Lorraine de Sagazan’s Dogs confronts pending French trial

Lorraine de Sagazan’s new piece, Dogs, premiered at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris and takes up a pending case tied to the so-called French Bukkake website, in which prosecutors say 17 men will face charges and 42 women are due to testify. De Sagazan describes the work as “a visual and musical installation” rather than a conventional play.

Details of the alleged crimes are given mainly through projected text while the action unfolds as a series of surreal operatic tableaux led by the ensemble Miroirs Étendus, set to liturgical music and reorchestrated material by J.S. Bach. Anouk Maugein’s set covers the stage with a sea of damp, wrinkled garments that reaches the audience, and the performance begins with a trigger warning.

The production makes no attempt to recreate the alleged exploitation onstage; instead it presents disturbing descriptions, masked figures and a single excerpt of an organized shoot in which a large group of masked men file into a building.

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