Lacrima Makes Australian Premiere at Perth Festival
Perth Festival is set to host the Australian premiere of Lacrima, a compelling theatrical work by renowned French director and filmmaker Caroline Guiela Nguyen. This significant cultural event marks the first time the production will be staged in Australia, bringing its unique multinational narrative to local audiences.
Personal History Fuels Artistic Vision
Caroline Guiela Nguyen's artistic motivation stems from a deeply personal place. Born in the Paris suburbs and raised in the small village of Villecroze in southern France, Nguyen experienced what she describes as a profound disconnect from her family's history. Her mother spent childhood in Vietnam while her father grew up in Algeria, both experiencing exile at young ages during colonial periods.
"I grew up in a place that was, in a way, outside the family narrative, outside their languages, their countries, their stories," the 44-year-old director explains from her home in Strasbourg. "This gap undoubtedly shaped my relationship with the world considerably."
This personal history of cultural displacement and silent narratives has become central to Nguyen's artistic practice, driving her to explore stories that remain untold or hidden from public view.
From Academic Studies to Theatre Leadership
Nguyen's journey to theatre began with studies in sociology and ethnocenology, the examination of artistic and ritual practices across different cultures. Her formal theatre education at Theatre national de Strasbourg's drama school eventually led to her current position as director of that same institution, where she returned in 2023 after nearly thirteen years.
Her appointment reflects significant changes in French theatre's approach to diversity and representation. "When I was a theatre student, including at the Theatre national de Strasbourg, there were very few artists from immigrant backgrounds visible in the scene," she notes. "This raised not only questions of recognition, but also of narratives — who is represented on stage, what stories are told, what bodies are involved?"
The Genesis of Lacrima: Secrecy Meets Violence
Lacrima emerged from Nguyen's exploration of two interconnected concepts: secrecy and violence. The director's participation in activist meetings about violence against women revealed how families often conceal such violence, allowing it to continue through generations. This insight combined with her interest in textile creation to form the production's foundation.
A pivotal moment came when Nguyen discovered an article about the extreme confidentiality surrounding the creation of Lady Diana's wedding dress. "I was struck by the idea that a wedding dress could require so much secrecy," she shares. "That's how I discovered that the entire world of haute couture is structured around secrecy, and that this secrecy also conceals structural violence. From that point on, Lacrima truly began."
A Multinational Narrative Structure
The production weaves together stories from multiple locations and cultures. Set between a Parisian haute couture fashion house commissioned to create a wedding dress for a British royal princess in 2025, an embroidery workshop in Mumbai, and a lace atelier in Alencon, France, the narrative explores the invisible labor behind visible perfection.
Nguyen describes the structure using textile metaphors: "I like to describe Lacrima as one might describe an embroidery. When you look at the back of an embroidery, which is normally never shown, you see something chaotic, a multitude of threads, knots, and tensions. But when you look at the front, everything becomes legible, the threads respond to each other, the patterns appear."
Originally planning to focus primarily on Paris and England, Nguyen expanded the narrative after discovering that much of the embroidery work for haute couture actually occurs in India. Her research trip to Mumbai convinced her that Indian embroiderers needed to be integral to the story.
Production Details and International Journey
Performed in French, Tamil, and English with English surtitles, Lacrima runs just under three hours with a cast of ten actors playing multiple roles. Since its world premiere, the production has toured extensively to New York, England, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Rome, Liege, Geneva, and numerous French theatres.
Nguyen will travel to Perth for the first time to oversee the Australian season, expressing particular curiosity about local audience responses. "I'm often moved to see how a story that initially seems distant suddenly becomes intimate, almost personal," she muses. "Perhaps my only desire is to hear what the Perth audience has to tell me after the performance."
Artistic Challenges and Reception
The director acknowledges that weaving together multiple narrative threads presented significant creative challenges. "The biggest challenge was making all these stories come together," she admits. "It was primarily a writing challenge. The show is composed of numerous narratives, almost like films, and the challenge was to find a way to weave them together."
Audiences and critics have frequently described Lacrima as resembling a television series in its narrative complexity and emotional depth. The production continues Nguyen's commitment to bringing underrepresented stories to the stage, following her 2017 play Saigon which explored French colonial history in Vietnam.
Lacrima will be presented at Heath Ledger Theatre from February 6 to 10, 2026, as part of Perth Festival's 2026 program, offering Australian audiences their first opportunity to experience this internationally acclaimed examination of secrecy, violence, and the hidden costs of perfection.
