One of the most universal destructive forces in the human arsenal is the desire for justice. Although we want to make sure everyone can achieve justice, but law and order is slow in terms of implementing it. When terrorists got out of Salah Abdeslam’s car in Paris on November 13, 2015 and killed 130 people who had come to a concert in cold blood, they were seeking their justice. But when Salah Abdeslam goes on trial in France, a young lawyer, Alice, will seek justice for the victims of the Paris attacks. How does one pay for non-discriminatory, faceless terror?
The main character is inspired by the image of Alice created by Lewis Caroll – in today’s world, where nothing is self-evident, she bravely and painstakingly seeks a way out. Alice gets employed at the office of Frank Berton, a prominent French lawyer who only works on controversial cases. Hoping to find a sudden and reckless companion on her way to justice, Alice notices that the sayings of the Wonderland are becoming increasingly relevant when discussing even the most complex legal processes, and the moral worldview and rhetoric of Frank Berton stands in defense of a liberal society where human life is the biggest virtue.
Alice quickly realizes that the incredible moral and legal complexity of the case distorts everyday reality, but she continues to seek “true justice.” The foundations of a democratic state demand that everyone is considered equal before the law. However, in the face of such cruelty, one feels the law is not enough and an exception is needed, rather than an ordinary procedure. Overcoming many moral and personal dilemmas, Alice eventually succumbs to the fantasy of what would happen if she held all the cards and sought radical justice, thus revealing the traces of a collective trauma that inevitably accompanies any tragedy or terrorist attack.
Alice appears like a wedge between the reality and fantasy worlds. She makes us think about the issues of justice, morality, revenge, and moderation when this seems to be the hardest thing to do. This trauma has affected everyone, so everyone wants their revenge. Alice has amassed all the pain and hatred of the French people and she has to find out what is right. The main question of the decade arises: how to protect a civilized and educated society from impersonal, nameless hatred and lynching.
In the play “Alice”, director Antanas Obcarskas and playwright Laurynas Adomaitis take on the subject of collective trauma (together they worked on the play “Woyzeck” researching the tragedy of “Germanwings”). The main idea – known as the “drama of mediocrity” – is that the people who become known for extreme cruelty are no special, common people, and their problems are familiar to us all.
