Milo Rau's Pelicot Trial Play Gets London Run — SkimNews
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- Milo Rau's "The Pelicot Rape Trial" will be staged at London County Hall on 30 November, a one-night-only event presented by Young Vic Theatre on the South Bank.
- Dominique Pelicot was jailed for 20 years after being convicted of drugging and raping his then-wife Gisèle and allowing 51 men to rape her while unconscious over abuse that lasted nearly a decade.
- Fifty men were found guilty of rape or sexual offences after a three-and-a-half-month trial; the play draws on trial documents and psychiatric reports of the 51 men prosecuted.
- Thirty actors and public figures will take part in the documentary-style performance, which originated at the Festival d'Avignon and has toured European cities with one show per location.
- Gisèle Pelicot, 73, waived her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and said shame should fall on her abusers rather than on her.
- Young Vic artistic director Nadia Fall described the piece as "confronting event-theatre" that "bears witness to the harrowing story" of Gisèle Pelicot.
Why it matters: By staging the trial's psychiatric reports and testimonies as live theatre, the Young Vic extends the Pelicot case's reach beyond France into a single London performance. The piece foregrounds Gisèle Pelicot's own framing — that shame belongs to her abusers — and the theatre explicitly positions the case as a sociological study showing "perfectly ordinary men from all social classes" capable of the crimes.
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