The building was bombed anyway. The subsequent explosion caused the roof and large parts of two load-bearing walls to collapse. Hundreds of civilians were in the theatre and right beside it at the time of the attack.

An Amnesty International investigation has revealed that at least twelve people died in this attack and many others were seriously injured. Estimates by the local authorities had previously reported much higher numbers of victims. The attack was very likely carried out by a Russian fighter plane, which dropped two 500 kilo bombs on the theatre.

Several Berlin theatres commemorated this event in association with Amnesty International in the summer with light installations. At the end of 2022, the Russian occupation authorities in Mariupol demolished the famous theatre.

While many theatre-makers in Ukraine took weapons into their own hands and went to fight, risking their lives, other ensemble members in the theatres are organising ways to survive in the cities. Many theatres today mainly serve as places of refuge for the population due to the targeted Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure. They are usually located in the centre of the city and have large basements and workshops, which serve well as storage areas. Humanitarian aid is collected there and distributed to those who need it.

At the same time, actors still continue to perform, even in bomb shelters. This offers the audience a little bit of distraction. Sometimes it works too, briefly bringing a small bit of normality into the everyday life of wartime. In this way, the stage can be an important space of shared experience. Many theatres have by now become a sort of community centre and are deepening their relationships with the neighbourhood around them.

What can our theatres offer in times like these? Some, like the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, have been carefully following the development of the war in Ukraine since as early as 2014 and made contacts in the Ukrainian theatre scene early on. The DT dramaturg at the time, Birgit Lengers, started a network in the form of guest performances and residence programmes. The award-winning hit play Bad Roads by Ukrainian writer Natalia Vorozhbyt was performed in Berlin as part of the Radar Ost Festival in autumn of 2021 and told six stories about life and war in the militarised Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

In response to the war in Ukraine, many theatres and other cultural institutions declared their intentions to support Ukrainian colleagues. This initiative was started by the artistic director of a Kiev theatre, Stas Zhyrkov, and Birgit Lengers, and was signed by seventy cultural institutions. The signatories promised to strive for the artistic integration of Ukraine into the European cultural community, but also to welcome Ukrainian artists in their own theatres, to host them and have their work performed, to gain more visibility for Ukrainian theatre in the European community. Many did in fact keep these promises.

Since the Russian invasion on the 24th of February, many Ukrainian theatre-makers have by now fled to Germany. Several networks tried to get actors work in the German theatres. The small K4 Theater für Menschlichkeit (K4 Theatre for Humanity) in Wuppertal immediately took four actors from Ukraine, who soon afterwards celebrated their first premiere with their play “Das gestohlene Glück” (Stolen Happiness).

A large number of events took place in theatres all over the country to show solidarity with Ukraine: panel discussions, workshops and readings. In May 2022, a large number of theatres participated in the project Das Gefühl des Krieges (The Feeling of War), at which Ukrainian drama was read and discussed with the public.

As essential as this constant solidarity with the Ukraine is, we should not forget about other fates. This applies first of all to theatre-makers from Belarus, whose country is still much less known in Germany. Although the large protests in Belarus in 2020 against the election fraud committed by its authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, held international attention for a while, since then, the dramatic repression in the country risks being completely forgotten again.  

Yet it is very important that we continue to talk about the situation in Belarus and that Belarusian artists are given a voice. The members of the ensemble at the Belarus Free Theatre are scattered around the world in exile, but in autumn 2022, they were able to present their play "Discover Love" at the Grenzlos Festival in Mainz, which is about a Belarusian member of the opposition who disappeared without a trace – a play with burning relevance.

Such opportunities are important in many ways. Theatre-makers can tell their stories on stage, the scattered troupe can come together again, and they can also have new experiences and find new partners to collaborate with. This is so important for getting a better footing in the global theatre world and reinventing themselves.

The difficult situation in Russia and the aggressive war being waged by the Putin regime makes it tempting to hold Russian artists jointly responsible for what their government is doing. Ukrainians who have fled often expect that Russian culture as a whole should be placed under general suspicion in Germany too.

When Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, celebrated the premiere of Nikolai Gogol’s play "Der Wij" at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg in December 2022, the theatre had to deal with massive hostilities. Ukrainians in exile chanted “Russian culture is a weapon too” at a demonstration. But Serebrennikov is most certainly not a Putin follower and was himself subjected to a dubious court case in Russia, during which he had to endure months of house arrest. But many Ukrainians also didn’t like the idea that he staged his production with actors from Russia and Ukraine. Working together like this is a taboo for many Ukrainians, considering what is happening in the war.

The artistic director of the Thalia Theater Hamburg, Joachim Lux, defended the Gogol production in response to the protests. He reminded the public that even after the crimes of the Nazi dictatorship, a distinction was made between “Nazi Germany and another, better Germany” abroad. The aim of the collaboration between German, Russian and Ukrainian artists was to create a “utopia of human togetherness”, Lux explained about the intention of the production.

