As of: January 30, 2024, 9:51 a.m
By: Michael Schleicher
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Introducing the new texts: Katharina Bach and Bernardo Arias Porras on the stage of the Therese-Giehse-Halle.
In the background you can see current art from Israel that relates to Hamas terror.
© Judith Buss Photography/Münchner Kammerspiele
The new literature series “Writing about 'The Situation'” has started at the Munich Kammerspiele.
It's about terror, war and anti-Semitism.
It is a simple sentence whose truth and, yes, its power and beauty only become apparent when you listen carefully.
The Israeli playwright Avishai Milstein, born in 1964, says the sentence this evening (January 24, 2024) in the Therese Giehse Hall of the Munich Kammerspiele: “The theater,” says the author, who lives in Tel Aviv, “is a space that enables discourse.” This of course also formulates the idea on which the new series of the urban stage is based.
“Writing about 'The Situation'” is a project by the Kammerspiele and the Institute for New Social Sculpture
“Writing about 'The Situation'” is the name of this format, which brings together current texts about the terror of Hamas, the war in the Middle East and the anti-Semitism that is emerging worldwide.
As part of the project that the Kammerspiele launched together with the Institute for New Social Sculpture, Israeli authors and their Jewish colleagues in the diaspora will write continuously for a year about a present for which the attack on September 7th. October 2023 represents a turning point.
Stella Leder, who developed the whole thing, hopes for a “reflection of the respective moment”.
This new literature is then presented to the public by ensemble members every two months in the house on Maximilianstrasse.
At the start, in addition to the drama "Dualidarity" by Milstein, there was the two-person scene "So how do you want to die?" by Hadar Galron, born in London in 1970 and now at home in Israel, as well as the very personal text "Screensaver". Munich author Lena Gorelik, who was born in St. Petersburg in 1981.
The works of Katharina Bach and her colleague Bernardo Arias Porras were presented.
They managed to do the difficult thing: to interpret the contributions, some of which were highly emotional, in a pointed manner without veering into kitsch, pathos or similar emotions.
Meanwhile, art from the Jerusalem gallery Y-Art, which deals with the October 7th massacre, was projected in the background.
Gorelik immerses herself entirely in that day in her prose.
“Screensaver” is a groping search for feelings, for explanations, for consolation.
“Crying has no language,” knows the author, who, despite all the sadness, analyzes the socio-political processes after the attack with crystal clarity.
Rachel Salamander (Wed.) in conversation with Lena Gorelik and Avishai Milstein.
© Judith Buss Photography/Münchner Kammerspiele
Hadar Galron, who was the only one unable to travel to the subsequent conversation with Rachel Salamander, Germanist, publicist and founder of the literary store, describes in “So how do you want to die?” the dialogue of a couple in Tel Aviv after the terror: While he, a A doctor who takes refuge in the routine of her job, she moves her family's life into a shelter at home.
Yes, this mother even goes so far as to slash the tires on her children's bikes so that they can't stray too far from the shelter.
A place that offers no security, as becomes clear in intelligent, mindful conversation as well as in Milstein's “dualidarity”.
Here an Israeli author gets a call from a German dramaturg who would like some of his scenes for a solidarity evening.
In his dialogue, Milstein repeatedly discovers the surprising and redemptive element of humor that comes from the absurd.
Above all, he uses this to expose German hesitation.
“The masquerade ball has been over since October 7th,” says Milstein later in an interview with Salamander.
“There is anti-Semitism.
There are victims.
There are perpetrators.”