The Latest at Goethe

The classics are always up-to-date, as a guest performance by the Berlin Schaubühne in Ramallah once again proved. Hamlet spoke oppressively and directly to the audience’s sensibilities, bringing the Danish prince to his home turf. By Patrick Wildermann

All of the 400 seats in the Al-Kasaba Theatre & Cinematheque are filled; people are even sitting in the aisles. Hamlet is the programme tonight, for the first time in the West Bank. Berlin’s Schaubühne is showing its very contemporary version of Shakespeare’s tragedy; it fought long for this guest performance. Now, the atmosphere in the auditorium is perceptibly charged with anticipation.

Al-Kasaba is located in the centre of Ramallah not far from Manarah Square where five stone lions stand as a monument to the city’s founding Christian families. The cultural house has been here for twelve years; previously it was located in Jerusalem. Theatre manager George Ibrahim is proud of his worldwide network. He holds international film and theatre festivals and has toured as far as Japan and the United States with his productions. These always include works by Shakespeare, a playwright held in high esteem in Palestine. This is not surprising as his major themes are permanently up-to-date here.

“Of course, in such an over-politicized region, the questions of legitimacy of power, the entanglement of politics and individuals, have special vibrancy,” confirms Joerg Schumacher, the director of the Goethe-Institut in Ramallah, which has made the performance by the Berlin ensemble possible. Lars Eidinger’s appearance in the role of the torn Danish prince will confirm it once again. The more than famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy seems to speak oppressively and directly to the audience’s sensibilities: “Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.”

Prior to the guest performance, director Thomas Ostermeier also learned how the themes of Hamlet are etched into many biographies: betrayal, revenge, mistrust and fratricide. When he held a workshop for 25 drama students and actors from the West Bank, the participants were given scenes from Hamlet and asked to link them with their own experience and bring them directly onto the stage. For example, Ophelia spies on Hamlet at the request of her father. Who has had experiences with spies? This resulted in such breathless stories as that of a young man who was arrested by the Israelis as an alleged terrorist. He described the uncertainty in prison as the worst aspect: being able to trust no one, having to assume that every cellmate might be an Israeli spy. It is just one of many borderline experiences following in Shakespeare’s footsteps.

Precarious terrain

The peaty soil forming the foundation for the stage design by Jan Pappelbaum is local earth. The boards edging the stage came from a construction site across the street from Al-Kasaba Theatre. Pappelbaum had the coffin for the burial scene that begins the play made by a coffin maker in Ramallah who has run a family business for fifty years. And the frame for the mobile curtain that is a central element of the stage was recycled from props for the last production at Al-Kasaba, Ionesco’s The Chairs, by the founder of the Freedom Theatre, Juliano Mer-Khamis.

For years, the Schaubühne has had an active working relationship with the Freedom Theatre, which held a number of guest performances in Berlin. Originally, Hamlet was supposed to have been performed last year as an exchange project in Ramallah and Jenin. Then, in April 2011 Juliano Mer-Khamis was shot and killed in front of his theatre. The perpetrator has never been found and conspiracy theories abound. After the murder of Mer-Khamis, Joerg Schumacher from the Goethe-Institut brought the artists, students and staff to Ramallah so that they could continue to work in a protected environment. This intensified the connections with the theatre even more.

The Schaubühne had already moved into precarious terrain with Hamlet before. Last year, it was a guest performance at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem, which is considered an event loyal to the government. There were protests in front of the Schaubühne; Thomas Ostermeier received letters from Jewish friends who asked that he not perform there. However, to cancel would have been a political issue. Finally, before the play Ostermeier held a speech in which he advocated dialogue and dedicated the evening to Juliano Mer-Khamis, who had been killed shortly before. A subsequent guest performance on Palestinian territory was nonetheless out of the question for the time being.

Before the performance in Al Kasaba Theatre, Thomas Ostermeier advised his actors to be prepared for noise. It is not unusual for people to talk on their mobile phones during a play. In addition, the slightly abridged production of still two and a half hours is uncommonly lengthy for local circumstances. Hardly any play here lasts longer than an hour due to the fact that many people are traumatized and have only short attention spans.

Performance with no kisses

The mainly Palestinian audience, however, is spellbound by this production, which animates Shakespeare’s lines with videos, quotations from pop culture and a riveting principal performer. Some reactions are surprising. The scene in which Hamlet spits at his Ophelia is like a lash of the whip. A group of viewers leave the auditorium. No one expected that.

Some kissing scenes and sexual contact was omitted; the Berlin ensemble did not want to appear as taboo breakers. And indeed, the principle actor Eidinger is able to set the stage afire even in Ramallah in his direct play with the audience. At one point, the machine gun used by Hamlet in Ostermeier’s production to shoot Polonius jams. “Anyone here handy with weapons?” Eidinger asks the audience in English, eliciting a big laugh. The play ends with cheers and standing ovations.

Of course, Joerg Schumacher also deals with the question of what perspectives are available to Palestinian artists. In Ramallah the acting school just graduated its first class and an art academy is being set up. A generation is growing up that has at least good prospects of enriching the Palestinian arts scene with its own ideas and expanding the framework of what already exists. “The stories that the people can tell are plentiful and exciting.”