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.
Mar 30, 2026 | Skirball Extras, #Lobby Talk
Skirball Salon: Theatre and Justice
Hannah Freed-Thall on “The Interrogation”
This is no straight-forward confessional monologue.
Office Hours: Coming Soon
Get Into It
Get Thee to the LIbrary
Recommended readings to get you in gear for the show.
Édouard Louis, Change (2024).
Édouard Louis, A Woman’s Battles and Transformations (2022).
Édouard Louis, Who Killed My Father (2019).
Édouard Louis, History of Violence (2018).
Louis-Georges Tin, The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience (2008).
Read All About It
The Guardian | May 13, 2021
Édouard Louis: "Truth is a revenge because we live in a world of lies"
Some people give their bodies to medical science. Édouard Louis has given his to art.
New York Times | Feb 14, 2026
"Hate Radio" and Other Transmissions From the Theater of the Real
The U.S. theater scene certainly has no public intellectual (or attention-grabbing aesthetic provocateur) like Rau.
New York Times | June 6, 2022
Édouard Louis, Miserable in the Spotlight
“Once again, I failed at being happy,” Louis laments.
Down to Earth Festival | Sept 2, 2025
The Rebirth of Tragedy: A Speech by Milo Rau
“I have been interrogated whenever I have tried to come into the United States.”
From the Archives
Archives Onstage: Hot Peaches
NYU Skirball’s ongoing commitment to queer artists and programming is reflected in the current lobby display, highlighting Hot Peaches – a long-running performance group that’s crucial to histories and genealogies of queer performance. Spend some time with the exhibit & read more about the group.
Archives Onstage: Hot Peaches
A semester-long celebration of the legacy and impact of Hot Peaches.
J de Leon on Hot Peaches
“You don’t hide beautiful things in closets.”
Extra Credit
Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel speaks to many of the themes in “The Interrogation” – read a chapter from the book, “The Autobiography of My Novel,” describing the writing and reception of his first novel, Edinburgh (2001), which made Chee the first published gay Korean American novelist.
I wish I could show you the roomful of people who’ve told me the novel is the story of their lives. Each of them as different as could be.
I don’t know if I’d be in that room.