So was the premiere of R-Factor
Hanover. A few African tribal masks were distributed on stage, as decoration, something folkloric, will be fine. The first actors are already playing table tennis with it. One asks whether that isn’t a bit presumptuous, inconsiderate, possibly affecting in the light of centuries of colonial history, cultural appropriation and such. “We can’t still have the sovereignty of interpretation here, too!” she says indignantly.
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Cultural appropriation, colonial heritage, sovereignty of interpretation: the play “R-Factor. The Unbelievable”, which has now celebrated two Hanover premieres in the Ballhof, could hardly be more topical than at a time when a culture war broke out over ancient adventure stories. But the play was already red-hot when it had its premiere a good year ago: the premiere burst in the discussion about accusations of racism at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. One suspects: This is not about topicality, but about ongoing sad everyday life.
The daily racism in the culture industry
The author and director Ayşe Güvendiren met with the kind of humor that helps to swallow even the bitterest pill. The format: a one-woman show, based on the trashy 90s TV show “X Factor”. In the ball there is carpeting. At the back, the curtains are waving and the headlights are flashing. Şafak Şengül, who was still a student at the premiere in Munich and is now a member of the Hanoverian acting ensemble, takes the space.
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Omniscient narrator: Şafak Şengül as presenter.
© Source: Nicole Marianna Wytyczak
She is the moderator and has incredible things to report, incredible things about everyday racism in the German cultural scene, which wants to be a haven of truth, beauty and goodness. The story is about acting teachers who only have room for one Turk per year, about stubborn intentions, encroaching directors and overbearing dramaturgy, all people with a habitual right to know-it-all and to the world-explaining monologue. You know them all.
“Is that fact or fiction?”
“Is that fact or fiction?” the moderator asks again and again, and unfortunately everything is true: the text of the piece is based on the experiences of people who, despite or because of their supposed difference, have been given a place in the noble cultural scene.
The basic mechanism is always the same: someone is declared to be the “other”, and since he is different, he should also be a representative for all the others, if you please – and then ideally you can explain to him how he has to be different . Şengül also plays all these types in video clips with enormous enthusiasm, grandiose comic talent and biting precision.
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“White Fragility”, “Othering”, “Cancel Culture”, “Whataboutism” are keywords for this constant process of lazy thinking and self-righteousness, and the fact that there is no German equivalent for them shows a problem in the debate here: you don’t even have Words for what you don’t want to think. As a German, one also bears “the burden of National Socialism”, it is said at one point, “I would love to be a foreigner” at another. And anyway: “There is no morality on stage.”
The attack in Hanau
Şengül is not herself a representative, but an omniscient narrator with an ironic twist. She skilfully slips out of character only twice, once when she reads a report about the deep shock after the racist attack in Hanau, where it dawned on the community that “it won’t be okay again after a few days” – and once at the very end. With a deep sigh, she clicks. The light goes out. The names of all those on whose stories this powerful subject is based are projected onto the curtains. They are, as this evening makes very clear, only the tip of the iceberg.
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“R-Factor”, says Güvendiren in the follow-up discussion, is an invitation to those affected to laugh about what otherwise hurts bitterly. Everyone else could learn to listen here, the basis of every dialogue. If it were to succeed: Wouldn’t that be incredible?
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By Stefan Gohlisch