Renegotiating the Relationship between Politics and Performance
by Sadie Mlika
Abstract:
Theater, as an art form, is seldom considered to be a major social or political force today. Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater, however, is trying to change that. The purpose of this study was to conduct a close investigation of the Gorki’s efforts to renegotiate the dynamic relationship between art and the political. Since the arrival of Artistic Director Shermin Langhoff at the Gorki, this small but influential house in the city center of Mitte is offering a radically different perspective than is typical of Berlin’s longstanding theater establishment. The Gorki is one of five major theaters in the city, all of which are primarily run with the help of state funding, affording them ample opportunity for experimentation, and yet the wideness and diversity with which the Gorki engages accessibility and representation in their productions remains unparalleled. My primary questions in setting out to do this research were: What is the Gorki’s mission? How and why do they seek to bring politics into their art? Can performance be an effective force in driving social change?
I. Introduction to Research
At a panel discussion hosted by NYU Berlin this past January, Dramaturg Irina Szodruch was invited to speak on behalf of the Gorki Theater. The panelists had been offering their respective insights on the ways in which migrants and native Germans interact within the context of Berlin, with special attention being paid to the plight of those refugees coming in since Merkel opened the nation’s doors to asylum-seekers in 2015. As they discussed the wide range of receptions Berliners had during this shifting paradigm, and the attempts of various sociopolitical organizations to thwart the rise of the far-right German nationalist party known as the AFD, Szodruch brought up the notion of “des-integration”. The term, which translated literally means “dis-integration”, feels close to “anti-integration” in English, is implemented in the Gorki’s current philosophy, and the motto of many Berliners, “Desintegriert euch!” or “Dis-integrate yourself!”. She went on to explain that this is to be understood as a call for everyone to demand new perspectives to those present challenges which we face in our respective societies. To disintegrate yourself, she went on, means to abandon those preconceptions we maintain around “nation” and “identity” in order to allow for something new, decided not just by the majority society but too, with the input of those minorities implicated, (the asylum-seekers), to arise in its absence. In order for us to connect, Szodruch claimed, “we must first dissolve the previously known, and leave behind the previously thought because what we experience in neo-fascist movements, both in Germany and around the world, change. So too, common causes must first be disintegrated in order to be redefined” (Szodruch, Humboldt Panel, January 26, 2018). Although it is no surprise that narratives serving to generalize and reduce heterogeneous populations no longer correspond to the expectations of our society, after the discussion, I found myself captivated by the idea that a performing arts institution such as the Gorki could theoretically pit itself against the reality of integration.
It was thus I decided I needed to know more about the Gorki and how they navigate this radical negotiation of the relationship between performance and the political. Taking into consideration my initial understanding that Berlin’s classic theaters were essentially prime defenders of ‘Hochkultur’, or high culture, I was originally a bit skeptical of the self-identified success of the Gorki Theater. How effective could the efforts of such a small theater be in seeking to shatter German preconceptions around identity, diversity, and migration, while maintaining legitimacy in this esteemed context? According to Matthias Warstat, professor of Theater Studies at the Freie Universität in Berlin, however, the theater’s name and location both point to its odd-man-out status in the German theater scene.[1] The Gorki is somewhat hidden in plain sight, tucked behind a bundle of trees in the backyard of a WWII-remembrance building on Unter den Linden, the main street linking former East and West Berlin; so the influence of a Soviet writer and activist in the Marxist social-democratic movement is unsurprising at this intersection. Warstat claimed that it is by breaking taboos that the Gorki has been able to truly stand out from the traditional theater landscape of Berlin, remarking, “There was the more conservative and classic theater audience that went to the Deutsche Theatre, an audience that liked the minimalist approach of the Berliner Ensemble and the West-Berlin theater-goers who went to the Schaubühne. And then there was the Gorki…It was unheard of for a classic German theater to form a whole ensemble with migrant actors. This development is hugely important for Berlin”.[2]
The first person I decided to sit down with in setting out to do research was Katrin Dettmer, the Arts Coordinator and Tisch Drama Professor at NYUB who co-taught a class on “Stanislavsky, Brecht and Beyond” this past semester. To my question on how it is that German theater operates differently from theater in the US, Dettmer explained that the German theater landscape is unique, compared to those in the rest of Europe as well as the US, in that it is heavily state-funded and therefore is under less pressure to deliver major box office returns. Thus too, she clarified, German theater has much more leeway and creative freedom when it comes to undertaking experimental projects, which is useful in understanding how a theater like the Gorki, the smallest of all of Berlin’s state theaters, can afford to maintain its odd-man-out status within the otherwise traditional mainstream theaters. According to Dettmer, as well as the sentiments of locals I talked to around Berlin, the work of the Gorki is considerably radical relative to the complete homogeneity of actors, audience, and substance characterizing the classic theater scene in Berlin. Although, she mentioned it is also worth considering that while Great Britain and the U.S. have been casting actors with migrant backgrounds since the 1950s, this didn’t take form in Germany until 1979, when the (now internationally-renowned) theater director Peter Stein put together a completely Turkish cast for a performance at the Schaubühne Theater.[3] The Gorki, Dettmer explained, makes an effort to be more widely accessible to the public than the other theaters, with ticket prices averaging at about 22 Euros, (compared to median ticket price of 35Eur at the Deutsches Theatre, as well as the Schaubühne), and discounted tickets available online to students, larger groups, persons with disabilities, as well as veterans. Additionally, they feature live English and German translations of the script on a projection screen above the stage, and have actors performing primarily in English, but also their native languages of German, Turkish, Arabic, and Hebrew, respective to the actors’ first languages and the motifs of their productions.
