Stanišić piece in Osnabrück: Against the shittiness of the here and now

“On a hot vineyard afternoon in June 1994, Fatih throws a stone into the air …” The text projected onto the stage is gently transformed by an actor into spoken narrative text, from then on packed into the characters’ speech in a direct address to the audience and casually transferred into scenic play. This is how literary adaptation works.

The book title “If the widow wants to be addressed, she places the watering can on the grave with the spout facing forward” was not shortened for advertising purposes at the Osnabrück Theater. But director Demjan Duran left only 49 of the 256 book text pages for his dramatization.

The director's concept is presented by actor William Hauf in the role of author Saša Stanišić as if at a reading: Since, due to time constraints, not all twelve of the stories collected in his publication could be presented, central moments from half of them were selected.

From an immigrant perspective, these are lovingly satirically prepared impressions of strange self-evident things, quirky idiosyncrasies and frightening developments that the author encountered in the German provinces and which no longer allowed him to “sleep safely”. "Hanau. The AfD. Fight and hardship. Mother who cries silently in the kitchen in the morning before work while she butters bread. Feeling guilty in front of the cops without having made myself guilty."

This is how Stanišić describes the feeling of life in the context of poverty, exclusion, racial profiling, everyday racism, right-wing populism, social division, the threat of deportation, etc. Despite the sadness, the stories come across as empathetic, witty and with wonderfully crazy literary ideas. Duran seeks appropriate theatrical means with playful seriousness. Which don't always make sense, but are usually amusing.

For example, when actors wearing life jackets, life rings or fishing nets move like seals over the undulations of the stage set. Or like dolls on a music box that mechanically shoot up and disappear again. Or, as rolling balls of tulle, talk to Dilek about her time as a goatherd in Turkey and celebrate her escape to Germany, where she now works as a cleaner and thinks about returning and setting off again.

Or the regulars at an anti-woken card game. They only take off their pebble-design full-head masks when someone greets a man in a Wehrmacht uniform with a Hitler salute who has had a full-sized tank delivered to his front door.

And because music is important to Duran, a service must not only be mentioned, but also acted out: the five-member ensemble intones “Kumbaya, my Lord” and “Amazing grace” until the audience hums and claps along: an interaction without any consequences in terms of content or aesthetics.

What is convincing, however, is the performative ease with which the players always act from their own unique style while constantly changing roles. It becomes clear what the director and author have in common. Both came to Germany as a result of the Yugoslav wars and grew up there. Now they are dealing with the search for identity between coming from a foreign country and arriving and belonging in a foreign homeland.

Heinrich Heine, who has already been written into the book as reinforcement, comes into clear focus as a revolutionary romantic on stage. Saša imagines encounters and exchanges about freedom, fairy tales, exile, political awakening and the feeling of marginalization.

The production quickly follows Stanišić's message: so that the "shittiness" of the here and now does not become "the shittiness of the future", a migrant clique suggests a "fitting room for life" in which versions of more imaginable futures can be tried out and invite people to log in. Fictional play also serves as an ideal template for the theater as a place for alternative life models. "You can't afford the future, but now you know that it is possible. So do you do something in the present...?" asks Fatih.

“We're trying hard?��, speculates Michel. Saša: “The answer was right and immediately makes sense to everyone!” So the following applies: Get out of the prison of your own biography and project yourself into your own future scenarios. Escape into reality.

Like the widow Gisela, who places a watering can on her husband's grave, as per the title of the piece - as a sign of being open to new relationships. Or how Saša reads and reads and reads, in the end no longer seeking refuge in other people's literature, but becoming a writer himself.

Of course, the performance shortens the original and does not finally bring together the plot threads and the personnel in the episode dramaturgy. But the characters blossom in a warm-hearted, pointed way and the encouraging thesis comes across the stage as an animation for action with theatrical flair.