Theatre on 5 continents, an honorary doctorate, the Oresteia in Mosul: this will be the month March!

An honorary doctorate in Sweden, a retrospective in Brazil, a world tour across 5 continents, a new book and a new production of the “Oresteia” in the former capital of the “Islamic State” in northern Iraq: this spring is probably the craziest in the history of the IIPM – International Institute of Political Murder since its foundation.

“Paedophilia and homophobia are the same”: Retrospective for Milo Rau in Brazil

In February a comprehensive presentation of Milo Rau’s artistic work could be seen in Amsterdam, next week the work of the “currently most influential” (DIE ZEIT) and “most controversial” (NEW YORK TIMES) theater and film maker will travel to South America: the Swiss is the central figure at this year’s MITsp Festival, the largest theater festival in Latin America.
Rau, who is preparing a project together with the Brazilian landless movement for the coming year and has been controversial in Brazil’s Right since his open letter against President Bolsonaro at the latest, will meet representatives of the landless movement and the artist Wagner Schwartz who is threatened with death due to a performance in São Paulo. The fact that the paedophilia play “Five Easy Pieces” and the play against homophobia “The Repetition” will also be shown in São Paulo is already causing debate.
“Everyone can have their own opinion,” Milo Rau told a Portuguese-language newspaper last week, “but let me make one thing clear: Paedophilia and homophobia are structurally the same, because both attitudes involve violence”. The Rau retrospective will take place in São Paulo, the planned transfer of the plays to Rio de Janeiro was surprisingly cancelled two days ago.

5 continents in 4 weeks: World tour with “The Repetition” and “120 days of Sodom

But Brazil is only one stop on the world tour of the IIPM. “The world lies at Milo Rau’s feet,” the Belgian newspaper De Standaard recently headlined metaphorically. In March alone, the IIPM’s “Representation Trilogy” can be seen on 5 continents.
While “Five Easy Pieces” (2016) is celebrating its long-awaited North American premiere in New York today after a two-and-a-half-year tour around the globe, the piece “The Repetition” (2018), which has already been nominated for numerous awards and was selected by the New York Times, Le Temps and Nachkritik.de as one of the best productions of the previous year, will travel through Australia, South America and Taiwan in the coming month.
“The 120 Days of Sodom”, for which Milo Rau collaborated with the HORA Theatre in 2017, is now coming to Portugal after Holland and Spain. All important dates can be found here or here.

“Alternative to the current system” : Honorary Doctorate for Milo Rau in Sweden

As Lunds Universitet Malmö announced last week, Milo Rau will be the first honorary doctor of the Faculty of Fine Arts and Performance. Lunds University, which awarded honorary doctorates to Thomas Mann and Kofi Annan, among others, justifies the appointment of “one of the most influential and provocative theatre and film directors of our time” as follows: “Rau’s art does not limit itself to directing, but also includes a further development of social analysis, interaction with the audience and the actor’s work. As an author and worldwide lecturer, Rau analyzes theatre using sociology and cultural theory. As artistic director of NTGent, he has published a manifesto that outlines the future role of institutions in the performing arts and calls for collaborative work and the inclusion of new voices as a possible alternative to the current system”.
Rau, who has been a poetics professor, researcher, workshop leader and lecturer at countless universities and educational institutions worldwide for 15 years, will give his inaugural lecture in Malmö on 23 May and be honoured with a doctorate in Lund Cathedral on 24 May.

“The historical feeling” : New Rau book in print

“A Chekhov like portrait – technically perfect and incredibly strongly played”, cheered the Dutch newspaper “Volkskrant” about the guest performances of the Schaubühne long-time burner “Lenin” (2017) last month in Amsterdam, in which Ursina Lardi plays the same-named revolutionary leader.
How history comes to life on stage, how research, directing and acting art, video and performance come together to form the overall work of art “Theater”: This is Milo Rau’s new book “Das geschichtliche Gefühl” (“The Historical Feeling”), which will be published this month by Alexander Verlag in Berlin. “Rau rethinks the concepts of mimesis and immersion, catharsis and tragedy after postmodernism – in the service of a theatre that rehearses ‘utopian identification’ and global solidarity and establishes ‘institutions of the future’,” writes the editor.
The book, which is based on Raus Saarbrückener Poetikdozentur (Poetics Lectureship Saarbrücken), is extended by two conversations with Rolf Bossart and Harald Welzer as well as an essay by Johannes Birgfeld on “Raus Theater der Revolution” (“Raus theatre of revolution”).

