In a monologue based on the life stories of war photographers and own experiences, director Milo Rau explores the fragility of our certainties: Why is violence so tempting? What remains when war and terror destroy the world as we know it?

In The Seer, Ursina Lardi plays a war photographer who travels to conflict areas around the world seeking images of dread. She seems always one step ahead of the suffering, and at the same time untouchable. Until she has first-hand experience of what it means to be subjected to violence herself. The celebrated war photographer becomes a jaundiced Cassandra who seeks to battle the blindness of our times. Milo Rau’s new play is based on the life stories of war photographers, Iraqi citizens and own experiences such as an encounter with the teacher Hassan Azad in Mossul, whose hand was severed as punishment during the Islamic State occupation. Inspired by Sophocles’ figure Philoctetes, who loses everything due to an injury and is banished from society, Rau explores the fragility of our certainties. Why is violence so tempting? What remains when war and terror destroy the world as we know it? Can art soothe suffering?