‘Freedom of Expression, The Long View’ at the Edinburgh Festival and ‘I was a German’ at the Fringe, are events concerned with the removal of freedom by the state. Meanwhile, a street performer captivates his audiences with his own kind of freedom of movement.
At the Edinburgh Book Festival, freedom of expression was explored from the point of view of the arts practitioner. The panel members were Richard Sennett, a sociologist and chair of the London Centre for the Humanities, Baroness Thangam Debbonaire, Labour politician and member of the House of Lords, and Bishop Rowan Williams, a theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury.
Shostakovich and Stalin’s repression
In a stimulating discussion, the plight of the composer, Shostakovich, was used to set the scene of how the arts may struggle in repressive states.
In 1936, Stalin walked out of Shostakovich’s opera, ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’, because he disliked the discordant sounds and experimental style. This led the soviet-controlled press to condemn Shostakovich’s work. Within days, he became a pariah, living in fear of arrest, lying and compromising to survive. Shostakovich altered his music to satisfy the censors, but it is said he used secret codes within the music to convey deeper meanings.
Pushing the envelope and who is excluded
The state, therefore, is often a hostile presence which obstructs the artist, especially if the artist needs to innovate or push the boundaries. The panel agreed that governments should not decide what is good art. However, Sennett questioned the modern idea that artists are all bursting to express things.
Debbonaire mentioned the exclusion of certain groups of arts practitioners, especially if they have no backup income. She talked about imperialism and its effects on ‘othered’ artists, such as the pittance paid to Indian artists.
She mentioned the statues of imperialist Britain and their effects on our relationships with other countries nowadays. The need for honesty about the past was also highlighted.
On the subject of countries who abuse human rights, the whole panel felt that sanctions are counterproductive, because they harm the little person and not the regime.
Corporate funding and state intervention
Notably, all panel members had strong formal or informal links to the state. None of them were banging the drum for state intervention in the arts. But, I wondered whether the same discussion, held with less established figures, would have produced very different views? Might they have even felt the state should have a more hands-on approach in determining what is shown?
Many would agree that state intervention often stifles art, but it was not explored whether corporate or private income also harms art. For example, giving prizes of money may impose a conformist agenda which is acceptable to the prize giver.
Debbonaire pointed out, controversially, that boycotts on corporations, such as the fossil fuel companies, may harm struggling artists who need patronage. But the harm done to the environment and displaced Indigenous people by fossil fuel companies is surely greater? Moreover, there is little evidence that engagement with the arts orientates big corporations towards more progressive approaches.
Audience questions were taken. They included whether the UK Government should have intervened with the BBC’s live streaming of Kneecap at Glastonbury, and whether in Britain, we should stop Russian state-sponsored cultural events.
‘I was a German’
‘I was a German’ is the true story of how, in 1933, Clare Fraenkel’s German Jewish grandfather, Heinz Fraenkel, escaped arrest by the Nazis. He fled to Britain and had his German citizenship taken away by the Nazis, as revenge for escaping.
Heinz is initially homesick for Germany. He is then interned on the Isle of Man because he is German. The British public complain about people being unfairly interned, so he is set free. He returns to Germany after the war, but among other things, he is unhappy about some Germans’ denial of their complicity in the war, and in 1959, writes a book Farewell to Germany. He settles in England.
In 2016 the Brexit vote happens. Clare Fraenkel realises she can claim German citizenship under a law which says that descendants of people who were made stateless by the Nazis can reclaim citizenship. So, she goes to Germany. She then questions whether she wants it, as she only has that option because her grandfather’s citizenship had been unjustly taken.
Changing identities and citizenship
The play is both about loss of citizenship and inheriting citizenship, including the morality of being able to choose citizenship because someone else has lost theirs. It asks what it feels like to be stateless, a refugee, and to have multiple identities. Heinz Fraenkel is by turns: a German, an enemy of the Nazis, not a German, in exile, an enemy of the British State, and then befriended by the British State.
There was a small amount of audience participation. An early scene was a cinema showing, with Clare Fraenkel moving among the audience as an usherette. But in later scenes, the cinema screen is used to indicate events beyond the fictional cinema. The idea of the audience as actually being in the fictional cinema, is an old theatrical device which creates an ambiguity for the audience about where they stand. Are they a participant or a watcher? In this context it works because the shifts of roles reflect the shifting identities and meanings experienced by the person who has been exiled.
Clare Fraenkel is the only actor. She plays herself, her grandfather and various bit parts. Using meagre resources: a few props, a cinema screen, a projector showing maps and old film reels, sound effects of sirens, cabaret songs and people speaking German; the play recreates a wartime atmosphere. It did not feel harrowing, as it must for a refugee. But the play successfully sustains attention by dint of a strong story, with a few songs and jokes to lighten some frightening events.
‘I was a German’ is showing at The Zoo, Southside until 24 August 2025.
Dance on The Mound
The fringe would lose its soul without the street performers. In midday heat, next to the Royal Scottish Academy, Alvin Yong, a circus artist from Malaysia, performed a dance set, which involved throwing and catching diabolos and moving in bare feet with a Cyr wheel. It was largely mime, using a variety of types of music.
The show was notable for its gentleness and for the grace of the performer’s movements. It seemed to send a surge of happiness through the crowd at its peak. He ended with a placard saying, “You are my light” Cahaya. The audience, including me, were enthralled. It’s impossible to overestimate the dedication and practice it must have taken to produce an act of such fluidity of movement. This goes to show that paradoxically, freedom of expression in the arts is often the result of self-restraint.
The street performers are to be found in various Edinburgh locations throughout August, including The Royal Mile and The Mound.
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