The New York Times: France’s reckoning with sexual violence isn’t over.
After the case of Gisèle Pélicot, whose husband was found guilty in 2024 of drugging her and inviting strangers to sexually assault her, another large-scale trial looms on the horizon. This year, 17 men will appear in a French court on charges of gang rape and human trafficking that prosecutors say were linked to a pornographic website. And theater is already on the case.
3 comments:
For me, this piece draws out many mixed emotions. Theatre is about making a statement, a social commentary. What happened to Gisèle Pélicot is horrific beyond words and I am glad that people are using their mediums to share her story. This musical theatre piece is described as quite haunting, almost repulsive. This is due to the nature of the horrific crimes that were carried out by such evil people, but from a purely musical standpoint, I wonder how effective this is. I do not think there are words to express what I am feeling, but this is a crime so nauseating that it is unimaginable to sit through an entire production about it. I understand that this may be the point, but I find it difficult to look past or even get over something that is so wrong. Because of this, it seems like such a piece would shut down the audience. While I think I understand the intention behind the piece, I feel as though not many people would go because only few would be able to stomach the subject matter. Most importantly, though, I hope justice is served.
Art is political and a means of protest. Sexual assault is a very heavy topic to talk about especially a case that is so recent. I do not know how I feel about the creation of a show about a case that was from 2024. I think that these topics are ones that need to be talked about and should be on stage to allow for intellectual and nuanced conversations about these intense topics. The article does not go into detail about how Gisèle Pélicot and her family were involved in the creation of this art or if she was consulted/asked if this production could be put on. I do appreciate how the director did not try to show the assault that happened because that can be distasteful and potentially harmful. I also appreciate that the production gave a trigger warning that specifically said that the audience should “feel free to leave the auditorium at any time”, but I do hope that they also had other resources available to the audience.
This is a really interesting application of theater that is based upon real events. I often see this type of theater in reference to historical events or myths, where the writer reimagines a story or selects moments from a person’s life to create a dramatized story. In application to a modern-day event, the metaphors in a play become much less about the thought process and more about the impacts of our everyday choices. The set design for this piece is also really inspiring. I love the idea of the set spilling out to the feet of the audience, because it physically brings them into the story. I also appreciate the creative choice to not recreate the sexual assault, as would be more traumatizing than creatively effective, but to include snipbits of dialogue from the victims. Breaking the 4th wall, the director’s summary of her interactions with some of the women asks the audience what they will do with the information they have been given. Giving the audience a direct question to grapple with approaches the impact of theater in a jarring way that might be very impactful.
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