II. The Productions
Upon my first visit to the Gorki to see ‘Winterreise’, or Winter Journey, I remember registering that it was smaller than I had anticipated, but the scene was nonetheless lively and buzzing with enthusiastic attendees. I made some small talk with German students as we observed quite the crowd gather around, each holding a wine glass or pretzel, or notebook and pen in the garden facing the front steps of the theater. The crowd was composed of a mishmash of student groups, a few twenty-something international/intellectual types, and a number of well-dressed, middle-aged Germans. Just as I was getting comfortable, a series of bell-tones went off to alert us that the show was about to begin, and inside we went. The play was comprised of 8 characters in total, 7 of which had sought refuge in Germany after escaping war zones in Syria, Afghanistan, and Palestine, and were embarking on a bus tour through the German winter led by our 8th actor, “Niel”, that is, the role of the welcoming German. I found myself (among others) laughing often throughout the show, appreciating those disarming moments of comic relief, while during those more intimate monologues, I was brought to tears. There is much to find funny about the frustrated demands of Syrian refugees making the German tour guide sweat and Niels’ performance was particularly laughable when intimidating his guests with strict regulations on the bus and enforcing arbitrary but apparently necessary German social norms. The jokes mostly took place within group moments either on the bus or at those various historic and often quintessential German sites at which the group stopped. My favorite of which was in Dresden, playing on the Turkish migrants’ shock and simultaneous rejoice upon seeing a poster upheld during a surprise right-wing protest against “Islamization”—of which they are unaware—pointing to an instance of dramatic irony. The sign had “Chancellor Fatimeh Merkel” painted across and they assume, innocently, that the German Chancellor too, might be Muslim.
The lights would dim almost instantaneously as the laughs died down, however, and the music transitioned from a playful and optimistic tune to an ominous and unsettling score within mere moments. Our protagonists would then take to recounting extensive, finely-detailed monologues about their flight and migration experiences; how they snuck through borders and impervious checkpoints, and travelled on rafts across the Mediterranean; how they bargained for passports with smugglers, and failed the first, second, and third attempts to board a plane illegally, risking being sent back altogether at various checkpoints along the way. They also, however, took to discuss how painful and disillusioning life became even upon finally arriving in Germany, referring to those moments that reminded them of their ruined homelands and of those families and friends left behind. The more serious moments throughout the production were reserved for each passenger’s spotlight monologue or a few, equally as effective, word-free and noise-packed open-action scenes; such as when a Palestinian refugee struggles to understand why he isn’t allowed to hop a short fence in order to reach the soccer field, and merely feel the green grass under his feet. Just as the dramatic, anticipatory music culminates to the loud bang of a drum, he decides to jump. This grandiose leap is followed by a series of dramatic Parkour stunts around the stage, accompanied by intense, shrilling drum beats until the agile actor does a hands-free front flip off the stage, landing just inches away from those sitting in the front row, and he sprints about the audience, not once, nor twice, but three times around, performing numerous backflips and somersaults, effectively stunning nearby audience members. I had barely begun to process the symbolism of this scene before I had digested the experience emotionally; I had goosebumps climbing up my neck and tears streaming down my eyes—I remember thinking of only one word throughout all of this glorious action, as though I could see it flashing over and over again in my head, to each strike of the drum: freedom.