Even if it is certainly appropriate to respond to the reproaches of the Ukrainians with empathy and understanding for their pain and desperation, German theatres should still set their own standards at this point and not give in lightly to such demands, which are partly based on national patriotism. No doubt it is complicated, but German stages should definitely not create taboos in the theatre or public discourse, but should instead expand spaces for free debate and encourage dialogue.

We must also not relapse into a Eurocentric view of the world because of the war in Ukraine. There is war, displacement and persecution in other parts of the world too, but unfortunately we tend to give too little attention to them here in Germany.

Since the Taliban took power in August 2021, it is not just German politics that has neglected its responsibility for those developments. Elsewhere too, the debate about the future fate of the country has largely fallen silent. Only very occasionally have theatre-makers threatened by persecution, repression and violence managed to flee to a safe foreign country, but they encounter significantly greater bureaucratic obstacles than Ukrainians when entering Germany.

Although the protests and mass arrests in Iran have had a larger resonance in German debates, only very occasionally is a theatre group concerned with the situation there either. The situation in Syria, Yemen or Ethiopia plays almost no role at all in our debates about world events.

With its post-migrant orientation, the Gorki Theatre in Berlin is one theatre that for years has reflected on all these events and brings together an ensemble of actors from many parts of the world. At the Gorki, the multilingualism of the performers goes without saying, while elsewhere it is still seen as something that cannot be done or translated for the audience.

In comparison to the Gorki, although there has been some progress made by now at many other theatres in Germany in dealing with material related to global politics and increasing the presence of actors who are not only Germans, there is hardly a focus on it. For way too long at many municipal theatres it was considered a drawback when an actor spoke with a foreign accent.

But in reality, a growing proportion of the German population has a migrant background. Germans love to travel and many have visited many parts of the world. Theatre could have presented itself as more diverse long ago, in the ensembles too. It is often the independent theatre scene rather than a municipal theatre that deals with themes and issues related to migration.

Berlin could also become a European capital city of artists in exile, some speculate. But those people fail to see that antiquated German immigration law and Germany’s horrendous bureaucracy could make such a development very difficult. Although the Goethe-Institut has created a new space for exile in Berlin and is organising a Ukraine festival, other European cities offer artistic refuge as well.

However, it remains just as important that German theatres continue to venture out into the world themselves with their artistic work. The artistic director of the Schaubühne, Thomas Ostermeier, was right when, on the Deutschland Funk theatre podcast, he underlined how important the idea of exchange still is – and this must be proactive and include guest performances in authoritarian states like China or Iran. He frequently hears from the audiences there, he said, about how necessary it is that the “small percentage of those people who are still trying to address freedom of speech, freedom in the arts and struggles of emancipation in these countries, get support from the Western world.” It is therefore important to differentiate more clearly between the government and the population.

When asked whether a German theatre was not making itself a collaborator, if it travels to China for example, Ostermeier rightly answered that it is always a fine line, and that one always has to weigh up how strongly one positions oneself and raises one’s voice.

Advocating for the attempt at this difficult balancing act fits well into how the ITI sees itself, which includes encouraging the mutual understanding of theatre cultures of the world in its core mission. 

Considering the many overlapping crises and major conflicts, this will not get easier, but rather demands more dialogue and greater efforts towards better cultural understanding.

However, caution is also advised, so that German theatres do not end up becoming stages from which to deliver moral lectures. Carrying the world in the theatre should not mean acting like one has a simple solution ready for all crises.

For some time now, we in journalism have been concerned with the pressing issue of whether the huge amount of negative news might deter people from informing themselves. To prevent people avoiding the news, for a number of years there have been debates about the concept of “constructive journalism”. This does not propose softening up the world’s problems or presenting them through a rose-tinted filter. Much rather, the recommendation is to produce reporting in such a way that users can still see solutions or at least more constructive perspectives or that presents examples of “best practice”. 

Translating this idea into a “constructive theatre” would probably be very hard to do and also seems to make little sense. But theatres should think about finding their own way, specific to their genre, and follow it.

Because unlike the fleeting world of media driven by the latest news, the theatre can pose bigger questions in a more complex way on the stage and become a space for social debate using very different means – theatrical ones. Here the focus should be less on the sensitivities of the makers and those involved and more on a reality check with the “real world” out there.

That is why trigger warnings, which some theatres now like to publish on their websites to warn audiences in advance about possible violence, sex scenes or a few coarse phrases, are a rather questionable way of dealing with the outside world on the stage.

The outside world does not have a trigger warning for us – quite the opposite. As an audience, we should therefore brace ourselves differently if we want to encounter the present world in the theatre.