“The Secret Life of Old People”, the shocking sexuality of seniors dissected with humor and without filter by Mohamed El Khatib

This play is the explosion of this Festival. In this show, which navigates between theater and documentary, our elders confide without taboo and leave you speechless.

We cried, we laughed a lot too. But above all, we have difficulty recovering from this explosive spectacle. The Secret Life of Old People is a slap in the face. The comparison may seem harsh but it is appropriate. Mohamed El Khatib’s play reveals a sexuality that we don’t imagine, that of seniors. On the Avignon stage, they are all over 75 years old.

To talk about their sex life, the director chose an ancient place, that of the monastery of the Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, 12 minutes by car from the city center. A space imbued with religion and chastity that his play takes the opposite view. Founded in the 14th century by Pope Innocent VI, the Chartreuse is home to the Cloister of the Dead, which served as a burial place for the monks, and the Cloister of Saint-Jean, located in the former courtyard of the palace of Cardinal Aubert. It was around the large fountain of this sumptuous place that the audience waited patiently, under a blazing sun but in a soothing calm, to attend the show.

The vaulted auditorium, kept cool by the hundreds of years old stone, has been transformed into a ballroom. Jacqueline Juin, the iconic face of the Belgian television channel RTBF for decades, enters in her wheelchair. Jean-Pierre turns on the lights in the room.Given their age, the people on stage can die at any time, like Dalida. We invite you to remain calm. It is better to die on stage than in the Ephad”a message on a screen warns us. General hilarity.

Jacqueline Juin is now 91 years old and still speaks well, which is why she was chosen by Mohamed El Khatib to open the play. She is not afraid to say her age or the desires that run through her like “make love every day”. When she talks about the difference between today and when she was 20, she says: “CWhat I miss is not kissing someone on the mouth anymore,” but also to know “that we exist in someone’s eyes, that someone misses us”.

The testimony of Jacqueline and the eight other elders is precious. The moment will remain etched in time and in the memory of each person in the audience. The opportunity to enjoy this unique moment of sharing makes the play moving to tears. When Mohamed El Khatib explains that Georges, one of the protagonists of the play, died during its creation, it is impossible to hold back the tears even though we are warned from the beginning of the play. It is also impossible to miss a minute of these irreplaceable speeches, which we may not have the opportunity to hear again, until we experience old age ourselves. The modesty and taboo surrounding the sexuality of the elderly are deeply rooted. Who has ever talked about it with their grandparents, for example?

“The sexuality of old people is a blind spot that neither the institution nor families want to take charge of“, explains Mohamed El Khatib in an interview given to the Festival. This taboo, this unthought of society, the director overturns it with the speeches of his characters and their experiences. After a small announcement, Mohamed El Khatib collected a hundred testimonies. With all these seniors, he makes the tour of their love life, but above all a review at their age. Flirting with the documentary in the theater, the director has made it his specialty. For 2025, Mohamed El Khatib is also preparing one, with the same title as the play.

He thus explores varied sociological profiles and diverse experiences. Like that of an 82-year-old former surgeon with a cheating husband, a bourgeois Catholic learning about sexuality from books, or that of a man who learned it from a prostitute in Tunis.Mom are you still fucking?” That’s what the daughter of one of the actresses asked him. She would never have dared to ask her mother that in her time. And the answer to that question is yes, “with a hot Mexican, if she only knew!”.

Another protagonist feels no difference between the urges she felt at the age of 20 and now when a charming gentleman appears before her eyes. These “old men” talk without restraint about masturbation, erection, orgasm.I wanted them to carry their stories themselves, without filters, with all the fragility that this implies.”explains the director who refuses to “produce an expected speech on old age”.

The staging integrates the needs of these elderly people present on stage, with a refreshing form of letting go.They move around as they please.”confides the director. Mohamed El Khatib is present on stage to help them position themselves or launch them. A way of putting them at ease while waiting for them to take ownership of the show. A nursing assistant, a figure of care, also provides assistance and tells her story in the Ehpads, like when she surprised Mrs. Million on all fours with her roommate, while her husband was looking for her.

These nursing homes where there are no Arabs, blacks or Asians. Yasmine, the nursing assistant, reminds us that this is not “in our cultures to abandon our elderly in abusive structures because their children refused to take care of them.” But it is also a question of means because these structures remain expensive for the people mentioned.

The only racialized protagonist on stage is black. She confirms that she is the only racialized person in her nursing home and also explains that she had her first orgasm… at 65. All these people of a certain age assume and claim their sexuality that they aspire to live fully. One of them says she fled her nursing home to live her love story.What I want is to get laid. I don’t want to die without cumming again.”she says forcefully. In these institutions where emotional desires are given little consideration, according to Mohamed El Katib, dramas can occur. Anne’s children reject her passionate love affair with Jean-Claude. She will not bear the distance from her lover and will end up committing suicide in her Ephad. A sort of Romeo and Juliet upside down which seemed unthinkable to us until the discovery of this public utility piece.

“The Secret Life of Old People” by Mohamed El Khatib at the Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon until July 19
Du September 12 to 26, 2024 at the Théâtre de la Ville and on tour throughout France