Sirenos’23: The Repetition Histoire(s) du Théâtre (I)

CONCEPT AND DIRECTOR: Milo Rau
TEXT: Milo Rau and ensemble
PERFORMERS: Sara De Bosschere/Kristien de Proost, Suzy Cocco, Sébastien Foucault, Fabian Leenders, Johan Leysen/Sabri Saad El hamus, Tom Adjibi/Adil Laboudi
RESEARCH & DRAMATURGY: Eva-Maria Bertschy
DRAMATURGIC COLLABORATION: Stefan Bläske, Carmen Hornbostel
SET & COSTUME DESIGN: Anton Lukas
VIDEO: Maxime Jennes, Dimitri Petrovic
LIGHT DESIGN: Jurgen Kolb
SOUND DESIGN AND TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: Jens Baudisch
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Mascha Euchner-Martinez, Eva-Karen Tittmann
CAMERA: Maxime Jennes, Moritz von Dungern
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Carmen Hornbostel
ASSISTANT DRAMATURG: François Pacco
ASSISTANT SET DESIGNER: Patty Eggerickx
FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY: Cédric Cerbara
VOCAL COACHING: Murielle Legrand
MUSICAL ARRANGEMENT: Gil Mortio
PUBLIC RELATIONS: Yven Augustin
BACKGROUND ACTOR: Mustapha Aboulkhir, Stefan Bläske, Tom De Brabandere, Elise Deschambre, Thierry Duirat, Stéphane Gornikowski, Kevin Lerat, François Pacco, Daniel Roche de Oliveira, Laura Sterckx, Adrien Varsalona
Premiere: 2018
DURATION: 1h 40 min.

One night in April of 2012, Ihsane Jarfi gets talking to a group of young men in a grey VW Polo in front of a gay club on a street corner in Liège. Two weeks later he is found dead at the edge of a wood. He had been violently murdered after being tortured for hours. The crime upsets and unsettles the entire city. Milo Rau is reconstructing the case – working with professional and non-professional actors – for the stage.

From the very beginning, theatre has been an incantation of the dead, a ritualized experience of original sins and collective traumas. In “The Repetition”, the first part of a series curated by Milo Rau titled “Histoire(s) du théâtre”, the director and author approaches tragedy in the form of a multi-perspective narrative of a criminal case in 5 acts. What is at the beginning of a crime? Intention or coincidence? What part does the audience play? How much is the collective to blame? And who is on stage? Milo Rau and his four actors Sara De Bosschere, Sébastien Foucault, Johan Leysen and Tom Adjibi, as well as the storeman Fabian Leenders and the dog-sitter Suzy Cocco set out to discover a capital crime, in search of the essential emotions of tragic experiences: loss and grief, truth and falsehood, disaster and fear, cruelty and terror. Six professional and non-professional actors ponder the glamour and depths of life and theatre and slip into the roles of the protagonists involved in a brutal murder case: A manifesto for a democratic theatre of the real emerges.

With this production, Milo Rau will be introducing the series “Histoire(s) du théâtre”, a performative long-term study on human kind’s oldest art form, which the Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula will be continuing in the 2018/19 season. Rau and his team return to the fundamental problems of their artistic work over the last 15 years: the question of representability of violence and traumatic events on stage – in search of the essence of the fundamentally tragic human condition and in celebration of the power of theatre.

“The Repetition” is the first production to follow the “Ghent Manifesto“ – a set of rules which will apply to all productions at the NTGent under the artistic direction of Milo Rau. It was published officially on May 18th 2018 at NTGent.

“The Repetition” is a PRODUCTION by the International Institute of Political Murder (IIPM), Création Studio Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, SUPPORTED BY the Capital Cultural Fund Berlin, Pro Helvetia, Ernst Göhner Stiftung and Kulturförderung Kanton St. Gallen, IN COPRODUCTION WITH Kunstenfestivaldesarts, NTGent, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Tandem Scène Nationale Arras Douai, Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin, Théâtre de Liège, Münchner Kammerspiele, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt a. M., Theater Chur, Gessnerallee Zürich, Romaeuropa Festival. WITH THE SUPPORT of ESACT Liège.

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“La Reprise” is not for everyone, although it probably should be. It’s thrilling and terrible theatre – and almost shaming in its ability to engross and fascinate.

Diana Simmonds, STAGENOISE

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His approach is clinical and allows the audience multiple points of entry into the drama, occasionally confounding us with conflicting messages [..] It is an extraordinarily mature, crystalline, engaging and compelling piece of theatre […]

Andrew Todd, The Guardian

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TECHNICAL STAFF ON TOUR: Jim GoossensBara, Maxime Jennes, Moritz von Dungern (Camera); Sylvain Faye, Sebastian König (Light); Pierre-Olivier Boulant, Jens Baudisch (Sound); François Pacco (Subtitels); Mascha EuchnerMartinez, Anna Königshofer (Tour manager)
EQUIPMENT: Workshops and studios of the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles