AMONG the vestiges of old East Germany (GDR) that have survived to guard the flame of politically engaged art in Berlin, two theatres stand out: the Maxim Gorki Theatre that was the main conduit of Soviet theatre pre-1989, and Brecht’s doughty campaigner, the Berliner Ensemble.
 
Two current productions demonstrate both the strengths and the difficulties faced by theatre artists with a revolutionary agenda in contemporary Germany.

Futureland in the Gorki studio theatre assembles a cast of real asylum-seekers who may, or may not, qualify for the precious status of “child.” To be recognised as a child is significant because under German law no unaccompanied minor may be deported, and once recognised, that status entitles the family of the child to join them. But can they prove their date of birth without papers? Do they even know how old they are?

The cast of sympathetic and engaging young adults comes from Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Guinea and Bangladesh, and although the production presents itself as a semi-fictional sci-fi dystopia and little attempt is made to prove the authenticity of their stories, you accept that these kids are drawing on their own experiences and that Futureland is basically community outreach.

But onstage they have little interaction and appear to live isolated lives. They turn to address the audience (and not one another) when disclosing their hopes and fears. Their principal relationship is with giant avatars of spooky Kraftwerk-style German social workers, and the whole production is at pains to flaunt its digital prowess.

This creates a strange double spectacle: are we interested in the kids themselves, or is the main character the automated human simulacrum that stands in as a comfortingly anaemic and ambiguous reflection of the German audience?

There is a certain level of tension but it never becomes dramatic. No-one has a breakdown, no-one rebels and, other than waiting for the decisive interview that will form the judgement of the state, there is no suspense.

The entire show is so over-dictated by technology that the actors, you feel, are under pressure not to inhabit their characters, but rather to fill up their allocation of seconds between mechanical cues in a digital timeline.

It is laudable to make a show on this issue and to funk it up with dynamic graphics and you want to applaud the community initiative. But more than that you want to lug them around to the Berliner Ensemble to experience what political theatre really is.

If the flamboyant techno-scenery stifles Futureland and provides an inadvertent metaphor for the sterility of Western democracy in response to the human rights of others, then the Brecht shows how scenery, spectacle and the obsession with appearance is totally irrelevant to good theatre.

This was a classic production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, which Brecht wrote in 1944 and that first premiered in Germany 10 years later. This production has been in repertory, as well as touring internationally, for the past three years. It is an austerely minimal production of this classic tale of revolutionary chaos and revolutionary justice, and an object lesson in how to do epic dialectical theatre.

Like Futureland, the majority of the dialogue is delivered face-on to the audience, but with breathless tortured urgency. Unlike Futureland, the moments of interaction all point up the manipulative intentions that underlie the way people talk, and in particular the way that men talk to women. You feel the violent currents of patriarchal, sexist and propertied privilege run through the words like lettering through rock. This power-play is skillfully and brilliantly pointed up in a non-stop dumb-show of silences, pauses and sickened looks.

There is a world of difference in the stagecraft, but this play shares themes with Futureland. When revolution overturns the ruling order, a child from a privileged family is abandoned to be taken on by a compassionate woman whose own status and hopes for a future are compromised by her good deed. She defends and nutures the child against all odds only to have to fight a court case for custody with the very aristocrat who must repossess the child to repossess her property. But the judge is Azdak, one of Brecht’s most brilliant creations.

Futureland asks the audience to imagine a judge that is a middle-class avatar, and strangely dehumanised. Brecht asks us what a judge would be like who doesn’t come from a position of social privilege, property and class indoctrination. What if such a person were mercurial, disrespectful, funny, egocentric and… human?

This element – the invitation to reimagine society in a revolutionary way – is the great achievement of what Brecht called “dialectical theatre” and it is entirely and unfortunately absent from Futureland where neither the audience nor the characters experience any real agency. The absence is truly painful.

For Azdak, however, things are different. There is no doubt about his agency, nor any sentimental notion that the country is safe. Prior to the trial scene he is humiliated by mercenary soldiers who still rove the land, and he shows up in court stripped to his long-johns and drenched in blood. He just accepts it. And what better metaphor could there be anyway for the basic condition of anyone dispensing justice in post-war Germany?

Disregard all rumour that the Berliner Ensemble has sold out. Somehow it has survived privatisation to preserve the precious kernel of Brecht’s art intact. It remains a necessary counterpoint in culture, and just downright inspiring.