The Situation is a Gorki production centering on, well, “the situation”, in reference to the ambiguous but very visceral token-phrase used widely by both Hebrew and Arabic speakers when describing the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. Yael Ronen, the in-house Gorki director also taking the lead on Winterreise, relocates this situational action to an introductory German-language course taught to immigrants in Berlin. The only common ground that these students find, at first, is that each of them had come to Berlin in recent years, whether from Syria, which has been war-torn since 2011, or from present-day Israel and Palestine, where the sociopolitical climate has become increasingly militant, and the future of Palestinians is looking increasingly dire. The language course however, soon becomes less about German, and more about finding a different kind of understanding among these people—there is lively talk in Hebrew, Arabic, English, and German, while the speeches and dialogue oscillate between hopeful iterations, that these “situations” may still be solvable, and a hopelessness so well-expressed and viscerally frustrating that you could feel the audience starting to sweat. Ronen manages to weave in hilarious commentary through scenes pointing to gross misconceptions and stereotypes propagandized by both sides of the “situation”, such as when an Arab-Israeli migrant describes to us the sheer rage he felt when having to defend himself to a member of his predominantly Arabic-speaking community in Berlin—because his young son had only learned Hebrew. Another exchange involved this same actor explaining that he had moved his family to Berlin to raise his son far from the confines and influence of the military state that had become of Israel. When he was asked, “Are you free now, in Berlin?”, however, he responded, “No, because my heart is in Palestine and Palestine is not free”. These discussions, both illuminating and critical in substance, do not bring the audience any sort of silver lining either. Rather, they seem to leave us at the heart of this impasse—in sheer uncertainty. The actors concluded their performance in issuing a number of deeply polarizing and perhaps irresolvable questions representing their individual struggles, and you get the sense that the audience, after being thrown into the wide range of perspectives and nuance undergirding this complex situation, leaves the show in that very headspace. Without the satisfaction of relief, or any closure of sorts, they are left merely contemplating. The best way I could describe this feeling? Stuck-ness.
III. Interviews
In preparation for my interview with Irina, I was researching the origins of the notion of ‘postmigrant theatre’ and was able to find an interview that the Turkish-German Artistic Director Shermin Langhoff conducted a few years ago while she was still at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße theater in Kreuzberg. Apparently, it was at the Ballhaus that the phenomenon of ‘postmigration’ was first introduced to the German public, but at the Gorki, since Langhoff’s arrival in 2013, that it became popularized. The artistic director explains that, “postmigrant means that we critically question the production and reception of stories about migration and about migrants which have been available up to now and that we view and produce these stories anew, inviting a new reception” (Stewart, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture). In its very construction, the term ‘postmigration’ seems to have associations with the term postcolonial, or even postracial, and it turns out that there is not only a theater movement developing in its name, but an array of theory and literature as well. [4] During my interview with Irina Szodruch, I learned that she had also started out working at the Ballhaus, which is where she met Langhoff and picked up on this movement, and in fact she served as the mutual friend who connected Langhoff and Jens Hillje (who would later become the two directors of the Maxim Gorki Theater). When I asked Irina how she understood Gorki’s mission, and this phenomenon of Postmigrant Theatre, her response was:
I think when you try to describe what the Gorki is doing…the Gorki is a place that tries to find new narratives on identity, belonging and the beautiful German term of ‘Heimat’ (Homeland). To voice different voices about these narratives is important and actually to create access for people who don’t have access into German culture, which means the actors on stage, but also the people backstage and of course writers, directors and also technicians, also people in the administration, and obviously the ones like us dramaturgs who decide on the program in the end. So really to give access to immigrants [is our mission], in order to create more diverse, more plural narratives and we’re always, since the beginning here at the Gorki, working at this intersection of class/race/gender so it’s not about where your parents were born anymore but what you are trying to say. (Szodruch, personal interview, July 6, 2018)
I then asked her to describe how her experience with the Gorki has shifted given the dynamic political climate over the past five years, and she explained:
