A Theater of Documentation: A Critical Introduction

In this critical introduction, Lily Climenhaga offers an overview of the work and career of director Milo Rau. Climenhaga looks at Rau’s work across his career, beginning with early projects as a playwright working with director Simone Eisenring, through the creation of his company, the International Institute of Political Murder (iipm), and on to his work at ntgent where Rau has served as artistic director since 2018. Climenhaga identifies many of Rau’s collaborators and artistic inspirations, as well as the criticism of his practices. While all of Rau’s work is political, Climenhaga places the pieces into four distinct categories—reenactment, recollection, reactment, and reclassification—each of which allows for a kind of questioning of and engagement with history and the present.