| Year and length: | 2025, approx. 85' (Italian premiere) |
|---|---|
| Inspired by: | Philoctetus by Sophocles |
| Text and direction: | Milo Rau |
| With: | Ursina Lardi, Hassan Azad |
| Scenes and costume design: | Anton Lukas |
| Music: | Elia Rediger |
| Video: | Moritz von Dungern |
| Lighting design: | Stefan Ebelsberger |
| Research: | Ursina Lardi, Milo Rau |
| Dramaturgy: | Bettina Ehrlich |
| Translation and language coach: | Susana Abdul Majid |
| Advice and coordination (Iraq): | Sarder Abdullah |
| Production: | Schaubühne Berlin |
| Co-production: | La Biennale di Venezia, Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna |
Theatre
Milo Rau - The Seer
Description
In The Seer, Ursina Lardi plays a female war photographer who travels to global crisis areas in search of horror stories. She seems to always be one step ahead of the suffering and invulnerable. When she is subjected to violence herself, she becomes a jaundiced Cassandra who seeks to battle the blindness of our times.
Milo Rau’s new play is based on the stories of war photographers, Iraqi citizens and his own experiences, such as his encounter with the teacher Azad Hassan in Mosul: during the occupation by the Islamic State, one of his hands was cut off as punishment. Inspired by Sophocles’ character Philoctetes, who loses everything and is banished from society due to an injury, Rau gets to the bottom of the fragility of our certainties. Why is violence so tempting? What remains when war and terror destroy the world as we know it? Can art alleviate suffering?