"Anti War Women" is the name of Jessica Glause's new play, which premiered at the Munich Kammerspiele.
The focus is on courageous women who organized a peace congress in 1915.
If you were attentive in biology class, you get more out of life.
Because anyone familiar with human anatomy knows that very little of the clitoris is visible.
The organ is mostly inside the female body - invisible to everyone and yet there.
So just because you can't see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
What applies to the clitoris (unfortunately) also applies to the Munich feminists Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann and their numerous colleagues.
Together with the Dutch gynecologist and women's rights activist Aletta Jacobs and others, they organized a peace congress in The Hague in 1915.
More than 1500 women from 16 countries met to work out resolutions against the insanity of the world war.
They provided important impetus for the peace agreement of 1918,
especially for President Wilson's 14-point program.
Hardly anyone knows that today, but the congress and its results still existed.
Just like the organ in the female body.
“Anti War Women” opened the “Female Peace Palace” festival
This is reminiscent of the more than two meter high clitoris that Jil Bertermann inflates at the premiere of "Anti War Women" on the stage of the Munich Kammerspiele.
This is also reminiscent of Aleksandra Pavlović's colorful costumes, whose style both quotes the past and points to a (better?) future: the woman's secondary sexual characteristics are painted on - they are there, although the clothing hides them.
The development of the play by Jessica Glause now brings to light the courageous ladies who, despite all the hostilities, came together in 1915 for a peace congress.
The evening, which premiered on Friday (March 31, 2023) and at the same time opened the "Female Peace Palace" festival, is the logical continuation of "Bayerische Suffragetten", Glause's production from 2021 at the same location.
While she presented the Munich women's movement at the turn of the 20th century, she now broadens the view and becomes international.
Their artistic approach is similar: the six-strong ensemble usually describes the course of the debates on the ramp, as Glause and her team have researched it despite the lousy source situation.
This is entertaining, pointed historical frontal teaching;
Detention in history, definitely useful.
Eva Jantschitsch aka Gustav wrote the music for "Anti War Women"
The fact that these 80 minutes never get boring or morally sour is due on the one hand to the robust acting of the actors and on the other hand to the strong compositions by Eva Jantschitsch, who is known by her stage name Gustav.
Their music looks to punk as well as hip-hop and Nino de Angelo's Beyond Eden.
Glause also shows how different the positions at the congress were.
Examples are the Belgian Eugénie Hamer, who can hardly profess pacifism while the Germans are destroying her compatriots with poison gas, and the US MP Mary Church Terrell, whose parents were only freed from the yoke of slavery by the US Civil War.
Just because you don't see something or don't want to see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
cheers.
