There are shows that may, on the surface, feel wafer thin, shows where nothing much seems to happen, only as the conversations unravel, they reveal characters whose experiences give the production a complexity that feels unexpected, ambitious and revealing. La vie secrète des vieux (The Secret Lives of Old People) is one such production. A group of people share a few stories with each other and the audience, and those stories shed light on a world all too often hidden from view.
An elderly man comes on to the stage of Tampere’s legendary TTT Eino Salmelainen theatre in the darkness and switches on a light; he smiles with delight at the audience at having flooded the stage with light. This is Jean-Pierre Dupuy, one of the six elders, who together with a young stage-manager (Vassia Chavaroche) and a care giver (Yasmine Hadj Ali), make up the cast of La vie secrète des vieux. A water fountain, a plant, a few chairs, a microphone and a platform with a few steps are the sparse elements on Frédéric Hocké’s set. We could be anywhere; at one moment, the space suggests a meeting room, at another a dance hall replete with disco ball. There is the sense that these are spaces where the elders confide in themselves and the audience, creating the sense of a site of mischievous complicity. It may look effortless and simple, but it is anything but — a beautifully constructed show that allows for storytelling with respect, humour and wit at its core.
When Jacqueline Juin opens the production speaking from a video screen, her online presence announces her physical absence. “If I am speaking to you like this”, she observes in a matter-of-fact manner, “something has gone wrong for me”. “Don’t be sad”, she continues, “that is life”. She died earlier this year, but her energy haunts the production. (She is also very visible in the production photograph that accompanies this review from 2024.) Her candid voice to camera is droll and clear. A caption on the screen prior to Jacqueline’s appearance has already warned the audience that the persons in the production are likely, like Dalida, to die at any time, inviting the audience to contemplate whether it is better to die on stage than in a nursing home.
One, George Mac Briar did pass away during the development of the piece; his ornate urn is brought out for a photo opportunity — part of a commitment made by the cast during rehearsals that if any one of them should depart, the show should go on and they should take that person with them on tour. George is remembered with fondness and joy. Jacqueline, a former news anchor on RTBF (Belgian television), was with the production when it opened in Avignon in July 2024, aged 91 in her vibrant blue suit, the doyenne of the company, she confesses to camera that she has had a lot of men in her life and still wants to make love every day. She misses French kissing, misses that she exists in the eyes of another. “We are often miserable and wounded in love”, she reflects stoically, “but keep at it”. Vassa, the stage manager notes that repeatedly the elders told the team that they had artistic license to “do what you want with the stories, just don’t tell our children”. It’s a familiar motif of children as forces of curtailment and outrage that runs through the production.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy points to the screen to honour Jacqueline Juin at the end of La vie sècrete des vieux at the Tampere Theatre Festival (2025): Photo: Maria Delgado
Mohamed El Khatib interviewed over 100 elders over 75 after Covid in crafting the production. The focus is not on their passivity and dependency but on their autonomy and desires. The revelations are candid and amusing and reveal a generation who have a veritable zest for life and for sex. Annie Boisdenghien, 83, in her black faux-leather trousers and patterned jacket is a former surgeon. She recounts sanguinely that her husband cheated on her; her voice quickens as she shares with the audience that she still experiences desire when she sees an attractive young man. She coolly shares details of what she has seen in A&E over the years: a crucifix in a vagina, a blue and white Japanese-style vase up a rectum where the person concerned claimed they had accidentally sat on it. Salimata Kamaté can’t quite believe what she hears “Lord, did it fit?” she asks? For Salimata who walks with a Zimmer frame-cum-chair, the reality of ageing on one level is that sexy stockings have now been replaced with compression ones. Religion may have done some damage but experiencing her first orgasm at 65, with a Mexican lover, after many husbands, has given her a new zest for life she delivers the word caliente (hot) repeatedly and with relish.
The quietly spoken Martine Devries is both a general practitioner and a marriage counsellor. She grew up in a conservative catholic family with no sex education; she now welcomes the opportunities to talk about sex openly. And talk the performers do with a sense of exuberance. Micheline Boussaingault reveals a moment while making soup that led to an episode with a carrot — I won’t explain what happens to the carrot post the adventure, but I am sure you can guess! She fell in love men between the ages of 28 and 40, women between 40 and 57, and then came out as a lesbian. She may not look like a femme fatale but there is something in her that wants to be one and, as she recounts her adventures, she becomes one in this audience member’s eyes; defiant, sexy and purposeful. She is clear that she doesn’t want the scrabble and museum visits on offer in a care home; she wants to be laid, to have her partner Jo continue to scratch her back and to have fun. There is something of the classic clown in her demeanour, posture and baggy trousers. Her joie de vivre and elastic face — think Jim Carrey meets Lucille Ball — would not be out of place in a 1920s silent comedy.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy, born in Tunisia in 1953, lost his virginity to a lesbian – he didn’t know the meaning of the word then. He funded his visits to brothels through his activities as a choirboy singing in churches. He now laments that he was once a “horny devil” but is now “as cold as a fridge”. Chille Deman uses Viagra and warns Jean-Pierre not to take too much of the stuff or he may find himself with a new cane! “A show about about love”, Chile Deman tells the audience sanguinely, “is also a show about mourning”. Chille was sidelined by his father when he came out, but then as his father turns 86, a priest told his father that he should accept his children as they are, and he accompanies Chille to Pride in Lille.