 “Orestes in Mosul”: Milo Rau stages the Oresteia in Northern Iraq  

“One can rest on the practice of exploitation or one can oppose it with a practice of solidarity. Why can we consume the oil from Mosul but not be interested in the people there, their stories, their art?” asks Milo Rau in a conversation with dramaturge Stefan Bläske about “Orestes in Mosul” (Press material here)
Rau’s new production, which will be created with a mixed ensemble of Iraqis and Europeans in Mosul and Ghent as a co-production of NTGent and Schauspiel Bochum, will have its premiere in Ghent on 17 April. Therein Rau questions his practice of “Global Realism” on the basis of the oldest surviving tragedy trilogy, the “Oresteia” by Aischylos: What brings collaboration across continents? What can an Oresteia in the recently liberated city tell about the great themes of tragedy: violence, guilt, forgiveness? And what can a Western ensemble learn from the resistive practice of Iraqi artists who continued to celebrate music, photography, dance and theatre despite the death penalty?
“Our “Orestes in Mosul” is, so to speak, an attempt to carry a porcelain vase over a minefield. You have to be extremely optimistic to try that. That’s why the attempt alone counts for us,” says Rau about his latest project at NTGent. More information here.

“From strength to strength” – a look back at 2018, and ahead to 2019

“From strength to strength”: 100 Days of NTGent

It was no doubt the most closely internationally observed launch of the season: from Libération to the New York Times, from the NZZ to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, critics travelled to Ghent  for a first-hand look at Rau’s “plans for European theatre” (Financial Times) and to view his first two plays, “The Repetition” and “Ghent Altarpiece”.
After the first half of the season, their reviews are euphoric: “Milo Rau went from strength to strength in 2018”, the New York Times wrote. It named “The Repetition”, the first play to be staged in 2018 under the “Ghent Manifesto”, one of the ten best productions of the year. Numerous critics’ polls in six countries echoed the New York Times: “The Repetition” made the best–lists of over a dozen critics, from the USA to Germany and Italy to France. The best compliment was probably that paid by Le Temps of Geneva, which in its year-end review said: “For many, it was the play of the year, for some, the play of their lives.”

Milo Rau retrospective in Amsterdam

“No other director in Flanders and Europe generated such heated debate and controversy in 2018 as Milo Rau,” wrote De Tijd last week in its annual year-end interview. While Belgian television is completing a film on the background to “Ghent Altarpiece” and the Dutch trade journal De Theaterkrankt is publishing a critical interim report on the “City Theatre of the Future”, the Dutch-speaking world’s first retrospective of Rau’s theatrical work is set to appear this month: in its Brandhaarden Festival, the International Theater Amsterdam (ITA) is focusing exclusively on the Swiss artist’s work.
After devoting last year’s festival to the exceptional English director Peter Brook, the ITA is dedicating this year’s edition to Rau’s “Theatre of the Real”: from 24 January, the long-standing Amsterdam theatre will show “Ghent Altarpiece”, “Lenin”, “120 Days of Sodom”, “Empire”, “The Repetition” and “Five Easy Pieces”, among other plays.

