Olivia Landry, Virginia Commonwealth University
In response to the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023 and Israel’s ensuing military retaliation, the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin cancelled its performance of Yael Ronen’s play The Situation. First performed in 2015, this celebrated play explores, inter alia, diverse perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict through confrontational discussions, provocations, and even humor. A critical staging of difference but also of shared humanity through appearance, encounter, and communication, The Situation invites a reading with Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of plurality. I discuss how the cancellation of The Situation ultimately presents a troubling submission to the mechanisms of silence and censorship that negate plurality.
Followed immediately by the Department of Germanic Studies end of the year celebration.
The College of Arts