Milo Rau constructs an uncompromising theatrical documentary around a savage killing that shocked Belgium.

In April 2012, Ihsane Jarfi got talking to a group of young men in a car outside a gay club in Liège. Two weeks later, he was found dead at the edge of a wood. He had been tortured and violently murdered.

La Reprise is an audacious piece of investigative theatre, both a meticulous examination of Jarfi’s brutal murder and an enquiry into the origins of theatrical tragedy itself. Milo Rau, one of the most compelling and controversial figures in contemporary European theatre, constructs an uncompromising theatrical documentary around this savage killing that shocked Belgium.

With six professional and non-professional actors, La Reprise sifts through the details of Jarfi’s murder, bringing together testimonies from the young man’s family, former partner, lawyers and even one of his killers. It asks what pushes people to become murderers, and how poverty and deprivation in a post-industrial city can lead inexorably to despair and violence.

La Reprise is a revelatory theatrical experience, both an unflinching examination of our darkest impulses and an exploration of the complex, cathartic power of theatre.

This performance has supertitles.

Photo Credit: Huber Amiel