Event details

In L’événement, Annie Ernaux (winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature) recounts—in detail and with the perspective gained over several decades—three months of her life between October 1963 and January 1964: the three months spanning the time she discovered she was pregnant to the days following her abortion. During these three months, her resolve clashed with the prejudices, moral codes, and violence of a world shaped by male domination. Confronted by an abortionist, she describes how she herself felt being born as a woman. The necessity of her narrative serves to dispel only one form of guilt: the guilt stemming from the fact that this "event" happened to her, and that for so long she had been unable to give it form through writing and share it with others.

This production will mark a new partnership with Comédie-Française. After Princeton, the production will tour in North America.

When Denis Podalydès spoke to me about the theatrical quality of Annie Ernaux’s writing, I was thrilled at the prospect of bringing a literary work to the stage under his direction. The narrative of Happening, L'Événement, quickly stood out as the work that would allow the superb and profoundly feminine voice of this remarkable author to be heard. The book’s subject—abortion—resonates deeply with me, particularly in an era and a society where the right to abortion seems so fragile and precarious; a time when this right has never been so fiercely challenged in political debates. How far does a woman’s right to control her own body extend? I would like to quote Annie Ernaux here, as she poses this question to the young woman she was in the 1960s: "Is abortion forbidden because it is wrong, or is it wrong because it is forbidden?" The question remains as relevant as ever, given that women across Europe and the rest of the world die every day because of clandestine abortions. The silence surrounding women who choose abortion has never been so deafening. I hope that, through Annie Ernaux’s deeply personal and intimate language, I can give voice to that quiet plea—that cry: "Never again!"

—Françoise Gillard

Photo Gallery

• Photo credit: Vincent Pontet

• Photo credit: Vincent Pontet

• Photo credit: Vincent Pontet

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Tickets

Free and open to the public; advance tickets required. Tickets available in late August through University Ticketing.

Performance Details

Show performed in French with English supertitles. Duration: 1 hour, 5 min. Content appropriate for ages 18+

See all shows in 2026 French Theater Festival

Directions

Get directions to the Wallace Theater, located on the Forum level of the Lewis Arts complex, and find other venue information for the arts complex.

Accessibility

The Wallace Theater is an accessible venue with an assistive listening system. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information about our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.

About the Artists

Françoise Gillard

After winning the First Prize at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in 1995, Françoise Gillard was spotted by Adrian Brine, who cast her in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and subsequently in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband in Paris. She joined the Comédie-Française in 1997 and became the troupe's 507th sociétaire (permanent member) in 2002. Her portrayal of Princess Alarica in Jacques Audiberti’s Le Mal court—directed by Andrzej Seweryn—earned her the Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress and the SACD’s Suzanne Bianchetti Prize in 2001.

She has taken on major female roles from the classical repertoire: Roxane in Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (directed by Denis Podalydès), Elvire in Molière’s Dom Juan (directed by Jacques Lassalle), and Rosette in Musset’s On ne badine pas avec l’amour (directed by Yves Beaunesne), as well as the title roles in Molière’s Psyché, Anouilh’s Antigone, and Racine’s Esther. Her other Molière roles include Frosine in L’Avare (directed by Lilo Baur) and Dorimène in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (directed by Valérie Lesort and Christian Hecq).

She has also championed contemporary writing, appearing in Lars Norén’s Pur (2003) and later Poussière (2018). She has given voice to iconic figures of emancipation, notably in Annie Ernaux’s L’Événement—a solo performance she presented from 2017 to 2024—and in Pauline Bureau’s Hors la loi, in which she portrayed Gisèle Halimi. Her other roles include Stella Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Arielle in Stefano Massini’s 7 Minutes, the Daughter in Jean-Luc Lagarce’s Music-Hall, Camille in Claudine Galea’s Je reviens de loin, and the Fairy in Pinocchio Créature (adapted from Collodi). She also performs in Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God, acting in both French and French Sign Language.
Françoise Gillard also explores singing, dance, and directing. She conceived and performed in La Ballade de Souchon (a musical cabaret at the Comédie-Française, in collaboration with Amélie Wendling), created the dance productions L’Autre and Signature with Claire Richard, and presented Parce que j’en avais besoin at the MAC in Créteil. She also directed a staged reading of Sois belle et tais-toi—based on the documentary by Delphine Seyrig—as part of the Théâtres à la table series.