“Orestes in Mosul”, “The New Gospel” and “Family”: three new projects for 2019

“Is Milo Rau Really the Most Controversial Director in Theater?”, asked the New York Times at the opening of the Ghent season. “Ghent Altarpiece”, dubbed a “monument of humanity” by the Belgian cultural radio Klara and selected for first place on the broadcaster’s annual best-list, made an almost “old-masterly” impression on many critics (RTBF). For 2019, Rau has taken on two more classics of the European tradition: the Oresteia and the Bible. The preparations for the filming of the Gospel in the vicinity of the Southern Italian city of Matera (working title: “The New Gospel”) begin this week. “In our adaptation of the Gospel, all roles are to be played by the losers of today’s world economy: the Southern Italian farmers who went bankrupt because of grain imports and the refugees from Africa stranded in Italy”, writes the director in the Tagesanzeiger. The film’s public scenes – the Passion of Christ up to the crucifixion – will be shot in September in and around Matera, this year’s European Capital of Culture. The cinema release is scheduled for 2020.
Rau travelled to Mosul in November with dramaturge Stefan Bläske and actor Johan Leysen for their updating of the Oresteia with a team of European and Iraqi artists (working title: “Orestes in Mosul”). After a work phase in Ghent, rehearsals will continue in March in the former stronghold of the Islamic State (to premiere on 17 April 2019). Reporting on the situation in Mosul, the Frankfurter Rundschau wrote: “When the work debuted in 458 B.C., Mosul had long been a cosmopolitan city. When Rau’s adaptation takes the stage, Mosul will still be a place of ruins.”
Parallel to these two international projects, Rau will conclude the cycle “Belgian Crimes” in 2019 with the production “Family”, which follows on “Five Easy Pieces” (2016) and “The Repetition” (2018). Like “Orestes in Mosul”, “Family” will be developed with actors from NTGent’s “global ensemble” and will premiere at the beginning of January 2020.

Art and political engagement: debates in January and February

In addition to the guest performances and new productions – “The Repetition” will be shown on four continents in 2019 – this year, too, will begin with various discussion events. How does a piece emerge, what does “global realism” mean, and how do political engagement and art go together? In January, Rau will offer insights into his current projects at the International Theater Amsterdam and at the Kaserne Basel. In February, he will take part in the “Woche der Kritik” (Week of Criticism) at the start of the Berlinale and discuss his work with Jakob Augstein (“Der Freitag”) at the Schauspiel Köln in “Unter vier Augen”.

Milo Rau cannot travel to Russia to receive the European Theatre Prize / Freedom for Kirill Serebrennikov: Statements by director Milo Rau and jury member Marina Davydova

Milo Rau had called last weekend for the creation of a “European Republic” in 150 European cities on the occasion of the reading of his manifesto written with Ulrike Guérot and Robert Menasse. Now the Swiss director has got himself in the way of national borders. Rau was to be awarded the “XV Europe Prize Theatrical Realities” by the EU Commission tomorrow Saturday in St. Petersburg, as the Swiss Depeschenagentur reported last September. As the newspaper “La Vanguardia” reported today, Rau will not be able to participate in the ceremony for the European Theatre Awards.

Since his project “The Moscow Trials” (2013/14), in which he critically examined artistic freedom in Russia, Milo Rau no longer had an entry permit for Russia. Invitations to the “Golden Mask Festival” and the “Manifesta” were unsuccessful due to visa problems. “I am not surprised that it has again proved too difficult to get a visa,” comments Milo Rau. After several efforts by the organizers and after Rau had to cancel his trip to Russia, a visa was suddenly offered this Friday afternoon at the Russian Embassy in Antwerp – “at a time when I wasn’t even in Belgium anymore and the screening of my film “The Congo Tribunal” had long since begun in St. Petersburg”, as Rau comments.

“I am sad that Milo Rau couldn’t come to St Petersburg,” comments Marina Davydova, member of the jury for the European Theatre Prize and director of the NET Festival and programme director of the Vienna Festival 2016. Davydova draws a parallel to last year’s winner Kirill Serebrennikov, who has been under house arrest in Moscow for over a year. “The situation is absurd: the European Theatre Prize is coming to Russia, and we don’t have a word to say about Kirill, who was unable to accept the prize last year like Milo now.”

“The fact that I can’t go to Russia is just a formality compared to the fact that Kirill Serebrennikov is currently under house arrest,” says Milo Rau. “How can we celebrate the “European Theatre Prize” in Russia without paying any tribute to the fact that in the same country one of last year’s prizewinners is being subjected to a show trial? It is time that we clearly express our support for Kirill Serebrennikov”.

