Women’s encounter: the prostitute and the actress

Abstract

I met with Coraly Zahonero, actress, member of the Comédie Française, on a rainy autumn day in Paris. Coraly wrote, directed and performed in 2016 a show about Grisélidis Réal. Due to the warm rain, which didn't make us want to go outside, we stayed talking for more than two hours in his 20 square meter dressing room, furnished with charm and equipped with practically everything: a bed, two sofas, table, dressing table, and tea and coffee service. The actors of the Comédie française spend their days in their dressing rooms working on their characters and resting between rehearsals. At night they perform in one of the institution's three theaters, and Coraly's dressing room is at the main headquarters, the Salle Richelieu, founded in 1680 in the heart of the Palais-Royal, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The long conversation now costs me double work to listen to and edit the interview amidst our also long parentheses and digressions: we have been friends for over 30 years, she is my daughter's godmother and I am her godmother. I participated closely in the process of creating the show about Grisélidis Réal, whose poster I could see above his head, on the central wall of the dressing room. Coraly could actually be confused with Grisélidis, which is difficult to know at first, such is the physical resemblance and her admirable work of composition: the black eyes outlined in a Barbara style, her long hair, the bangs, the huge earrings.