Empire

What do you mean, escape? What homeland? What will the face of the new Europe look like? As a conclusion to the European trilogy, a three-year confrontation with the myth and reality of Europe, “Empire” presents biographical close-ups of people who came to Europe as refugees or have their home on its borders. The actresses Akillas Karazissis from Greece and Rami Khalaf from Syria, the Kurdish artist Ramo Ali and the actress Maia Morgenstern from Romania, internationally known as Mother of God in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, tell of artistic and true tragedy, of torture, flight, grief, death and rebirth – and thus of a Europe between ancient myth and imperial presence. What happens to people who have lost their belongings or their homeland through crises and war? An intimate yet epic portrait of a continent whose past is often broken and whose future is uncertain. “Empire” describes Europe as a mythical and real-political empire, the European as the bearer of ancient traditions and as an eternal homo migrans.

Milo Rau, Gründer des IIPM – International Institute of Political Murder – is currently one of Europe’s most sought-after directors; his productions are touring the world. He was honoured with the Swiss Theatre Prize, the ITI Prize for World Theatre Day, the 3-Sat Prize, the Peter Weiss Prize, the Radio Play Prize of the War Blind and the Saarbrücken Poetics Lectureship for Drama. As the successor of Johan Simons, Rau will be the artistic director of the National Theatre in Ghent from the 2018/19 season.