Le Nombril

The play premiered in Paris at the Théâtre de l’Atelier on September 22, 1981, directed by Jean Anouilh and Roland Piétri: a “black comedy,” a fierce self-portrait of a writer besieged by his own family, in which Anouilh strips away family hypocrisies. A part tailor-made for Bernard Blier, who took the leading role and, “Massive, poignant, without the slightest pathos, builds his character with broad strokes and fine, sharp, malicious hatching, dressing it in irony and emotion” (Le Monde, September 29, 1981).