Pleas: Richard Berry plays a hotshot lawyer

Plaidoiries Richard Berry

From the legal audience to the theater stage, there is just one step. All was needed is for the cult judicial chronicler judiciaire culte of l’Obs Matthieu Aron to retranscribe in written manner for the public famous pleas of leading French lawyers—never recorded nor filmed.

These historical monologues are recited by the talented Richard Berry (7 years at the Comédie Française, in Plaidoiries until November at the Antoine Theater, and it’s probably the most moving spectacle of the new season. All those who like to read the small events columns in the papers of course remember these important trials:

  1. Christian Ranucci risks the death penalty for the murder of a little girl, but the case is is more than wobbly.
  2. Maurice Papon is accused of crimes against humanity.
  3. Véronique Courjault killed three of her babies.
  4. The “pursued” teenagers Zied and Bouna die electrocuted escalating an electrical EDF plant.

The most marking: when Richard Berry, imperial, incarnates the feminist lawyer Gisèle Halimi, on of the signatories of the “manifesto of  343 bitches”. Three years before the Veil law, she defended with brio a young woman who underwent a clandestine abortion. We imagine these women defending their right to do as they wish with their bodies facing an assembly of men—and it makes our heads turn...

We like: that the lawyer is either on the side of the prosecution as well as the defense, in order to unknit her argumentations with delight. Very surprising!


From the 12th of September to the 17th of November 2018 at 7pm. Between €20 and €50 €.

Also discover Moi, Papa ? The spectacle with Arthur Jugnot.

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