Anne-Marie the beauty

By Yasmina Reza – with Helmut Mooshammer in german language

Anne-Marie Mille, an ageing actress, looks back on her life. She tells of a dreary youth in the French provinces, of childlike admiration for the actors in her hometown and the good fortune of being hired as an actress herself at a suburban Parisian theater: "On stage, I was sometimes Anne-Marie the beauty". She was happy here, but the big success didn't come. She envied her late friend and colleague Gigi, who always got the bigger roles, received famous lovers and even made it into films. Meanwhile, Anne-Marie is bored with her husband and their son is getting on her nerves. But Anne-Marie has survived Gigi and most of her companions. Now she looks back on the encounters over the course of her life and reassesses them.

Yasmina Reza's wistful and whimsical monologue, written expressly for an actor, paints a graceful portrait of an ageing woman. A look back at a life between stage and reality, wishful thinking and reality, illusion and depression.