La vie secrète des vieux

A creation by Mohamed El Khatib Dramaturg Camille Nauffray

BUY TICKETS

4 – 7 JUN 2026 From Thursday to Sunday at 8.00 pm Matinée: Sunday, 7 JUN at 12.00 pm

María Guerrero Theatre | Sala María Guerrero

Please arrive well in advance as the auditorium will be closed once the performance has begun.
To collect tickets, our box offices will be open from Monday to Sunday from 2.30 pm to 8.30 pm.

TEAM

Playwriting

Camille Nauffray

Concept and director

Mohamed El Khatib

Cast

Annie Boisdenghien, Micheline Boussaingault, Mariecke de Bussac, Chille Deman, Martine Devries, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Yasmine Hadj Ali, Nicole Jourfier, Jacqueline Juin, Salimata Kamaté, Etienne Kretzschmar, Annette Sadoul and Jean Paul Sidolle

Set designer

Fred Hocké

Sound designer

Arnaud Léger

Video designer

Emmanuel Manzano

Residence

Le Mucem - Marseille, CIRCA La Chartreuse

Producer

Zirlib with Festival d’Automne à Paris, Points communs – Nouvelle Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise et du Val d'Oise, Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, La Comédie de Genève, Théâtre National de Bordeaux en Aquitaine, Théâtre National de Bretagne (Rennes), Tandem Scène Nationale d’Arras-Douai, MC2: Grenoble Scène Nationale, La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand Scène Nationale, Théâtre Garonne – Scène Européenne de Toulouse, Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre du Bois de l'Aune (Aix-en-Provence), Équinoxe Scène Nationale de Châteauroux, Théâtre de la Croix-Rousse (Lyon), La Coursive – Scène Nationale de La Rochelle, Espace 1789 – Scène Conventionnée pour la Danse de Saint-Ouen, Scène Nationale Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Le Channel – Scène Nationale de Calais

About the show

Does the end of life mean the end of love?

With this production, we set out to meet our elders—or, to put it less discreetly, our old women and men—to talk about love stories.

Confronting ageing means, on one hand, facing society’s gaze and, on the other, observing one’s own worn body, which day by day chips away at personal autonomy.

And yet, love often remains. And desire even more so—a desire that may come with a reinvented sexuality. No longer driven by performance or social expectations, it follows its own rhythm, its own time, its own intimacy—fragile, but no less intense.

Through these encounters with older people, we explore what it means to experience love in later life.

To create this documentary, Mohamed El Khatib interviewed elderly women and men from all walks of life, weaving together a narrative that reflects a wide range of romantic experiences. This landscape of love in old age becomes both a nostalgic snapshot of our emotional lives and a promise that desire can dwell within the fragility of life, right up to the very end.

TEAM

Playwriting

Camille Nauffray

Concept and director

Mohamed El Khatib

Cast

Set designer

Fred Hocké

Sound designer

Arnaud Léger

Video designer

Emmanuel Manzano

Residence

Le Mucem - Marseille, CIRCA La Chartreuse

Producer

Biography

Mohamed El Khatib

Mohamed El Khatib is a writer, director, producer and visual artist whose work moves between performance, literature and film. Through intimate and social epics, he creates new spaces for encounter between art and those who often feel marginalised.

Following Moi, Corinne Dadat—in which he brought together a cleaner and a classical dancer to assess each other’s skills—he continued his exploration of the working class with the monumental piece STADIUM, which brought 58 supporters of Racing Club de Lens to the stage. He explores, through the voices of children of divorced parents in radio and film, how family can function as a narrative form. Together with historian Patrick Boucheron, he created a people’s history of art through Boule à neige (snow globe).

Alongside his stage work, Mohamed El Khatib has developed visual research in collaboration with various artists. In Savoie, together with Valérie Mréjen, he helped launch the first art centre based in a care home for the elderly. At the Collection Lambert in Avignon, he curated an emotive exhibition that brought together temporary curators from the Abbé Pierre Foundation and staff from the museum.

His notable works include Infrarouge (2006), Renault 12 (2018) and La dispute (2022). He also created the Renault 12 exhibition, inspired by the car journeys of Franco-Maghrebi families.