World Voices: JEAN-LUC LAGARCE (1957-1995)

Join us for an evening celebrating the work of the late Jean-Luc Lagarce, one of France's most significant playwrights of the second half of the 20th century.

Just the End of the World (Juste la fin du monde) is a play by Jean-Luc Lagarce about a character named Louis, a writer who returns to the working-class family he left behind in order to announce that he is terminally ill. Lagarce wrote the play in 1990 while confronting the prospect of his own death after being diagnosed with AIDS. In 2008, the Comédie-Française added the play to its repertoire, where it received the 2008 Moliere Award for Best Show in a National Theatre. In 2016, the play was adapted into a film of the same title by Xavier Dolan.

About the play: Louis returns home to announce his terminal illness, but ultimately leaves without revealing his condition, after his family members respond uneasily to his presence. The characters struggle to communicate, and their exchanges brutally expose them to stark reflections on life, death, and the difficulty of speaking honestly with one another. Louis’s return also underscores the social and emotional distance that has grown between him and the modest family upbringing he left behind, giving the play a strong sociological dimension alongside its intimate drama. The stage directions specify that the action takes place “on a Sunday of course. Or maybe over the course of a whole year.”

Directed by Sylvaine Guyot. In a new translation by J. A. Cohen

Sylvaine Guyot is Professor of French Literature, Thought & Culture at NYU. Her research focuses on early modern theater and spectacle culture, the history of the body and affects, the politics of the performing arts, and the formation of cultural institutions. Her publications include Racine et le corps tragique (PUF, 2014); L’Œil classique (2013); Databases, Revenues, and Repertory, 1680-1789 (MIT, 2020); Decentering Molière (2022); and Feminisms and Early Modern France (2025). Positioning herself at the intersection of scholarly research, digital humanities, and artistic creation, Guyot is a co-leader of the “Comédie-Française Registers Project” and works as a stage director, with a current practice centered on lecture-performances. Her interests further extend to contemporary docu-plays that tell the stories of underrepresented communities.