Article 118: There is no censorship

Article 117: Privacy of correspondence of mail

Article 109: All Germans are equal in front of the law. Legal privileges or disadvantages based on birth or social standing are to be abolished.

These articles are part of a series of rules that underpinned the hope, optimism and, in many ways, radical law-making of the Weimar Republic. From the destructiveness of World War One a new era emerged in Germany and, for the first time, ordinary people had the means to determine their own futures via social change and democracy. 

Maybe that’s a rose-tinted view. 

Maybe the reality is more about huge shame, debt, hurt and disillusionment that paved the way for people to look for an alternative, in the form of legally endorsed far right extremism.     

?

Over these last couple of weeks, we have been feeling our way through these tensions. Between progression and tradition, order and chaos – and in practical terms, how do we even begin to translate, interpret, perform, frame and have a conversation with these songs? The company are hugely playful and thoughtful, and under the deft hand of director Ellen, we are beginning to do this. 

Our contemporary experiences chime with some of the themes of this music, of these words, often in very unexpected ways. 

We have to bring our whole selves into the room in order to meaningfully engage with the material, and for this cabaret-opera -queerdo mash up, we are asking audiences to do the same. 

I’ll keep you posted. 

Catch Effigies of Wickedness (Songs Banned by the Nazis) from 3 May.