30 years ago, neo-Nazis carried out arson attacks on two houses in Mölln.
This racist attack forms the background to Nuran David Calis' play Das Erbe, which premiered at the Munich Kammerspiele.
What a risk for a theatre.
In 1992, neo-Nazis carried out arson attacks on two residential buildings in Mölln, Schleswig-Holstein.
They murdered 10-year-old Yeliz Arslan, 14-year-old Ayse Yılmaz, and Bahide Arslan, who was 51 at the time and died trying to save her granddaughters.
Nine other people are injured in the racist attack.
Exactly 30 years to the day after the night of the crime, the Munich Kammerspiele are staging the premiere of Nuran David Calis' play "The Heritage" on Wednesday (November 23, 2022).
The author, born in 1976, deals with the crimes of Mölln;
Resident director Pınar Karabulut set up the premiere in the drama theatre.
Pınar Karabulut staged the premiere of "The Legacy" at the Kammerspiele
A gamble indeed, perhaps even presumptuous.
Because as understandable dismay and bewilderment are - of course they are not enough for an evening at the theatre.
Anger, sadness and despair also don't support staging.
In the best case, art bundles all these feelings – and creates something new out of them, adding (at least) another level to the facts.
This is exactly what Calis often achieves in his tragedy;
Above all, Karabulut succeeds in these 100 uninterrupted minutes.
On November 23, 1992, the arson attacks were carried out in Mölln
The Doğan family is at the center of "The Legacy": Father Murat came to Germany as a guest worker, set up a transport company here and led it to international success.
After his death in 1992, his widow and three children come together: united in grief, at odds over his inheritance.
When the family learns about the attacks in distant Mölln, their quarrels are decoupled from the small-small of everyday life.
The question suddenly looms over everyone: What does Germany mean to us – and we to the Germans?
No matter how adjusted and privileged the Doğans live, they don't feel accepted.
Karabulut finds strong images for "The Heritage" at the Munich Kammerspiele
This access is convincing.
Although the drama is sometimes not immune to the style of an adult education course and thesis theater.
Sometimes Calis reproduces the clichés he criticizes: "People don't want to read our texts, don't want to see the pictures we painted, don't want to hear the language we brought with us," says Halil, the son, for example.
So there are generalizations on all sides, and they all come to nothing.
Karabulut finds strong images for this: Aleksandra Pavlović cleared the stage for her and placed a turntable in the middle.
No matter how much people move on it – nobody arrives.
The eight-strong ensemble plays with verve even over the somewhat papery passages of the piece.
Compared to earlier works, the director focuses entirely on characters and their motives.
So there is little action, but a lot in the dialogues.
The recorded film passages from the Doğans' villa (shot in the garden of the Lenbachhaus) give the production a good rhythm, as does the fantastic music and soundscape that Daniel Murena has developed.
It is also her responsibility to report on the deeds in Mölln together with text overlays.
That works.
In the end, however, the Doğan siblings actually stop, sit together and share a joint.
What follows is the most honest, truest, most conscious and funniest conversation of the three.
And this scene contains the most beautiful utopia that Calis formulates in his text: everyone relaxes and talks to each other.
(More theater? Read our reviews of "Pussy Sludge" at the Munich Volkstheater and "Göttersimulation" at the Munich Kammerspiele here.)