By msparks714
There wasn’t a standing ovation, but everyone kept clapping. And clapping….and clapping. I sat there is awe and I was really brought into the story. I was amazed and yet as I looked onto that stage I could see that, though there was a continual applause, there was something being hidden. Neither me nor anyone in the audience could do anything but clap, we couldn’t fix it, we couldn’t even imagine it, all we could do is sit there and clap. But the reality is, it’s not our reality. We are so detached from the performance and so what would it really be like to stand on the stage and accept a fifteen minute applause when you knew that no-one in the entire audience understood you.
Before the end…how about the beginning? A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get tickets to a performance here at the Maxim Gorki Theater. It is a theater that was founded back in 2014 with the intention of being run by, directed by, written by, and produced by only people in Germany with an immigrant background. I find the concept really amazing and I also found the performance intriguing. I got to see a piece titled “The Situation.” This exact situation dealt with six actors from different backgrounds but the main theme was to bring light to the situation in the middle east and try to think of the best way to come to a solution. There were actors from Israel, Palestine, Syria, Kazakhstan, and I believe Turkey if I remember correctly. All had come to Germany to start a new life or to seek asylum and the play highlighted their past and what their future would hold.
I don’t want to give any of the plot away because the piece is really worth seeing, but I was extremely taken aback and I think I learned more about my time here in that hour and a half more so than over any other time that I’ve been here since. The piece brought light to the fact that we can’t just talk about the ‘situation.’ Nothing comes from that. Better even is that none of us in the audience can even fathom what it was like to live the way they had or the way that they still do. I mean how can you say that you “understand” how someone is feeling when they just risked their life to flee a country in the middle of a war and now are living in a camp with hundreds of other people wondering what will happen when their visa here runs out and suddenly they have to figure out what to do whether or not their country is still under siege or not.
At first they learned the language, then they looked for jobs, started to study, started to make a new life, a fresh start. But that doesn’t mean that someone can forget the past. They can’t. You can’t. No-one can. It’s that plain and simple and I acknowledge that Germans also recognize the importance of knowing about history and the past. I realize that, just from being here for a few month, it seems it’s something people really carry on their shoulders, no matter how old they are. Nonetheless, these people from different backgrounds are all here now. And the worst part they talked about is that no matter how hard they try here, how great their German is, or their English is, they still have their past to look through and figure out what to do with the future. That is the burden they have. Every. Day.
So how is it even partially just that I get to sit in an audience, with no idea what to do about “the situation.?” I don’t, that’s wrong. As I sat there applauding with the audience for 15 minutes I realized, maybe I’m not part of the direct problem, but I’m also not part of the solution. I have no right to clap, none of us do! There’s no mystery as to why the actors stood on stage, not one of them grinning. How hard would it be to have just told 200 strangers your life story and how difficult it is and how you so badly wish to have a solution and then their answer is simply to clap…
I wish I knew what to do, but for right now I’m not in a place in my life where I know the answer for the middle east, much less for my own tomorrow. So maybe one day something will inspire me, you, or anyone and maybe we’ll get there but for now, I think I owe an apology because all I did was clap.