Last updated 5. March 2025 | Alternative Lehre

The event entitled “Globaler Realismus: Zum politischen Theater von Milo Rau,” will focus on theater as a production process that attempts to test and problematize social life. In particular, we will examine the possibilities of making theater political today – against the backdrop of global capitalist dynamics. We want to discuss this question together using the example of selected works by the popular theater maker Milo Rau, who sees himself as a Marxist.

The first step is to create a basic understanding of which
modalities, demands and structural procedures – according to their historical genesis – of theater today. In a next step, we will use this as a starting point to explore key concepts of Rau’s theater, such as global realism, and discuss individual plays by Rau (The Last Days of the Ceaușescus, Pity, Congo Tribunal). The focus will be on the specific temporality of Rau’s theater: the claim of “a completely literal repetition of the present through the past for the future.” To close, we want to critically question and problematize Rau’s attempt to make political theater together. To this end, we will draw on reflections on Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater and critical impulses from postcolonial theory.

Notes on the course of the seminar
In the seminar, we would like to use various formats to explore Milo Rau’s theater and the question of the political in theater. These include reading and discussing various (usually relatively short) texts together, input lectures from our side and watching video recordings of selected works by Rau together (The Last Days of the Ceausescus 2009, Compassion. The History of the Machine Gun 2016, The Congo Tribunal 2015/2017). It is not necessary to have read all the texts in advance to participate in the seminar. However, we would ask you to study “The Ghent Manifesto”, the three lectures by Rau and Walter Benjamin’s reflections in “What is epic theater?” in preparation for the seminar (all other texts serve as further background reading). All texts will be made available online in advance.

Registration via myStudy (https://mystudy.leuphana.de/veranstaltungInformation/show?veranstaltung_id=1107406) or by email to .