ACAB or friend and helper? The documentary play ‘Here the Police Speak’ premiered at the Hanover State Theatre.
The actors try to embody the perspective and attitude of a police officer. Photo: Kerstin Schomburg
“What does a police officer look like if I like him?” Director Julia Rösler asked herself this question, but she has no answer. She spent months, almost a year, working with playwright Silke Merzhäuser and musician Insa Rudolph on this topic. She researched, interviewed, and questioned police officers.
Rösler, Merzhäuser and Rudolph form the collaborative working group 2. Based on extensive journalism research, they develop implementations that explore the boundaries between documentaries and fiction in various genres: in film, in radio plays and on stage. Her most recent project, “Here the Police Speak”, premiered during the Ruhr Festival in Recklinghausen in May. It can now be seen at the Ballhof Eins in the co-production Schauspiel Hannover.
This evening, five actors from the ensemble will represent the police officers being interviewed. They have learned the text with great precision, including the slips of the tongue, the tone of voice, the pauses, etc. In one evening, Fabian Dott, Servan Durmaz, Anja Herden, Alrun Hofert and Sebastian Nakajew take on the perspective and attitude of the police officers and talk about their daily life between the May 1 demonstrations and the beers after work, between balaclavas and fears.
Among my colleagues
An evening among colleagues, an evening of surveillance. A long, dark blue carpet marks the corridor. There are gray lockers, shelves with files, a coffee machine. A large window opens into a plain office, with two gray doors leading nowhere. Neon tubes spread an unpleasant light, and ventilation grilles built into the floor also serve as instruments for live musicians (Christian Decker, Dominik Decker, Uli Genenger).
“In fact, we always do everything right because we have to do everything right,” he once said.
Lea Dietrich and Viva Schudt designed the stage and costumes (from the dark blue overalls: Helly Hansen T-shirts to the overalls) in a reserved manner. They wisely avoid wall calendars, stacks of paper, and holiday cards. The room says nothing more than it needs to. It is pared down, realistic, and yet fictional.
In fact, the text plays a major role this evening. He talks about extremist networks, swastikas in chat groups and racial profiling. “Sometimes I put on handcuffs a little bit quicker.” He talks about a colleague who is “basically open to the right” and has a strong affinity for the double H, especially among those who like the collective feel of the police and are better known as “Chief Inspector Warsteiner.”
He also talks about everyday dangers, operating in the environment, provocation and stigma. About Molotov cocktails, rocks, spitting, and how uniforms are basically armor. He talks about social expectations, pressure to act, and the illusion of omnipotence.
“Do everything right”
“We always do everything right because we have to do everything right,” he once said. Sometimes it’s a more likable insider perspective. Usually it’s less likable. It’s a story about a profession that takes an oath to uphold the basic order of freedom and democracy. It’s a touching and repulsive story. It’s a very contradictory and constantly intertwining story, because it’s told very directly and empathetically by five players.
One colleague wants more protection, another wants more freedom of choice, a third dreams of using water cannons more often, a fourth can no longer get the image of the Duisburg Love Parade out of his head, and a fifth is full. Finally, she danced a police polonaise to “Bumsfallera” at a company party among the streamers, all five of them half-naked.
This evening encompasses all of this, it is concise and honest, informative and deliberately single-minded, and uses clichés as much as it is sympathetic. It is a unique and thought-provoking evening. And who leaves the question uncomfortably open? “What kind of person does a police officer have to be to make me like them?”
