Marie-claire Neveu - Hépatik Girl

Marie Claire Neveu brings Hepatik Girl to THEATRE A L'OUEST - LYON

As a stage that champions bold, intimate, and conversation-starting performances, THEATRE A L'OUEST - LYON is proud to welcome Marie Claire Neveu with Hepatik Girl. From our vantage point in the wings, what captivates us about this piece is the way it fuses humor, vulnerability, and finely tuned storytelling to meet audiences exactly where they are: curious, eager to laugh, and ready to be moved. Hepatik Girl is not merely a monologue; it is a living exchange, a theatrical encounter that takes a stigmatized topic and refracts it through wit, self-mockery, and clear-eyed tenderness. In rehearsal and soundcheck, we have witnessed how her presence fills the room with quiet authority before a single punchline lands, how the text pivots from playful to incisive without losing rhythm, and how the audience’s laughter becomes part of the dramaturgy. Our space, designed for proximity and shared breath, amplifies her craft: the pause becomes a beat, the aside a confidant’s whisper, and the confession a communal recognition. It is the kind of evening we exist to host—one that entertains wholeheartedly while opening a path for empathy and collective reflection.

Artistic momentum, topical resonance, and a show that evolves in real time

Hepatik Girl arrives at THEATRE A L'OUEST - LYON at a moment when Marie Claire Neveu’s artistic momentum is undeniable. She has honed a voice that feels disarmingly personal yet meticulously composed, and the show has grown with each outing—tightening its timing, sharpening its asides, and expanding its emotional range. From our programming perch, what makes her current trajectory exciting is the porous border she maintains between stage and society: the piece keeps absorbing the day’s conversations about health, stigma, identity, and the ways we tell our own stories. That fluidity gives the performance a present-tense crackle. You will recognize the craft of a seasoned author-performer in the structural elegance of her set-ups and callbacks, but also the curiosity of a citizen who listens. She moves with ease from the bright surface of a joke to the sediment beneath it—how bodies are narrated, how systems respond, how we turn fear into myth, and myth back into manageable truth. The result, in our hall, is a rare theatrical energy: laughter that does not trivialize seriousness, seriousness that never crushes laughter, and an afterglow that sends audiences out talking.

From the first cue to the final blackout, our technical team has tailored the room to serve the precision and humanity of Hepatik Girl. The scenography embraces clarity over clutter, with light states that sculpt focus around the performer’s gaze and voice, and sound design calibrated for intimacy rather than bombast. In a venue like ours—scaled for connection—her timing is palpable, the glimmer of recognition in the fourth row visible to those in the tenth, and the hush before a reveal shared by all. We love how she invites the crowd into complicity, rolling laughter into reflection and back again, whether she’s recounting an appointment that veers absurd, an encounter reframed with hindsight, or the language we borrow when medical terms fall short. This is a performance that rewards attentiveness and rewards it quickly: the first laughs arrive early, the themes land with clarity, and by the end you have traveled farther than you expected. We program Hepatik Girl because it exemplifies what live storytelling can do right now—spark joy, widen understanding, and give a roomful of strangers a common rhythm. And THEATRE A L'OUEST - LYON is built for exactly that rhythm.