In a relationship, major crises often begin with the tiniest of things. With Petites misères de la vie conjugale, Honoré de Balzac lands at the Mois Molière in Versailles in an adaptation and direction by Pierre-Olivier Mornas, staged at the Université ouverte de Versailles, on Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 8:45 PM. The production centers on Caroline and Adolphe, two marital figures Balzac watches not to lionize but to unpack the everyday mechanics of life between two people.
The text unfolds as a survey of marital misadventures. Marriage, routines, sensitivities, misunderstandings, domestic stratagems: each situation becomes a tableau in which Balzac watches the couple with distance and irony. The author writes for both the married and the single, turning intimate conjugal life into a field of social observation. The line "Whoever can laugh, let them laugh!" appearing in the piece sets the tone for this exploration, where laughter does not always erase the discomfort.
On stage, Alice d’Arceaux and Pierre-Olivier Mornas carry this two‑hander, a duo that brings to light the power dynamics, the small defeats and the tiny daily victories. The play doesn’t pretend to solve the question of the couple, but shows how it operates when it becomes a space of constant negotiation. Beneath the apparent lightness of the subject, Balzac reveals a precise mechanism, made of expectations, frustrations, and lucidity.
The play thus brings to the surface a question subtler than it seems: what everyday life rewrites in a relationship, as habits accumulate and feelings mingle with reflexes, silences, and each person’s small maneuvers.
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Dates and Opening Time
On June 11, 2026
Starts at 08:45 p.m.
Location
Versailles Open University
6 Impasse des Gendarmes
78000 Versailles
Access
RER C stop at "Versailles Château - Rive Gauche"
Official website
www.moismoliere.com















