't hesitate to slalom her way through a set carefully designed by Grégoire Faucheux. Music - by Geoffroy Delacroix - is played along with images of women's faces and bodies, projected intermittently onto cut ribbons scattered around the stage. The only drawback is that these videos are not always clearly visible, depending on where you sit in the auditorium. So, if possible, choose a more central seat to take full advantage of this scenography.

This undeniably thought-provoking text, andAnna Mouglalis's superb performance, also seem to have won over the audience at the Théâtre de l'Atelier that evening. Once the lights came back on, the audience was quick to rise to their feet and applaud the actress, as well asOvidie, who had come to greet the audience for the occasion.