The didactic play is back in vogue: educational theatre at its best
What could happen if a right-wing extremist party came to power? The play ‘Ein Volksbürger’ (A Citizen of the People) at the Federal Press Conference Centre plays out this scenario.
In theory, any discernible educational intent in theatre is frowned upon. Nevertheless, one function of theatre seems to be trending, namely that of enlightenment. This became particularly clear in the sensationally successful stage adaptation of the Correctiv investigation. Just one week after its publication, the whole thing was staged as a dramatic reading at the Berliner Ensemble. The event, billed as ‘theatre meets journalism’, was streamed live, attracted more than 100,000 viewers to their digital devices and was met with thunderous applause.
A similar major media event was the staging of ‘Ein Volksbürger’ (A Citizen of the People) by the independent group Nico and the Navigators. One day after the AfD's senior member in the Thuringian state parliament had suspended democratic principles, Fabian Hinrichs played a populist prime minister who comes to power in an unnamed ‘free state’ through his Democratic Alliance, which was elected with an absolute majority. The play was performed at the Federal Press Conference Centre; it was the first time that an artistic project had been given access to these premises.
A citizen of the people attempts to act out a scenario with maximum authenticity, dealing with the question of what could happen if a party that despises the rule of law comes to power. What means of defence does the constitution actually have to protect the democratic state in such an issue? This project was also streamed live on several channels, including Arte, probably because it was rightly assumed that it would be of interest to as many people in the country as possible.
And indeed, the evening is a successful example of educational theatre in the best sense of the word. Not only because Fabian Hinrichs almost perfectly copies a minister-president who skilfully conceals his desire for destruction behind a civil façade. (Imagine a male Alice Weidel.) Nor because the evening sometimes tries to portray the world of politics and journalism in a rather clichéd way. And certainly not because the creators obviously wanted to make the subject matter ‘light’ and felt that such a threatening scenario had to be treated with humour. Instead, I learned a lot about the constitution from the press conferences in which the German government's options for action were played out.
I don't know about you, but I don't often leaf through our constitution. So I learned in this play that constitutional lawyer Maximilian Steinbeis wrote that there is a codified ‘loyalty to the state’ that obliges the federal states to comply with and implement the constitutional laws of the federal government. I also heard for the first time about ‘federal coercion’, which has never been implemented in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany and which comes into effect in extreme cases when a federal state deliberately acts unconstitutionally. Then, as in this case, the federal police march into the respective free state and prevent the seizure of power by the offices and authorities.
A citizen of the people thus sent a reassuring message: don't worry, there are ways and means that the constitutional state has to protect itself. However, in order to prepare for what is to come, it would be wise to come up with a more realistic educational scenario next time. As we know for certain, the AfD has very different plans than the Democratic Alliance, which forgets to process residence applications. So how about a realistic horror theatre production that gives us all instructions on how to proceed in the near future?