The Human Voice (La voix humaine)

TW: Sui­cide

Jean Cocteau wrote La Voix Humaine in 1928 as a one-act play.  Fran­cis Poulenc set it to music 30 years later, des­pite hav­ing already known Cocteau well for years, and gave the reas­on for the delay as hav­ing needed more life exper­i­ence to do it justice.  Dur­ing those years he struggled with depres­sion and self-med­ic­ated.  When finally his music­al adapt­a­tion, a solo mini-opera, of La Voix Humaine was com­plete, Cocteau loved it, believ­ing that Poulenc had truly under­stood and expressed its intent.

Suite Gal­lery is a neut­ral white space, to show­case the art exhib­ited there.  For the dur­a­tion of this show, paint­ings by Megan Arch­er were chosen.  They’re vis­cer­al, sharply rendered but fleshy and creepily sen­su­al, and seem out of place in such a clean space.  Scattered around the piano in the corner are lad­ders of vari­ous sizes, drop cloths, a box of let­ters.  It seems as if someone is halfway through pack­ing, or dec­or­at­ing,  and everything has just been stopped.

Everything has been stopped.  Elle, she, the woman we’re here to wit­ness, wanders into the room.  In a shift and a jack­et, bare­foot, she’s wan and bedraggled, mas­cara smudged under her eyes.  She sniffs, she’s been cry­ing.

The opera fol­lows Elle through the last sav­age moments of a break-up.  As the lies she’d told her­self and her lov­er crumble, she tries des­per­ately to hold them togeth­er, even when it’s bru­tally clear that he’s lying too.  Five years togeth­er and she’s wear­ing his shirt, reread­ing old love let­ters, try­ing to leave the house and fail­ing, and sleep­ing with the phone.  The sound of his voice on the phone is the only thing she can cling to.

To per­form a 40 minute solo opera is no mean feat.  Mono­logue theatre is gruelling, and I can­’t even begin to ima­gine the forti­tude needed to main­tain not only emo­tion­al energy but also the immense phys­ic­al­ity of singing through­out.  Bar­bara Pater­son is a mas­ter­ful sop­rano, and Poulenc’s com­pos­i­tion demands all that mas­tery.  She per­formed Elle, a woman in anguish on a last call to her lov­er, with extraordin­ary focus.

This role is both an emo­tion­ally demand­ing char­ac­ter, and a tre­mend­ously chal­len­ging singing part, and at no point did Pater­son lose her grip on either.  Her Elle was pain­fully affect­ing, one moment fra­gile and pathet­ic­ally needy, and the next dream­ily remin­is­cing about hap­pi­er times, earth­ily sway­ing as she wrapped the phone cord around her neck.  Pater­son’s ver­sat­ile phys­ic­al­ity is impress­ive, and she eas­ily moved from frail and brittle to some­thing stronger, more resi­li­ent and then back again.  Des­pite the grue­some con­fes­sion of a sui­cide attempt, and the clear poten­tial for anoth­er, suc­cess­ful one, those glimpses of strength offer a more hope­ful pos­sib­il­ity.  Maybe, now it’s really over, maybe Elle can heal.  To be hon­est, I got a strong Piaf vibe; the help­lessly tra­gic in love with love but with the impossible strength to weath­er it. Bear in mind I love Piaf.

Pater­son’s voice was as flex­ible and emo­tion­ally raw as her char­ac­ter­isa­tion, and com­pletely inter­twined in it.  Not afraid to make it ugly, she slid from sweet and pure to mel­li­flu­ous, and then screech­ily shrill, before sub­sid­ing again into mono­tone responses as the caller takes over the con­ver­sa­tion.  Moments of humour help to lift the ten­sion, and I was chuck­ling at Elle’s absurd indig­na­tion when a crossed wire had some ran­dom eagerly listen­ing in on the call.

Sup­port­ing Pater­son’s intense deliv­ery was Gab­ri­ela Glapska’s com­pet­ent and sens­it­ive accom­pani­ment.  The word does­n’t do it justice – more than accom­pani­ment, her play­ing superbly framed Pater­son’s per­form­ance without ever dis­tract­ing from it.

Some­how, with the street noise occa­sion­ally heard out­side the gal­lery, and Pater­son’s com­plete focus, it felt like we, the audi­ence, wer­en’t there.  Or per­haps we were flies on the wall, or neigh­bours over­hear­ing through the walls, or even peep­ing through the key­hole into her flat.  It was a strange feel­ing, but a test­a­ment to the com­mit­ment shown by Pater­son.

I regret that there’s only one more per­form­ance of this incred­ible show, but I exhort you all to go if you can.  7:30pm at Suite Gal­lery on Cuba.

There’s also a Wel­ling­ton Fest­iv­al sea­son of this show; Feb­ru­ary 27–29 at the Academy Gal­ler­ies.  Get amongst it, guys.