The complete statement of the director you can find below.

Statement by Milo Rau on the occasion of the award ceremony of the European Theatre Prize
On November 17, 2018 in St. Petersburg

Dear colleagues, dear jury,

as you know, I can’t be in St. Petersburg tonight. I’m very sorry about that, because I’m extremely happy about the award, which is given to me and my team. However, I am not surprised that it has proved too difficult to obtain a visa for Russia.

Since our project “The Moscow Trials” five years ago, in which we critically examined artistic freedom in Russia, we have no longer been able to enter this country – be it for “Manifesta” or the “Golden Mask Festival” and other events. There were always problems; this time, for example, the letter of invitation was declared incorrect, then another embassy was responsible, and so on. Only yesterday, Friday, I suddenly received the surprising news that I could come to the Russian embassy in Antwerp in two hours, at a time when I wasn’t even in Belgium anymore – and the screening of my film “The Congo Tribunal” had long since begun in St. Petersburg.

But however absurd that may be, the fact that I am not with you today is completely irrelevant. It’s nothing more than a stupid formality. But these considerations are completely irrelevant in view of the fact that director Kirill Serebrennikov, who received the same prize a year ago, is currently on trial on grotesque charges. As you know, he was unable to accept the 2017 prize because he was already under house arrest. And there he is still, and who knows how much longer.

So now we are in the following situation: The European Theatre Prize is coming to Russia, and we don’t officially say a word about Kirill Serebrennikov, who is threatened with 10 years imprisonment in the same Russia. But how can we celebrate the power and freedom of theatre, how can we celebrate ourselves and European exchange, but at the same time remain silent about the fact that one of last year’s winners is at the mercy of a show trial? What does this mean for the European Theatre Prize and for us, the theatre-makers as a whole, if we are not even prepared to show this simplest form of solidarity?

The reason for awarding the prize to me and my colleagues was that we would be honoured for our “passionate interest in socio-political issues”. This is beautifully formulated, but in concrete terms it means: Serebrennikov’s case is also mine, is our case, as is the case of Pussy Riot or the exhibitions “Forbidden Art” and “Attention! Religion” in the Sakharov Center, which I made a theme of in the “Moscow Trials”. I very much regret that I cannot be with you at this moment. It seems wrong and insufficient to me to send a statement. But unfortunately there is no other possibility for me, and maybe this is only a part of this whole absurd situation: that even protest is only possible by email.

It is time that we all express our support for Kirill Serebrennikov – in the name of this prize and the theatre! I hope that this stupid trial to which Kirill is exposed will soon be over and he will be free again! And of course I hope that we can all meet in person soon!

Thany you very much!

Milo Rau, Cologne, 17th November 2018

“Welcome to the City Theatre of the Future”: Invitation to NTGent’s Season Presentation 2018/19 on Friday, 18 May

Never before has a production by Milo Rau been so hotly awaited as “La Reprise / The Repetition”, which premiered at the National Theatre in Brussels on 4 May 2018. The play, which deals with the murder of homosexual Ihsane Jarfi in 2012 and culminates in a 20-minute torture scene, was celebrated by the public and the press alike. “Cruel murder becomes a theatrical masterpiece”, wrote the Standaard, Bruzz saw a “hammer blow”, Le Soir a “homage to all the possibilities of theatre”, Belgian television RTBF a “new ‚great’ Milo Rau, that puts all drama at distance to move us deeply”, DIE ZEIT a “grandiose reconstruction (…) of glistening beauty”, La Libre Belgique finally a “masterpiece (…) that will shape theatre history”.

