Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

Germany has a long history of political theater. But increasingly pressing dialogues about racism, as well as the influx of refugees starting in 2015, has led to a new urgency in depicting political and social crisis on the contemporary German stage. The result has been a theater scene that has doubled as a platform for political action, and ultimately blurs the lines between social work, radical activism, and art. In this paper, I will examine some of the ways in which theaters in Germany function as both artistic and political sites. In so doing, I will focus on so-called post-migrant theater, a highly politicized movement centered in Berlin that seeks to give a voice to narratives and populations previously suppressed in German society. I will give examples from both contemporary plays and extra-theatrical political happenings, focusing on Nurkan Erpulat’s Verrücktes Blut (Crazy Blood; 2010), Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Schutzbefohlenen (Charges; 2013), and several of the political actions organized by German theaters in 2015 in direct response to the refugee crisis. Through an examination of these events, I hope to provide one way of answering several broader questions: Who is allowed to participate in theater, both in the audience and on stage? How, practically speaking, can theater do political work? And what does the ethical performance of political and social crisis look like?