Theater: Concerned Citizens, Always

In the subtitle, Cem Kaya describes his evening “Pop, Pein, Paragraphs,” with which the Gorki Theater opened the new season last Friday, as a “German lesson.” And, actually, there is a lot to learn here. Especially for those in the audience who, due to their living conditions, have not yet been forced to deal with residence regulations, asylum applications and the nature of the central register of foreigners.

Cem Kaya is the name of the man who sits on the stage behind a lectern, doesn’t play the professor very convincingly, but still knows how to impart some knowledge in his own way and repeatedly disappears from the stage to let the moving images do the talking. Kaya is a filmmaker and primarily examines German-Turkish culture in his work, most recently with his documentary “Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm – Love, D-Mark and Death” (2022) about migrant-influenced music in Germany. He has now compiled some contributions from Turkish and German television from his video snippet archive.

He bases this on the case of Cemal Kemal Altun. Altun fled to West Berlin in 1980 after the military coup in Turkey and applied for asylum. Turkey constructed an indictment against the young man and pushed for his extradition by the Federal Republic. Altun became the victim of political tactics, and while the various federal authorities litigated against each other to reach a decision on the Turkish request, he was held in custody pending extradition. Worried about deportation to Turkey and the threat of torture there, Cemal Kemal Altun jumped out of the sixth floor window during a hearing at the Berlin Higher Administrative Court in 1983 and committed suicide at the age of 23.

What the audience sees over a good two hours is deeply affecting. The racism of the legislature and the German majority society shows this country from one of its most frightening sides. The fact that there is still laughter on this evening is due not least to the absurd forms that the behavior of the good German host has taken on in the past and present. Last but not least, it becomes clear that Germany’s treatment of migrant workers and refugees all too often reflects its relationship with dubious regimes around the world.

The Turkish YouTube star Ekim Acun, better known as Şokopop, was also available for a short appearance. He uses pop culture to explore Turkish history on his channel. In the Gorki Theater he traced for German viewers the colorful development in Turkey from the coup to the seemingly apolitical consumerism of the following years.

The fact that the Gorki is celebrating the opening of its season with such work should definitely be seen as a clear political sign – and this at a time when a federal finance minister, for example, is calling for an end to the “ban on thinking” when it comes to migration policy. You’re never at a loss for such signs on the house. However, the enlightenment impetus does not allow one to forget that one is sitting in a theater where one does not just want to be educated.

Only in the last minutes of the evening does Kaya show an excerpt from the graduation film he made as a student. To do this, he edited the classic film “The Exorcist” with its Turkish remake “Şeytan”. This montage shows the hysteria after September 11th and the contradictory situation of many migrants in Germany: The Christian and Muslim exorcists have their own ideas of “leading culture” between which the migrant is crushed. Kaya borrowed the voice of the devil from Angela Merkel’s xenophobic rant from 2004, which is still far, far away from the Chancellor’s “We can do it!” In these minutes an artistic discussion emerges that would have been appropriate to the topic and location. Maybe next time more art and less detention?

Next performances: October 3rd and 10th
www.gorki.de