Since 2013, I really feel that the political climate has changed essentially. When we started in the Ballhaus back then, I always felt that we were on a mission, where we were heading towards a bright future. I always felt that with this political artistic work that we were doing, we were trying to close the gaps in this society, that they’re wouldn’t be gaps anymore between a migrant society and the majority society and I really felt that. well, that we could overcome that [gap]. In the last 5 years, [since she’s been with the Gorki] the political climate has changed so much. This notion that I grew up on was “never again”, which referred to WWII, and we thought that this was working, anti-Semitic taboos are broken, because it was always a taboo to be outspoken about it; well its not [working] anymore and I won’t even start talking about antimuslim [discrimination] or racism, and I really feel that where our mission is now is to preserve at least the status quo that we have…which I never thought could be the role of an artist because I always felt we have to be active to create something new, imagining something new. But I really feel now that even some aspect like migration policies I find myself defending Angela Merkel which I never thought would be possible. So in a way, the political mission that we are on really changed through the political climate and that’s a pretty tough experience. (Szodruch, personal interview, July 6, 2018)
To follow-up I asked Irina what it is about the Gorki that gives her the hope she needs in order to keep doing this work despite these changes, to which she responded:
The theater can still be a place to create different role models, to create different narratives on our identities, transnational identities, that we can with the so many shows that we do here reach out to communities that have been never before been involved in the public discourse. I will give you one example that is very personal to me, from our first season. We did the show Common Grounds, with people from the former Yugoslavia who were living in Berlin; we did a journey to Bosnia, a research trip, and the play pretty much reflects this research trip, and the cast is combined with all Berlin-based actors, that were born or grew up in different parts of the former Yugoslavia. And in the show, we are telling the story of one man who was guiding us through one city, who also was actually by coincidence, the cousin of one of our actresses. And he was an 80 year-old Muslim Bosnian man who had been imprisoned in one of the Serbian concentration camps. This concentration camp today, is a high school and there is no memorial whatsoever that reminds people that this place was a concentration camp during the war. There is [however,] a memorial for the brave Serbian soldiers riding for the idea of big Serbia. So, this man actually came to see our show in Berlin and he was moved to tears by hearing that his story is presented on a German stage which is right in the center of the city. He actually came to Germany as a refugee and he didn’t even have anywhere to sleep over Christmas, he always told this story because in this period of time, nobody accepted anyone, and so he was basically homeless for a few weeks in Berlin just to see this show. And so when he came to see his story being told here, the President of Germany at that time, [Joachim Gauck,] was sitting right next to him, which was also a coincidence; we didn’t know that. The fact that that was possible in a theater like this is something that gives me a lot of hope and that really keeps me going. This season too, The Roma Army was for me was such an experience. Romani people are the most discriminated inner-European minority and we were able to have such a powerful production here that even the head of Open Societies Foundation from New York came to see it and was enthusiastic about it. Something like this where I feel like we are taking a very intimate and personal journey and sharing it with an audience is always life-changing, and when we do those kind of projects and [see] that that can actually reach out to very high political levels, that is something that gives me hope. (Szodruch, personal interview, July 6, 2018).
When I asked Irina about how the Gorki interprets and implements the theme of ‘anti-integration’, which she mentioned at the panel discussion, she said:
The notion of Des-integration came out of this change in political climate, you have to ask yourself “ok, integration into what?”…“what is the majority society?”…it was also a reaction to what happened to Gorki because the first seasons here were extremely successful and we were suddenly seen as the ‘model foreigners’ as though if all the foreigners are like them then it’s okay so we were thinking no…that’s not a category we want to be in…why can’t the whole society do a process together of development towards enlightenment…why do we need to be categorized? Why do we need to be simplified? So (des-integration) was really a process of longing for complexity and longing for solidarity rather than for simplicity so that is what this call meant. (Szodruch, personal interview, July 6, 2018).
My follow-up question to Irina was: Do you think the Gorki is setting a new standard for the theater landscape in Berlin? In terms of its diverse cast and its active engagement with contemporary political themes? To which she responded:
I have a feeling that on one hand, we are a good excuse for many others [to stay the same], when for example, actors with migration backgrounds apply to [other] theaters, there are some of the old-school theaters that say no, you should just apply to Gorki—so we can serve as [the exception] and [no other] theater has to become like this. On the other hand, the ones who are more open-minded are now saying ‘okay we cannot justify anymore that our actors’ company is purely white so we should also have some diversity’…so on one hand we can be an excuse [while] on the other hand we make it impossible to have an excuse for those arguments that ‘actors with migration backgrounds are not good enough’ and so on. And actually I also see that there is a change in acting and directing schools, I see that people are opening up more to accept students with migration backgrounds because they also know that there are more job possibilities right now and it really starts at the schools so this aspect of creating different role models is really important. (Szodruch, personal interview, July 6, 2018).
