Die Theater Chemnitz (DE)

#GlobalePerspektiven

More than 40 years ago, the first Vietnamese women came to the GDR (German Democratic Republic) as students or as contract workers. Some were mothers who had to leave their families behind, others had a child against all political and economic odds in Germany. After the fall of the Wall, they were the first unemployed of the new era – their contracts expired, they shouldn’t stay. The lack of skilled workers and the euphemistic narrative of “working in the brother country” quickly turned into a struggle for jobs, livelihoods and rights. Those who nevertheless decided against returning to Vietnam henceforth fought for their place in society, for independence and self-determination, and raised their children in a united Germany. In “So glücklich, dass du Angst bekommst” (So happy, it scares you), three women of Vietnamese origin look back on their own lives and experiences together with three puppets.

Theater Chemnitz and the project team of “neue unentdeckte narrative 2025“ of the ASA-FF e. V. approach the topic by means of biographical approaches and intensive research and place individual perspectives at the centre of the discussion. Miriam Tscholl’s production with puppets by Atif Hussein looks at the upheavals of the 1980s and 1990s from a migrant perspective.

“The three Vietnamese women on stage are not actresses and what they tell on stage they have actually experienced. (…) Again and again a fine humour flashes up, which they have preserved over all the decades and about which the audience may also smile and laugh.” (Maurice Querner, Freie Presse, 2021)