Political Theater | “InsideBundestag” at the Ballhaus Prinzenallee: friendly intervention

If the debates in the Bundestag are so uninhibited, they need to be made more objective elsewhere, for example at the Ballhaus Prinzenallee. Photo: Dominik Maringer In the fourth episode of “InsideBundestag” at the Ballhaus Prinzenallee you stay true to yourself. The documentary spectacle is dedicated to selected debates from the week of meetings from October 12th to 16th. This includes the Federal Chancellor's government declaration, which, directed by Lukas David Schmidt, becomes the highlight of the evening. “Politics,” said Friedrich Merz in his address to Pope Benedict XVI. speech, "must be an effort for justice."

Roxana Safarabadi's tongue-in-cheek play of the chancellor striving for state-supporting performance is enough to bring to mind the dismantling of the welfare state carried out by his coalition. There is no lack of efforts to ensure justice this week, either.

It is not only in the parliamentary debate that there is a cross-party fundamental disagreement about which and whose justice this should be. The differences emerge in the sober agenda item 7a and b, in which the Left seeks full recognition of the German genocides against the Ovaherero and Nama.

Many spectators will probably hear the predominantly detailed course of this discussion for the first time this evening, and that is only a credit to this ensemble, as is the objectivity with the greatest possible lack of objectivity. It is about reparation, apology, and the return of stolen bones and cultural assets during the systematic killing, expulsion, expropriation and forced labor of tens of thousands of Ovaherero and Nama carried out by the German colonial power between 1904 and 1908.

Representatives of the latter are present as guests of honor, as an outside view of the internal conditions. This is all the more serious given the AfD's historical bias. Their MP Alexander Wolf, who only sees “left-green ideology” at work, says the debate is primarily about “German self-hatred” and “cult of guilt.” All other parties are at least united in their outrage at his omissions.

If the debates in the Bundestag are so disinhibited, they need to be objectively discussed elsewhere. A simple method has been developed for this at the Ballhaus Prinzenallee. The move from the Bundestag to the real theater results in an alienation. The shock of what was said does not disappear, it remains and keeps the spirits awake. By conveying what is happening in the House, the audience distances itself from what is being said. It becomes tangible as a document, as material that can be interpreted. It is the principle of epic theater. The spectators look at the corrosive debates like researchers look at a virus.

That is the documentary aspect. The spectacle follows immediately, and it is based on the juxtaposition, the contradiction or, to stay with Brecht, the intervention. However, he remains friendly. The Darvish, an enchanting belly dancer with refugee experience, is the living antidote to the AfD proposal on the “costs and benefits of immigration”. And the anger at the right urge? This is released once again in Lisa Uebel's trembling, urgent songs.

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