What else can one expect from a documentary theater evening about the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich? In the past few weeks, TV documentaries and long series of articles in the newspapers have provided every, apparently every, detail about the games, which began so happily and ended in terror. In the meantime, even after an agonizingly long time rumgeeiere the German government in the person of Frank-Walter Steinmeier asked for forgiveness, acknowledging the all-out police failures against the Palestinian terrorists, the haggling over compensation led to a positive (can this even exist?) end. And now the theater is gathering all of this together, more precisely Hans-Werner Kroesinger and Regine Dura with their play “The games must go on – Munich 1972” in the Marstall of the Munich Residenztheater. Can this bring any new insight?
Theater can convey more than facts, that’s what it’s there for. In fact, the evening leaves you with a deep feeling of anger and also shame, in the end the emotional power of the theater has an effect, which can go far beyond reading and television experiences. Then one is indignant about files that are still under lock and key, about the complete lack of willingness on the part of the authorities to provide information, about the attempts by politicians to cover up. But it’s also a one and a half hour evening of theatre, which is heading towards the core statement, but on meandering and not consistently profitable paths.
Kroesinger and Dura are extraordinarily experienced documentary theater makers, they can bury themselves in mountains of files, track them down in the first place against resistance, they can read these files like other people read a picture book. About a year ago they did this with the material from the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials at the place where they took place, Courtroom 600. But at that time it was about the re-enactment of a concrete process. Now, with the Olympic piece, everything is open and the wealth of material is huge. Too huge.
“Beware of ice-cold drinks” – and of hypothermic figures
On the stage, four actors and one actress acting like speakers from the archives, nicely dressed in the pastel colors of the games corporate design. They work their way through the text at high speed and first of all create a dazzling tableau of the dream that the games should fulfil. Munich shines, everything is cheerful, the memory of the Nazi games of 1936 is to be erased and a different image of Germany created. This painting of text and video flood succeeds fascinatingly well and is supplemented by finds such as a quote from Franz Josef Strauss: “A people that has accomplished such economic achievements has the right not to want to hear anything more about Auschwitz.” Kroesinger and Dura found the most surprising thing in old GDR files. Stasi chief Erich Mielke personally wrote instructions for spying on one’s own team, complete with practical instructions: Agents should ensure cleanliness, two main meals a day are recommended, and “beware of ice-cold drinks.” Wonderful, this manifesto of GDR narrow-mindedness.
But as soon as the evening of terror approaches, one would have to slow down. But the action is bumpy and jerky, and the overwhelming abundance of videos lacks iconic images such as that of Issa, the leader of the terrorists, with a white hat and paint on his face. Instead, you keep seeing gritty shots of the Olympic Village or grounds in psychedelic colors. Only when the murder and the bizarre events at the Fürstenfeldbruck airfield have been told, when the processing and, above all, its shortcomings are discussed, does a little peace return. But there is one thing Kroesinger and Dura are missing, even if the ending is extraordinarily powerful: the plasticity of the emotion. Only Hanna Scheibe, as Ankie Spitzer, widow of the murdered fencing trainer and spokeswoman for the victims’ families, is allowed to create a real character. At the end, the five actors assemble an Olympic dachshund from elements lying around. But not in pastel rainbow colors, you can see the roof of the site on it, photographed hard it now looks like a lattice, a prison. The names of the dead are written on the wall above.
The day before, the Residenztheater opens the season with a masterpiece. Simon Stone staged Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” in Basel in 2015, it is probably his best work in spoken theater. Andreas Beck, then director in Basel, wanted to bring production to Munich for his debut three years ago, then Corona came, now it has worked. The evening didn’t have a bit of patina, the dialogues still sparkle, everyone on stage shines around the berserk Roland Koch, he plays Roy Cohn, Trump’s lawyer, a gay homophobe. But: This five and a half hour epic about love, life, capitalism and death (through AIDS) is now, seven years later, becoming even more of a discussion tableau about exclusion, cultural appropriation and role models. The world has changed, but this performance still has something to say about it.