Premiere: 13.11.2015
Final show: 04.07.2016 (Currently no tickets available)
based on The Suppliants by Aeschylus and The Supplicants by Elfriede Jelinek
In our name refugees are detained, deported, criminalized. In our name Europe is expanding the attlements of its fortress. Using texts by Aeschylus and Jelinek as a starting point, Sebastian Nübling's staging questions the democratic fabric of Berlin: Who represents whom?
Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Schutzbefohlenen (The Supplicants) could not begin with a bitterer proclamation: »We live. We live«. Her text is a response to the tragedies that took place on the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Lampedusa in 2013, and she includes a chorus of refugees that ultimately focuses on survival after arrival. Her inspiration came from the chorus of the ancient Greek tragedy The uppliants by Aeschylus, which describes how the city of Argos must decide whether or not to grant asylum to 50 women from Egypt who are begging for protection, or deny it in order to avert an impending war with their persecutors. The chorus evokes a We for those who have no representation. The We that faces Them, and makes them into the alleged »other«, hides behind a fearful and apathetic media and political apparatus. In our name walls and fences are built, military technology is used to sink ships, and new legislation is created that would legally declare the legitimate search for protection to be a crime. Is this course of action still authorised by the city? Do we know what is negotiated, decided on our behalf? Interlacing the texts by Jelinek and Aeschylus together, resident director Sebastian Nübling traces the foundations of the current political situation in the In unserem Namen project. The Gorki will be developed into a city parliament. What does it mean to want to become part of a community that does not want you, and where rights are only granted to those that can afford them? Moreover, what does this say about the community itself?
special Information: There are no seats during the event! Exception: For guest with health disability.
A produktion by the Maxim Gorki theatre. All rights: Rowohlt Theater Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg. Supported by "Kulturstiftung des Bundes"
