The audience enters the theater foyer and finds themselves directly in front of the small stage and soon in the action How to remain humanistic after a massacre in 17 steps. Shortly after October 7, 2023, the Israeli author and dramaturge Maya Arad Yasur wrote this play, which has now been staged at the Theater Bonn under the direction of Jula Marie Kühl.
On the stage, two sides face each other in mirror image, both white and innocent, separated by a red rope, which is later symbolically integrated into the game. A young man with chunky boots is lying on the cot on the right, a woman in patterned trousers is crouching in front of the bed on the left. They embody two facets of an identity, maternal and combative, which sometimes engages in a dialogue with itself, sometimes in a choral way.
The recordings of two poems by Jehuda Amichai and Mahmoud Darwish in Iwrit and Arabic introduce acoustically, then two prologues remind us of October 7th: after thousands of people from Gaza tortured, raped, barbarically slaughtered and kidnapped children, women, the elderly, the sick – how can you feel empathy and compassion? How can one remain humanistic? A 17-step guide attempts to provide an answer.
The first step, according to Maya Arad Yasur, is to exclude social media images. By simultaneously broadcasting their cruelty to the victims’ friends and families, the perpetrators also became helpless, powerless objects. Ignoring them therefore becomes a condition for remaining an active subject and human being. The dictum of empathy follows: There are mothers on the other side too. Remember that. Again and again. Desperate, angry, horrified, people hold on to it.
But the players reach the limits of what they have suffered and collapse under the memories. An audio recording summarizes the past year: war, hunger, food deliveries, shots, bombs, hostages, dead. “Don’t forget: There are mothers on the other side of the border too.” Don’t listen to men, don’t listen to warriors. Humanity seems to be in the hands of mothers. A small glimmer of hope glimmers in the game with the red line as a jump rope.
Open yourself to life, hold on to it
Children should be protected from information. They should remain lighthearted and have fun. Open yourself to life, hold on to it, hold on to small human stories, the text appeals. The players strive for lightness, fend off what is disruptive, fight for humanity and the essential elements of life, and look for the beautiful. A dance turns into rage, anger and aggression. The characters get caught in the boundary, the rope that becomes a chain and deprives them of their ability to act.
Then the piece is transformed into an unusual format. Before the music fades away, dramaturg Sarah Tzscheppan enters the stage; at each performance she is accompanied by a different person with whom she has a framework conversation about the topic of the piece. “We want to ensure that culture is not just consumed, but also leads to political action,” explains Kühl. After each presentation, it must be decided individually whether the statement and call to action are historical and appropriate and also empathetic or whether step 15 is ultimately confirmed: »Don’t talk to humanists from Europe. It’s easy to be a humanist when you look at events from a safe distance.«
The play will be shown again at the Schauspiel Bonn on October 21st and November 12th.
