Between Uncertainty, Submission and Hope – Experiences and Reflections on Waiting by Theater Migrants

Abstract:While flight and exile are primarily associated with movement, this article aims to examine their static side, focusing on the element of waiting in the refugee and exile processes of theatre migrants. Examining the memoirs of the playwright, theatre manager and journalist, Heinrich Börnstein (1805–1892), and the documentary stage production What They Want to Hear (2018, Kammerspiele München) by the Argentinian director Lola Arias, it seeks to identify the subjective experiences of waiting of individual theatre makers and asks how they are configured in different settings and over time, in specific geographic and political locations. These subjective experiences of theatre migrants viewed through the analytical lens of waiting provide – as will be shown – crucial insights into social organising principles and power hierarchies.