Five Easy Pieces (Milo Rau) about how we deal with the emotional shock and pain caused by an extremely upsetting experience. Milo Rau's "Five Easy Pieces" is also a reflection on theatre. The title "Five Easy Pieces" refers to a series of exercises that Igor Stravinsky composed in 1917 in order to teach children how to play the piano, and that were also called "Five Easy Pieces". The theatre production of Milo Rau is made up of five monologues, each offering a different perspective on how children learn to act and how they learn to grow up. Milo Rau sees his performances as "Lehrstücke", in
The King of Marvin Gardens which included the Monkees film "Head" (1968) and "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), which established both men as major figures in Hollywood. Dern and Nicholson had previously worked together in "Psych-Out" (1968) and "Rebel Rousers" (1970). Nicholson and Scatman Crothers subsequently co-starred in Miloš Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980). Co-star Ellen Burstyn had previously worked in the TV series "Gunsmoke", in which Dern had also appeared, and would soon achieve worldwide fame with her starring role in William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" (1973). The film was one of the few screen appearances made