Die 120 Tage Von Sodom / Five Easy Pieces

Milo Rau's two-part work on representation and reenactment, power and violence dares to tackle the unspeakable: In "Five Easy Pieces," he brings a piece about the child molester and murderer Marc Dutroux to the stage with children, while in "The 120 Days of Sodom," actors with intellectual disabilities adapt Pasolini's infamous film of the same name. These are two attempts to explore playing and watching, reality and illusion, life and survival. Two explorations of what theater can achieve and what art is allowed to do. How can the life and actions of a child murderer be portrayed with children and adolescents aged 8 to 13? And how can actors with Down syndrome depict the brutal annihilation of life, fascism, and sadism? Fundamental aesthetic and performance-theoretical questions intertwine with moral ones: How can children understand and express what empathy, age, and loss mean?.