Upon learning that a Frankfurt-based friend of mine had just finished an 8-week long internship with the Gorki, I was eager to ask him a few questions. I figured a fellow working student’s perspective would deepen my understanding of the Gorki’s working process and given that he had completed the internship, he no longer had a stake in boosting the theater’s reputation, which might skew one’s feedback otherwise. When I asked about his time at the Gorki, he said:
I can really only speak on the work of the director in charge of my production…honestly the [particular] play [I worked on, Die Letzten] frustrated me because it seemed like the usual German liberals patting themselves on the back for being liberals…theater against populism for people who were already against populism in the first place. Like [an] uninspired parody on Donald Trump using a slightly modernized version of an original Gorki play [on the Russian Revolution] but with 2016 election references… ridiculous. Political theater can definitely serve to offer ways and solutions to social issues or great polemics too but like…give me hope or relief or something I haven’t heard before… this [play] merely amounted to a drawing of Donald Trump looking ugly on the inside of a bathroom door at a vegan coffee shop in Neukölln. Where is the perspective? Their only light at the end of the tunnel was a forced character with a Hillary wig on and pantsuit. Where are we going with this… (Anonymous, personal interview, August 19, 2018).
I. Conclusion
In many Gorki productions, cast members take to ‘breaking the Fourth Wall’, or stepping out of character, relatively often, and as early as in the opening scene in Winterreise. Just following a strange introduction to the show, cast members suddenly introduced themselves by name, referred to their roles as actors and to us, as audience members. They turned to each other saying jokingly, “I don’t think they’re getting it,” and then proceeded to briefly explain the context of the production to us (with a hint of irony) to make sure it really hit home. This is a perfect example of a Brechtian moment, and it fits well within the setting of a minimalist stage design, consisting of merely a set of painted stairs or a few chairs representing bus seats, noticeably harsh white lights, and their often too-close-for-comfort engagement with the audience. At the Gorki, political conflicts flow mellifluously into private speeches, and the audience is actively reminded that they are not here to be entertained. The Gorki seeks to confront, overwhelm, and stupefy its audience into thinking from the felt impact of scenes across moments of disarming humor, incoherent belting, dramatic stunts both on and off the stage, and gut-wrenching accounts of migrants’ stories. These moments, I believe aim not only to engage the audience, but they serve deploy a Brechtian approach to bildung, bringing individuals to reflect critically about themselves and the society in which they live from judging the action on the stage. The Gorki is invested in raising and unpacking important questions, and not glossing over or seeking to provide us with any answers, but merely leaving us in this space of critical reflection and criticism as we exit the theater. Some questions I arrived at while observing these productions were the extent to which we can ever be free from subjectivity, that is, from rule by authority, and that by ourselves. The thought had never crossed my mind, that there are actually Arabs living and raising kids in Israel, or Arabs who speak Hebrew, at all, for example, and I wondered if I had ever considered the reality that a migrant’s experience, or even my own, was not guaranteed to be a success story, or have any sort of linear narrative, despite having arrived in a “free country”? I asked myself what it is that people can really do to fight against the forced assimilation of migrants? How can we encourage an understanding of multifaceted and irreducible identities? Why is it not common knowledge that not all Arabic-speakers are Muslim and vice versa? That most Muslims are not fundamentalists? It was undoubtedly those moments most unsettling throughout the productions that raised the most important questions, and at the very least, bring the audience to ask themselves—What did I just see and why did it make me feel like this? Does the Gorki have room for improvement, however—absolutely—there is still a long way to go for the public arts institution to influence real social change and to arrive any closer towards their aim of bridging the gap between a majority society and a post-migrant, anti-integration society. Are they making a difference however? I believe that even if in a limited way, they are, and what is perhaps more important, is the reality that they are trying.
***
[1] Sarah Mewes, “Migrants, and Migrant Theater, Take Hold in Berlin.” Handelsblatt Global Edition, Handelsblatt Global, 2 Sept. 2014,
global.handelsblatt.com/european-lifestyles/migrants-and-migrant-theater-take-hold-in-berlin-9803.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4]“New Challenges to Imagination and Representation.”(Post-)Migration in the Age of Globalisation, Syddansk Universitet, 2017, findresearcher.sdu.dk/portal/files/135452090/Post_Migration_in_the_age_of_globalisation_new_challenges_to_imagination_and_representation.pdf.