In film, she has worked under directors such as Héloïse Pelloquet, Jeanne Labrune, Bruno Podalydès, Alain Resnais, and Emmanuel Bourdieu, and appears in Claude Lelouch’s 2024 film Finalement.

Denis Podalydès

After training at the Conservatoire national supérieur d’art dramatique in Paris, Denis Podalydès joined the Comédie-Française troupe in 1997, becoming its 505th sociétaire (permanent member) in 2000. That same year, he won the Molière Award for Best Male Newcomer for his role in Gogol’s The Government Inspector (Le Revizor), directed by Jean-Louis Benoît. He has left his mark on major roles in the repertoire, including Harpagon in The Miser (L’Avare) directed by Catherine Hiegel, Fortunatov in Ostrovsky’s The Forest, Matamore in The Illusion (L’Illusion comique) directed by Galin Stoev, Orsino in Twelfth Night (La Nuit des rois), the title role in King Lear directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and Oscar Ekdahl in Julie Deliquet’s adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander. Ivo van Hove cast him as Baron Konstantin von Essenbeck in The Damned (Les Damnés), based on the work of Visconti, Badalucco, and Medioli; as Menelaus in Electra / Orestes (Électre / Oreste), based on Euripides; and finally, as Orgon in Molière’s Tartuffe. Tiago Rodrigues entrusted him with the dual role of the actor playing Agamemnon and the Prosecutor in the play written for the troupe, Hécube, pas Hécube.

Having worked under directors such as Brigitte Jaques-Wajeman, Jacques Lassalle, Jean-Pierre Miquel, Philippe Adrien, Pascal Rambert, Matthias Langhoff, Dan Jemmett, and David Lescot, Denis Podalydès has also become a director himself, staging landmark productions: Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (which won six Molière Awards in 2007, including Best Director and Best Public Theater Production), Hugo’s Lucrezia Borgia (Lucrèce Borgia), Mauvignier’s Ce que j'appelle oubli, Musset’s Fantasio, and Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin. He also directed Corneille’s Le Cid in 2026. Notable theater and opera productions he has directed elsewhere include Ostrovsky’s The Storm, Maeterlinck’s The Death of Tintagiles, and Marivaux’s The Triumph of Love at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord; Messager’s Fortunio and Rossini’s Le Comte Ory at the Opéra-Comique; and Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

An actor who has appeared in over a hundred feature films since the early 1980s and some twenty television productions, he has worked with directors such as Bruno Podalydès, Arnaud Desplechin, Bertrand Tavernier, François Dupeyron, Michel Deville, Michael Haneke, Xavier Durringer, Noémie Lvovsky, the Larrieu brothers, Pierre Jolivet, Alain Resnais, Christophe Honoré, Pascal Bonitzer, and Costa-Gavras.

Podalydès is also an author; his works include Voix off (winner of the 2008 Prix Femina Essai), Fuir Pénélope, Les nuits d’amour sont transparentes, En jouant en écrivant, Célidan disparu, L'ami de la famille – Souvenirs de Pierre Bourdieu, and the Album de la Pléiade Shakespeare.

Production Credits

Singulis - Seule-en-scène
L’Événement
Text by Annie Ernaux
Conception and interpretation: Françoise Gillard
Costume design: Bernadette Villard
Lighting: Stéphanie Daniel
Artistic collaboration: Denis Podalydès
Directing assistant: Amélie Wendling

The text published by Éditions Gallimard.

Production Comédie-Française
The show was first presented at Studio-Théâtre (Paris) in 2017.

Special Thanks

Clément Hervieu-Léger, Betrand Schaaf, Clémence Buisson, Baptiste Manier, Florence Gatte, Yassine Aït Ali & LFNY Lycée Français de New York.