French Movie Legend Isabelle Huppert in Beijing to Perform Controversial Novel, Jun 14

Isabelle Huppert, a bona fide movie legend, has been nominated for a César Award, the French equivalent of the Oscars, more often than any other actress. She’s also won a Golden Globe and was Oscar-nominated last year for her performance in Elle. And now she's set to perform in Beijing.

As well as working with legendary film directors such as Godard, Chabrol, and Haneke, Huppert is an accomplished stage actress. On this occasion she brings her one-woman show, The Day I Met the Master, a reading of the controversial novel L’Amant (The Lover) by the French writer Marguerite Duras, to the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center.

Duras led an extraordinary life. She was born into a destitute family in 1910s Saigon, in what was then French Indochina, and was physically abused by both her mother and her older brother. Returning to France, she worked for the Vichy government during the Second World War, but also spied for the Resistance. Her then husband was sent to a concentration camp, and barely survived.

Duras was already 70 years old, and struggling with alcoholism, when L’Amant was published. It’s a fictionalized account of her difficult early years, and describes the affair between a nameless 15-year-old girl and an older Chinese man.

Huppert had this to say about her performance:

“As actors or readers, it is true that we are giving voice to the work so that it can be heard by more people. But that does not mean that we are the ambassadors of the book. Thought is the meaning of reading, but it is the thought of the author, not mine. Reading is not theater, it is reading, nothing more.”

READ: An Extended Interview With Isabelle Huppert: Woman of Many Faces

She may be playing down her own importance in the show, but Huppert is a mesmerizing performer, and it promises to be a unique and standout evening in Beijing's 2017 theater calendar.

The Day I Met the Master is at the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center on June 14, at 7.30pm. Tickets cost RMB 580 to RMB 1,280, and are available from the box office or online here.

Photo: faguowenhua.com