Based on the eponymous novel by Pauline Peyrade, published by Éditions de Minuit in 2023, winner of the 2023 Prix Goncourt for First Novel
Conceived, adapted and directed by Pauline Peyrade and Justine Berthillot
“By inviting us into this home, Pauline Peyrade and Justine Berthillot poetically reveal the everyday lives of women whose pain is passed down from generation to generation. Against invisibilization and what remains unspoken, they explore female destiny from its roots.”
“The novel takes the stage, but it is not adapted. It’s our ears, eyes, and bodies that must adapt—and absorb the full impact of the literature confronting us.”
Listen to the broadcast (in French)
“We recognized ourselves in this story of women fighting for emancipation. (…) The language of the novel exists even when you don’t hear it. (…) A show that delivers emotions through different means. (…) How do you represent violence without making it too brutal—and without backing away from it either?”
Listen to the broadcast (in French)
“Through their delicate work, Pauline Peyrade and Justine Berthillot get as close as possible to devastated intimacy. Artistically, they help reintegrate the scandal of incest into social reality—so that it can finally be confronted.”
“A sharp and clear narrative of a powerful emancipation journey—brilliantly articulated between its literary and sensory dimensions.”
*The Age of Destruction* at Théâtre Ouvert: a multifaceted piece, a muffled violence. Pauline Peyrade and Justine Berthillot bring us Elsa’s emotions—emerging from the toxic world built by her mother. A punch in the face—if you can take it.
“As writers, we step onto the stage with the novel—not as constrained as a playtext—entering a radically different space of writing, giving us more freedom to explore forms that allow our two languages—text and dance—to unfold and meet. In fact, it’s about asserting, through form, a voice and a form of sorority.”
“In duet, circus artist Justine Berthillot and writer Pauline Peyrade bring the latter’s novel to the stage. *The Age of Destruction*—a dark and luminous text on the complex bond between mother and daughter, toxic in a way that today’s language too often flattens—confirms its originality and power.”
*”The Age of Destruction,” they say…* Neither traditional theatre nor mere reading—it carves a third path.
“A duo with destructive bodies.”
The Age of Destruction is a domestic thriller, a story of emancipation tracing a young girl’s path—Elsa—through the spaces and objects that make up the backdrop and silent witnesses of her life.
Justine Berthillot and Pauline Peyrade return to the stage together to create a “reading-action”: a hybrid form inspired by the directness of performance, the aesthetics of installation, and the starkness of literary reading.
At the closest point between page and muscle, gesture and literature, they carry the story of young Elsa, a girl raised by an abusive mother.
Structured in two parts, the performance offers a visual narrative that immerses us in the apartment where Elsa and her mother have just moved in. It sketches the portrait of a place, and of a woman in distress—struggling to inhabit her own space.
From within this setting, literature emerges—raw and direct—exploring the memory embedded in walls, objects, and voices that haunt the space and mark the passage of time, from Elsa’s childhood to adulthood, until the final confrontation between mother and daughter.
A braided gesture of body and language that speaks of present-day battles—and the acts of a daughter determined to break the legacy of violence.
“The age of understanding: the age of destruction… and so on.”
— Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary
Adaptation and direction: Justine Berthillot & Pauline Peyrade
Performed by: Justine Berthillot, Pauline Peyrade
Choreography: Justine Berthillot
Set collaboration: James Brandily
Sound design & operation: Guillaume Léglise
Artistic collaborators: Rémy Barché, Mosi Espinoza, Esse Vanderbruggen
Lighting design & technical management: Aby Mathieu
Production & touring: Le Bureau des Écritures Contemporaines (Le BEC) – Claire Nollez & Romain Courault
Set construction: Jérémie Hazael-Massieux
Production: Compagnie Morgane
With support from:
Château de Monthelon – International Artistic Workshop
La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon – National Center for Playwriting
Centre National du Livre (CNL)
Île-de-France Region (ÉPAT program)
Special thanks to: Marie Pluchart, Julie Mouton, Frédéric Cauchetier / Triptyque Production
