Laurens De Vos examines the ways in which director Milo Rau incorporates the poetic and aesthetic techniques of alienation theorized and pioneered by German director Bertolt Brecht for purposes similar to but distinct from Brecht’s. Like Brecht, De Vos argues, Rau exploits the “cesura between actor and character” to highlight the nature of the theatrical event for purposes that are largely social, drawing attention to systems of power, privilege, and violence. De Vos posits that unlike Brecht, however, Rau does not use these techniques to draw attention to the constructedness of the theatrical event—instead, Rau seeks to make the representation itself real, blurring the line between fiction and reality to trouble and implicate the audience.
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