Theatre: Leviathan – Lorraine de Sagazan / Guillaume Poix

Premiered to a standing ovation at the 2024 Avignon Festival, Lorraine de Sagazan’s *Léviathan* confronts the gaping voids within institutional justice and questions the alternatives. After directing *Le Silence* for the Comédie-Française, de Sagazan immerses us in the heart of the judicial system, placing the audience before situations inspired by real events while skirting the edges of the fantastic—a haunting tragedy-ballet poised between dream and reality.

Born of extensive documentary research and numerous interviews with lawyers, magistrates, victims, and inmates, de Sagazan’s work examines the workings of justice—its flaws and dead ends—through four pivotal scenes of summary proceedings. Where reality imposes a certain brutality, the art of theater transports us to an imaginary realm: a magnificent set resembling a pale pink big top, where masked figures blur our points of reference.

Actors move with a marionette-like quality, resembling actual puppets... In this circus-like courtroom, the evocation of the ambivalent biblical figure of Leviathan prompts us to ask, "Who is the monster?" and to move beyond a Manichaean view of good and evil. While the highly sophisticated staging allows us to break free from omnipresent reality—and its visual beauty is striking—the critique of summary justice remains all the more potent, amplified by dodecaphonic music and vocals that echo the system's dysfunctions. For administering justice does not necessarily mean achieving justice.