Reality is only make-believe

One of the many confounding pleasures of The Rehearsal, comedian Nathan Fielder’s elaborate social experiment/docu-reality HBO series, is how often the show exposes its own illusions. The central concept of the series is straightforward, if typically absurd: what if you could rehearse fraught conversations or situations in advance? How much could you control if you had every resource to prepare? The show depicts both the tedious constructions of facsimile – building a replica bar, hiring actors, stress-testing potential conversations – and the unnerving, at times sublime, suspension of disbelief.

In his prior show, Comedy Central’s cult hit Nathan