"Monsters? No, a mediocre humanity": at the Avignon festival, a historic evening in tribute to Gisèle Pelicot
Report by Ariane Ascaride and Philippe Torreton, Camille Etienne and Françoise Nyssen... Nearly fifty actors and actresses, activists and members of civil society took turns on stage to relive the highlights of the Mazan rape trial and shared articles published during the trial.
The Pelicot trial on the stage of Avignon, by playwright Servane Dècle and Swiss director Milo Rau RAYNAUD DE LAGE CHRISTOPHE
It was a little after 2 a.m. on Saturday, July 19, when the audience at the Cloître des Carmes in Avignon calmly rose to applaud the tribute to Gisèle Pelicot, an evening directed by playwright Servane Dècle and Swiss director Milo Rau, which had just ended. After an attentive, almost religious silence, there was hearty applause, "thank yous," and "bravos," but the audience was calm, stunned, stunned by the four hours orchestrated by Swiss director Milo Rau. A show? Not really. Rather, an "artistic gesture," as Tiago Rodrigues described it a few minutes later, also somewhat affected by what he had just seen and heard.
The evening had begun four hours earlier. The 400 free tickets for the evening were snapped up in less than an hour, and this "artistic gesture" was broadcast live on the festival grounds and in several venues around the city: the Utopia cinemas and the Guillaume Puy brasserie, which, throughout the trial at the Avignon Palais de Justice, had been the headquarters for everyone between hearings.
On a white-hot Place des Carmes...
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