Is That How It Was? (C'était comment déjà?)

An elderly woman discovers that her daughter is planning to sell her apartment and send her to a nursing home. She establishes a touching friendship with the young single mother who comes from the real estate agency and confides in her secrets she has never told her own daughter. The young woman's spontaneous desire to make a home for the elderly woman herself disappears when the realities of old age and young love intervene.

3 women

The play premiered in 1978 at the Petit Odéon in Paris, under the direction of the author. Jean Bouchaud has had a long and distinguished career as actor, director, and author in France. C'était comment déjà has proved to be one of his most enduring works. In 1982 it was broadcast on French radio, starring Madeleine Renaud, who also headed the cast for the television version. In the 1990s, the play ran for more than four years in Germany.

The English translation was published on-line in 2007 in the inaugural issue of The Mercurian. A Theatrical Translation Review. Staged reading, Origin Theatre, New York, 6 May 2013. Dir. Kimberly Faith Hickman.