--- contrib/python/pytest/py3/_pytest/compat.py	(index)
+++ contrib/python/pytest/py3/_pytest/compat.py	(working tree)
@@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ if _PY3:
     if isinstance(val, bytes):
         ret = _bytes_to_ascii(val)
     else:
-        ret = val.encode("unicode_escape").decode("ascii")
+        ret = val
     return _translate_non_printable(ret)