The xenophobia bubbling out of Germany onto the world stage this month is a trifle shocking. On my way back from Barcelona, I read the headline news in Spanish, assuming I must have been mistaken. But, no. "Immigrants should learn to speak German," that nation's Chancellor Angela Market said on October 17. "At the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country. We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone', but this isn't reality. This approach has failed, utterly failed."
The timing is perfect, then, for Berlin's "post-migrant" theater company Ballhaus Naunynstrasse to bring its latest productions to New York. On November 17 and 18, "Ferienlager – The 3rd Generation" will be at at P.S. 122 in the East Village. In the show, ten young German-Turks, born and bred in Berlin, muse on their lives and the many contradictions that define them.
Following on November 20 is "Klassentreffen – The 2nd Generation." This play turns its focus on migrants who arrived in Germany together with their parents. Culled from conversations and interviews with six German-Turks, the play is a collage of intensely personal sketches that reveal much multicultural life in contemporary Berlin.
To the Chancellor's delight, both plays will be presented in German. (With English subtitles. Sorry!)