At the same time, the depiction of senseless violence, with which Rau ties in with his classical re-enactments such as “The Last Days of Ceausescu’s” as much as with the metatheatre etudes “Five Easy Pieces” or „The 120 Days of Sodom“, led to rejection, especially in its celebration of theatre means: “No matter how much meta Rau expands his theatre, he does not question his own position”, the magazine Et-cetera wrote. Form your own opinion: Starting Wednesday 16 May, “La Reprise” will be shown at NTGent (some tickets are left for Saturday, 19 May), then the production will move on to the Théâtre Vidy Lausanne, Kaserne Basel, the Berlin Schaubühne, the Festival d’Avignon, the Romaeuropa Festival and the Paris Festival d’Automne, among many other venues.

Milo Rau’s first season as artistic director will also be presented in Ghent this week in the context of the guest performances of “La Reprise / The Repetition”. On Friday, 18 May 2018, at 7 pm, the “Ghent Manifesto” will be read out in the NTGent’s Schouwburg and the artists and productions of the 2018/19 season will be presented. A “City Theatre of the Future” is to be created in which local and global production methods of the independent scene are blended with those of a large city theatre with four stages: a free, open production house with an international ensemble and guests, school and workshop of the theatre – which, not least of all, continually questions its own position and vision.

Retrospect and Preview 2017/18

‘A modern classic.’ This was the judgment by Belgian state television of Milo Rau’s play ‘Empire’ on the occasion of its guest appearance at this year’s Kunstenfestival in Brussels. The concluding play of the ‘Europe Trilogy’, which was nominated for the Berlin Theatertreffen and invited to the Schweizer Theatertreffen, and described as ‘the theatre of Euripides reconceived for the present’ by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, continues its triumphal march: from Wednesday, it will be competing in the competition for the Mülheim Dramatists’ Award for the best German-language play of 2017. ‘Empire’ is thus the first work in the history of the most important German playwrights’ award that doesn’t contain a single German word – a jury decision as gratifying as it is courageous. Following the Swiss showing of top plays and the Mülheim Theatertage, ‘Empire’ will travel to the German-French festival Perspectives and the Epidauros Festival in Athens, among others, before it becomes a part of the repertoire of the National Theatre Ghent, the directorship of which Milo Rau will take in 2018.

For IIPM’s preceding production ‘Five Easy Pieces’, too, the current season has drawn to a successful close. After having been invited to the Dutch and Belgian national theatre festivals and honoured with the Belgian Critics’ Award, the play, which has been shown in twenty countries to date, won the 3sat Award at the Berlin Theatertreffen. Deutschlandradio Kultur summed up the guest performances of the Ghent children’s play at the Berlin showcase of the best German theatre as ‘one of the truly superb invitations in recent years.’ The production even moved the blogger of the Theatertreffen ‘to believe in theatre again,’ while the English critic Andrew Haydon called it ‘lifetime top-five outstanding’. After Berlin, ‘Five Easy Pieces’ will travel this season to the Impulse Festival in Cologne, to Madrid and to Ljubljana. Beginning in the 2017/18 season, a second version of the piece is to travel the world parallel to the first. The programme for next season includes a South and North American tour, among other stations.

In addition, after a preview tour through the Democratic Republic of Congo, the much-anticipated film ‘The Congo Tribunal’ will come to European cinemas in autumn 2017. Parallel to this, in cooperation with ARTE, ZDF and Swiss Television, a multimedia platform and an interactive computer game are being created based on this ‘most ambitious political theatre project ever staged’ (The Guardian). Also in autumn 2017, following ‘The Congo Tribunal’, IIPM will present a further large-scale political project, ‘The General Assembly’. In November, delegates from around the world will convene in Berlin to challenge the newly elected German parliament – as representatives of those who are affected by German policies yet have no political voice. Here, a global parliament is to take the place of a national parliament: the first world parliament in human history.

Rau and his team are also developing three new plays for the 2017/18 season: In October 2017, the revolution panorama ‘1917’ (with the 2017 winner of the Hans Reinhart Ring, Ursina Lardi, as Lenin) will be staged at the Schaubühne in Berlin. In February 2018, a ‘Joan of Arc for our time’ (Season Program of Residenztheater) will be brought to life at the Residenztheater in Munich. Finally, in May 2018, the theatre essay ‘Geschichte des Theaters’ (History of the Theatre; with Johan Leysen, Sara de Bosschere and Sébastien Foucault) comes to the stage in cooperation with the Théâtre National Bruxelles, the Schaubühne in Berlin, the Festival d’Avignon, Prohelvetia and the National Theatre Ghent, among others.

