These are times of fundamental social upheaval. Fear of social decline is prevalent, along with a strengthening of right-wing populist parties. Freedom of speech is endangered in the face of an increasing number of autocratic rulers all over the world who either ignore their own countries’ laws or simply change them. The western self-concept of living under the USA’s protection has also become unsettled. Even conservative parties, who generally love nothing more than saving money, are stumping up millions of Euros from their national budgets to render Europe able to defend itself in case of war. While a small number of super-rich gain ever more influence, our own efficacy is in question.
The Self is out of its depth in the face of the world. It sees itself confronted with an overly powerful external realm. This is also reflected in some of the productions in this year’s Theatertreffen-selection. Kim de l’Horizon’s novel “Blutbuch” (its stage adaptation from Magdeburg was invited to the festival) portrays the coming-of-age of a Swiss child in an external world perceived as overbearing, initially represented by lovingly transgressive female characters. In Alice Birch’s rewriting of Lorca’s “Bernarda Albas Haus”, too, the eponymous Bernarda oppresses her grown-up daughters as a reaction to an allegedly evil society lurking outside the women’s door.
The dramatisation of Dinçer Güçyeter’s novel “Unser Deutschlandmärchen” will be presented at the festival: a story from the first generation of migrant guest workers that takes a family as its point of departure but has a lot to say about society. In Bertolt Brecht’s “Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar”, which has been invited together with Björn SC Deigner’s contemporary text “Würgendes Blei”, once again, the conditions that the Self finds itself in have been predetermined. War widow Teresa Carrar has no way of influencing the fact that there is a raging war; the question is rather how she deals with this fact and whether she and her sons will join the war against the fascists. And finally, the opera performance “Sancta”, in which Florentina Holzinger uses Paul Hindemith’s short opera “Sancta Susanna” about the sexual awakening of a nun for a female reckoning with the Catholic church, which is felt to be overpowering, and needs many Selves to join together and counter it.
But what does all this have to do with Theatertreffen’s forum of emerging critics? While we explored various perspectives on theatre criticism in 2024, this year the critics will follow several invited productions and take the Self as their point of departure. All of the invited productions have already seen their premieres and have been abundantly reviewed. We know that they are considered to be “remarkable”, the third person singular has already been used. But how do the productions impact on the aspiring bloggers themselves? What might be the challenges faced by a review that openly confesses to being subjective and speaks in the first person? How difficult is it to formulate a personal opinion that may differ from those of well-known critics?
Apart from networking opportunities, trying out journalism under real-time conditions and plenty of different input, this year will especially be about our own attitude towards productions and the people involved in them. Radio critic Barbara Behrendt will join us and work with the emerging journalists on radio conversations, where they will try to describe how they experienced a show with their own voices and from their own perspectives. Journalist Elliot Douglas will show us what is important in relating our impressions in moving images on social media. And Peter Kümmel, theatre critic of the national weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” will also drop by for a visit. Christian Rakow will join us from the online theatre site nachtkritik.de, which established a commentary function on its site, thus helping to shape a subjective access to theatre.
And author Dinçer Güçyeter will visit us, too. His debut novel “Unser Deutschlandmärchen” shows that a personal view of the world can also be highly political. The world order may be unraveling, but self-efficacy still begins with looking at the world from one’s own personal perspective. And then making changes, step by step, sometimes even as a group. I am looking forward to it.
