“Bovary Madame”: what does this reversed title say?
There is a sentence in the play, where Rodolphe says to her “Madame Bovary […] It’s not your name, by the way; It’s someone else’s name! » If Flaubert chose to call his novel “Madame Bovary” and not “Emma Bovary”, it is a way of formulating this assignment to be only a wife. The fact that it is reversed is a kind of pirouette to this assignment.
Christophe Honoré has adopted the codes of the circus for this production: you even take a cream pie in the face…
At first I was very afraid of it, now I’m used to it. It’s not the humiliation that I find the most appalling. In the show, Rodolphe hands me the breakup letter. He suggests as a circus act to shed a tear over the letter. And the spectators laugh. Of discomfort, of his cruelty. But they’re laughing at me, Emma. And that, I can tell you, is much more painful than a cream pie.
How do you analyze the often harsh judgment passed on Emma Bovary?
It’s easy to be judgmental and point the finger at the adulterous woman. When in fact, she is simply a victim of the circumstances of her gender, of her time and she is in a desire for emancipation, but that is not a word that applies to women of that time.
How does your Emma respond to that of Flaubert?
My Emma refuses death, to give up. She has a will, a life impulse which is stronger because she is convinced that something else is possible. She responds to this walling-in, and at the same time she is shown as a fairground beast. She protests against the representation that the circus can make of her. Like an actress who can be a victim of what is projected onto her.
What is he missing to change his tragic destiny?
What it fundamentally lacks is the feminine presence. Because she has been motherless since childhood. And all the women around her are hostile to her: Charles’ mother, the women of the village… Never has a woman reached out to her to share her anxieties and her aspirations.
After playing this role, would you say “Bovary, it’s me”?
No, it’s not me Bovary! Because I am a free and happy woman. Let’s say that where I can find her is that I am a dreamer like her. Even if her dreams are sometimes corny, I take her seriously and respect her.
