A Cancelled Lesson in Plurality: Hannah Arendt and The Situation

Following the attack on Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s military retaliation, the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin cancelled its performance of Yael Ronen’s play The Situation. First performed in 2015, this celebrated play explores, among other things, diverse perspectives on the Israel–Palestine conflict through rousing discussions, provocations, and even humour. This essay returns to The Situation and invites a reading with Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of plurality. In my analysis, the play unfolds thus as a critical staging of difference but also of shared humanity through appearance, encounter, and communication. Beyond the theatre, too, a pursuit of Arendtian plurality reveals striking insights into the current politics in Germany. Finally, I discuss how the cancellation of The Situation presents a troubling submission to the mechanisms of silence and censorship that negate plurality.