Abstract
In 2019, the acclaimed theatre director Milo Rau directed the performance Orestes in Mosul. The performance used excerpts from Oresteia by Aeschylus and re-framed them in the context of Mosul, the first capital of the Islamic State’s caliphate. Themes of the tragedy such as endless chain of violence and revenge through an ʻeye for an eyeʼ mentality were revisited by Rau in order to explore the harsh reality of this violent city in Iraq which has become synonymous with bombing and abandonment. This free adaptation made clear parallels between the past and the present, by staging, for example, the death of Agamemnon outside a bombed-out arts building. Rau constructed a performance of ʻglobal realismʼ in collaboration with a multilingual ensemble of European and Iraqi actors. In the study at hand, I consider the adaptation of Oresteia by Milo Rau and focus on the strong political ʻdissensusʼ to use a term by Jacques Rancière, that is employed in the performance promoting a sense of social engagement. At the same time, I look into the adaptation of the tragedy by Aeschylus which leads to a ʻhypertheatreʼ that connects past and present. Finally, I explore the intermediality of the performance and its contribution to contemporary theatre(s) of engagement.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Political Theatre, Dissensus, Greek Tragedy, Documentary Theatre, Intermediality, Milo Rau