Meanwhile, Milo Rau has outlined his personal ‘Poetik eines global gedachten Menschheitstheaters’ (Poetics of a Globally Conceived Theatre of Humanity) in the framework of the ‘Saarbrücker Poetikdozentur für Dramatik’ (Saarbrucken Poetry Lectureship for Drama), which ended last Monday. The three lectures will be published early next year by Alexander Verlag of Berlin under the title ‘Geschichte des Theaters’ (History of the Theatre), enriched with the text from Rau’s eponymous performance. Next season, three further publications will additionally illuminate the work of the ‘Bertolt Brecht of the 21st century’ (art.tv): Diaphanes Verlag of Zurich will publish a collection of Milo Rau’s conversations, theoretical essays and manifestos under the title ‘Wiederholung und Ekstase’ (Repetition and Ecstasy; edited by Rolf Bossart and Dieter Mersch). Two volumes from the publisher Verbrecher Verlag, ‘The Congo Tribunal’ and ‘1917’, as well as the re-issued ‘Europa Trilogie’ (Europe Trilogy) illuminate Rau’s work from a ‘global popular theatre’, which the author and designated director of the NTGent himself sketches in two current, programmatic interviews in the newspapers Le Soir  and the Tages-Anzeiger .

Milo Rau Directorship of the NTGent beginning in the 2018/19 season

As the National Theatre Ghent announced at a press conference the 27th april, the Swiss author and director Milo Rau will assume the directorship of the NTGent beginning in the 2018/19 season. Rau is to succeed the Dutch stage director Johan Simons in the role of the theatre’s artistic director. Rau’s directorial team will include Stefan Bläske, house dramaturg at IIPM, and Steven Heene, the artistic coordinator of NTGent.  

NTGent is the largest ensemble theatre in the Flemish-speaking world. It stages productions in its home theatre building, the Koninklijke Nederlandse Schouwburg (Royal Dutch Theatre), built in 1899, as well as at its Arca and Minnemeers locations. In addition to hosting an extensive programme of guest performances, NTGent has mounted numerous outstanding productions in recent years, including, for example, ‘Platonov’ by Luk Perceval, ‘Tauberbach’ by Alain Platel, and les ballets C de la B, or ‘Gift’, by Johan Simons. In assuming the directorship of NTGent, Rau and IIPM are establishing a constant presence in the Belgo-Dutch region. Their work here began in 2012 with ‘Hate Radio’, a co-production with the Beursschouwburg in Brussels that had an engagement at the Berlin Theatertreffen. Since then, their relationship with this region has been intensified through further productions, including, among others, ‘The Civil Wars’ and the Ghent production ‘Five Easy Pieces’, which has also been invited to this year’s Berlin Theatertreffen.

In addition to two international productions by Rau and IIPM, the works planned for the opening season of 2018/19 include, among others, a piece under the direction of Luk Perceval and a children’s play that picks up where ‘Five Easy Pieces’ leaves off. The preparatory season of 2017/18 at NTGent will feature the joint IIPM productions ‘General Assembly’ (world premier November 2017, Schaubühne, Berlin) and ‘Histoire du Théâtre’ (world premier May 2018, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels). In their new capacity, Rau and his team in Ghent will continue their intensive pursuit of a global realism – seeking to develop a theatre of the future that connects the local with the European, and the municipal theatre with international tours.

You will find the press release from NTGent here.

We look forward to this new endeavour, as well as to our continuing work with our current partners, sponsors, and the theatre companies with whom we collaborate.

ALTHUSSERS HÄNDE

(The Hands of Althusser) 

2015 / Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin

By Milo Rau / edited by Rolf Bossart

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DIE ZÜRCHER PROZESSE / DIE MOSKAUER PROZESSE

(The Zurich Trials / The Moscow Trials)

2014 / Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin

By Milo Rau

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