Par Laëtitia Cadiou – NOW Geneva
Last night, she performed at the théâtre de l’Espérance in front of 300 hilarious people, with 1h15 of her best sketches, and her eyes still shine like a child’s in front of a Christmas tree! A silhouette of a sylph, a confident step, a cerulean blue look and huge arms waving in all directions : Valérie jostles everything in her path.
No doubt about it, she is an actress, she takes the space she fills with a particular aura and a huge smile which – as we will learn later – sometimes also serves as a shield. This great shy person who hides her acting well won’t tell us her age but tells us that she was born on summer day, June 21st, so she is “a child of the sun”, and that today she is especially old enough to be with us for this interview and the age of her brain. The laughter fuses, her flow is fast, she has a thousand anecdotes to tell: an interview that twists and turns, in fact.
« Saved by philosophy »
This Vosgian by birth arrived in Zurich at the age of 6, she says she was saved by philosophy in her last year of school. Because she doesn’t like formatting. She becomes aware that one has the right to ask oneself a thousand questions, to disagree and to go back on a subject on which one will finally agree; to leave it all in suspense and see later – an approach that says a lot about Valérie’s constant questioning. Her philosophy professor used to say: “Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, hogwash”, she will love this concept, then adopt it.
Passionate about travel and adventure, she then chose to study medieval German literature at the University of Geneva, a drastic choice when you know the sparkling and no less romantic humorist.
At the age of 21, an internship in San Francisco was to be fatal for what remained of her candour. She experiences an earthquake that terrorizes her and makes her understand that all this, life, is fragile and indomitable and that she will have to prefer a less serious angle. Carpe Diem, she says to herself: “I must live life to the fullest”. She also tells us that she has already almost died 4 times, which will naturally bring her an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
“Theatre, a lifelong dream“
A late arrival at the theatre in 2011 with a 5-year training at the Conservatoire Populaire in Geneva, she loves it, and a lifelong dream that she will finally be able to fulfil. She goes on stage for the first time in 2011 with immediate local success, aware however that success is fragile and that one must regularly question oneself. Her favourite quote, that of Winston Churchill: “If you are going through hell keep going”, a metaphor that helps us understand the difficulty of her profession. For example, the first One Woman Show at the Palais Mascotte and in the 4th row a visibly slightly drunk spectator says: “Strip off! She replies: “Shall we see that later in my dressing room?”. “I had managed to get over it and life, like the stage, is sometimes a trial that comes and goes, that you just have to go through. »
“Laughter is not a therapy, it is a profession, a vocation”.
Her last event, this serious accident where she was mowed down by a car driver in March, and after several months spent rebuilding herself, Valérie decides to make a show of it for our greatest pleasure. Her numerous encounters during this long medical journey will bring her a wide range of characters, each one more funny than the other, including this doctor who receives her in his office… plunged into darkness because this specialist in post-traumatic stress disorder suffers from eye exhaustion: “Doctor, I’m giving you a break from work, maybe …? “(laughs) She doesn’t want to deflower her show, but she tells us that she won’t do nudity (neither full nor partial, by the way), that she won’t sing or dance. An irreverent but not mean show that could also be called: “Everything you always wanted to know about humour without ever daring to ask”!
It’s a funny and caustic show, with always this marvellous talent to imitate accents and transcribe the improbable situations of her everyday life, we can’t wait to see Valérie Mauriac on the stage! She offers 5×2 seats to the readers of NOW Geneva for the evening of its Premiere, on Wednesday 15th January… Class! Sign up now!
New One Woman Show : POST TENEBRAS FUN
From 15 to 25 January 2020
Les 4 Coins – Rue de Carouge, 44 – 1205 Geneva
Reservations: www.les4coins.ch
www.valeriemauriac.com