The performers all listen to each other attentively. Vassia, script in hand, aids with lines or prompts if needed (or is this just part of the fiction El Khabib orchestrates?). As Jean-Pierre insists that socks have to be taken off for sex, Annie notes that notes that socks are terrible for the libido. These elders are refreshingly unsentimental and very funny. They want to live whatever life they have left to the full.
The cast performs with gusto. A karaoke rendition of Rosa Balistreri’s Sicilian “Cu ti lu dissi”, (Who told you?) is led by Jean-Pierre with enthusiasm as his mother’s favourite song. The cast sing and dance along, a glitter ball rotating above them. Reflections on theatre proliferate: on the poor quality of work presented in nursing homes; jibes at Paris’ Odéon théâtre, where Jean-Pierre reflects that miracles are few and far between, and the Comédie-Française, where Jacqueline has, on occasion, requested a refund, disappointed by the poor standard of diction. There are digs at theatre that takes itself too seriously. Alfred de Musset is evoked on numerous occasions, most conspicuously, his 1861 play, No Trifling with Love where desire is policed by conservative social norms. Chille admires the now departed George’s acting skills while Jean-Pierre makes an impeccably timed throwaway comment that in his view, George tended to overact.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet emerges as a leitmotif of sorts. George had rewritten the play with the star-crossed lovers are not denied togetherness by their parents but rather by their children. The gloriously mischievous Anne de Saint André appears on screen declaring her love for fellow care-home resident Jean-Claude – seen briefly on camera as they share a passionate kiss. Jean-Claude’s love letters to Anne are read out by Martine: tender, ardent, honest. This is a man who no longer believes he will ever need a pacemaker because Anne has given him a new lease of life. There is even a balcony scene as the lovelorn Anne calls out to Jean-Claude across the gardens of the care home. Their children’s interference leads to an imposed separation that Anne cannot bear and she kills herself. The production is dedicated to the memory of George (1922-2024) and Anne (1934-2023).
Honoring the memory of George and Anne as the performers take their bow at the end of La vie sècrete des vieux at the Tampere Theatre Festival (2025): Photo: Maria Delgado
Accompanying the elders is 35-year-old caregiver, Yasmine Hadj Ali, whose expertise in activities for the elderly has seen her move into an auxiliary nursing position. She is a calm presence, both assisting the elderly performers as needed but also giving her own reflections from the other side; is the proportion of global majority pensioners in care homes in Belgium and France small because they can’t afford the cost or because their families take care of them at home? (Salimata, tellingly, mentions she is the only black woman in her care home.) Yasmine’s tales of what happens behind closed doors reinforce the show’s portrait of the elders as animated and active: the tale of Mrs Millon, sex and an accordionist must be heard to be believed, and it’s delivered with pitch perfect comic timing. At the piece’s close, she responds to what each of the elders want to see in a piece of theatre: from Brechtian moments to Marxism, Celine Dion, fireworks and emotion. The show’s finale gives all this and more. There’s Pierre Bourdieu, a snippet of opera, a fragment of Racine’s Berenice and, to top it all, Yasmine belts out a punchy rendition of Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on” replete with fireworks as the elders watch with delight. The final moments are a testament to these feisty old people and the fact that their heart might want to go on but may not quite physically manage it. A screen caption has already let the audience know that there is a defibrillator at each side of the stage should it be needed.
In many ways this loose, episodic piece can be seen as a companion piece to both Finir en beauté (A beautiful ending), a piece El Khatib created in 2014 about the death of his mother, and his most recent production, Israel & Mohamed, a contemplation of the father-son relationship performed with flamenco dancer Israel Galván at the Festival d’Avignon this summer. All are works about what lies unsaid, about social expectations, about the importance of listening, open engagement and communication, about intergenerational interactions and the importance of love. All are also works that challenge the deficit model of being; theirs is a configuration of community based on what has been done and what can be done. An art of the possible.
La vie sècrete des vieux is also about a world in motion, and itself is consistently shifting; its scenarios dependent on who can perform as it tours. Time here is never still. As the programme note makes clear: “With alternating cast members depending on their longevity: Annie Boisdenghien, Micheline Boussaingault, Marriecke de Bussac, Chille Deman, Martine Devries, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Yasmine Hadj Ali, Nicole Jourfier, Salimata Kamaté, Etienne Kretzschmar, Jacqueline Juin, Annette Sadoul, Jean Paul Sidolle”.
La vie sècrete des vieux shows theatre as an evolving landscape where anything is possible. This extraordinary piece of theatre is a joy to be cherished: compact, lean funny, tender and compassionate. This is a model of political theatre rooted in a poetry of gentleness and beauty. A quiet space to laugh gently and without malice. Catch it if you can.
La vie secrète des vieux played at Tampereen Teatterikesä (Tampere International Theatre Festival) on 8 and 9 August 2025. It continues touring through 2025 and into 2026 with dates currently programmed to 12 June 2026.
This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.
This post was written by Maria Delgado.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.
