Prep School: The Interrogation

Writer Édouard Louis was intended to star in “The Interrogation,” developed with Milo Rau, in its initial presentation in 2021; the performance was canceled when he withdrew, and reimagined with an actor portraying Louis instead. Learn more about the work:

Author Édouard Louis and director Milo Rau have been friends for a long time, a friendship born out of their joint search for an art of the real. “The core of theatre is the same as in literature: to show what is difficult to show. Theatre should not be a safe place”, Louis wrote about Rau’s play Family.

With the performance The Interrogation, they present now a very personal text about doubting and failing. The play was written and staged by Louis and Rau in spring 2021, originally commissioned by Kunstenfestivaldesarts, IIPM & NTGent, but never premiered. Now it’s finally live to see. Performed by NTGent global ensemble actor Arne de Tremerie, The Interrogation is a “demonstration for vulnerability”, a moment of poetic standstill.

Can we escape our biography through art, or is art only the record of a failed liberation? “It’s a deeply melancholic play, a fragmentary play, a tender play”, as Louis and Rau said in an interview – a constant exchange on theatre and reality, failing and transformation, fiction and truth, on becoming and being.

Milo Rau’s work often pushes the limits of comfort, for audiences and performers, and his ability to adjust and incorporate to changes in a piece’s conceptualization is crucial to his ability to create cutting-edge work – past presentations at NYU Skirball include the controversial Five Easy Pieces and Antigone in the Amazon. Learn more about Milo Rau‘s work.