Flight into the dark

Unfortunately, the human brain does not have a CSMU. The abbreviation stands for “Crash Survival Memory Unit”, it is the memory unit in the black box of an aircraft that is supposed to provide information about the cause and course of the crash after an accident.

A kind of indestructible memory, resistant to severe vibrations, fire, water. Sure, our memories can also achieve amazing achievements: fetching moments from the past that have long since been lost, preserving remote experiences for decades. But it works comparatively susceptible to failure.

The narrative gains a captivating dynamic

In the case of dementia, for example, there is no protection against the progressive deletion of the content. On the other hand, the smartest CSMU is of no use if the black box is never found. What is a memory worth that cannot communicate?

At HAU 1, Helgard Haug, director and co-founder of the Rimini Protokoll group, tells of one of the greatest mysteries in the history of modern aviation. And from her own father, who is increasingly losing himself. Both times it’s about a trip into the night, or rather the nightmare. About the disappearance, the loss and the question of how uncertainty can be endured.

Admittedly, at first glance it may seem compelled to interlink the fate of man and machine. Here the flight MH370 of Malaysia Airlines, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, suddenly disappeared from the radar on March 8, 2014 at 1:21 am local time and never reappeared. There the former pastor from southern Germany, who first made a “mistake”, had small dropouts and memory gaps. And who finally states: “I am falling apart”. “I dissolve”. But the sometimes parallel, sometimes linked narrative gains an impressive plausibility and dynamic in the course of the two and a half hour evening.

“All right. Good night. ”Is the title of the piece. Allegedly, this was the last radio message that the pilot of the MH370 made when entering Vietnamese airspace. Unlike usual at Rimini Protokoll, this time there are no experts from everyday life on stage: after all, it’s about people who are no longer tangible.

There are five excellent musicians: from the Zafraan Ensemble in Berlin – Matthias Badczong (clarinet), Evi Filippou (percussion), Josa Gerhard (violin), Martin Posegga (saxophone) and Beltane Ruiz (double bass) – with the electro musician and composer Barbara Morgenstern one wrote luminous score. A requiem without pathos, which repeatedly takes up motifs from the narrative, spins them on and plays on them in a variety of ways. A soundtrack of transience that fills the large empty space on the stage, but does not make it forget.

The story unfolds in the meantime in passages about off-screen voices. Or, mainly, via text overlay on the gauze curtain. That too is a coherent picture of volatility. To date, nobody knows what happened on board the MH370. The wildest conspiracy stories entwine around this enigma in a world of actually complete control with its own rules and abbreviations. Like POB, persons on board (there were 239). Or LEP, last estimated position, the last estimated position.

One theory is that the pilot, who is highly experienced with 18,000 flight hours, caused the pressure to drop in the cabin – only to let the aircraft pull over the vastness of the Indian Ocean with all the passengers who had fallen asleep, until there was not a drop of kerosene left in the tank . For whatever reason. According to other speculations, the incident is the oldest magic trick in the world, a diversionary maneuver – from dubious weapons deals or the like. You will probably never know.

The father, on the other hand, is doing his best to leave as few question marks as possible. Six years before the first signs of dementia – for example, he suddenly sends the grandson four almost identical birthday cards at once – he wrote down to his children under the title “How I would like to live my dying” what should happen if he is still there , but is no longer with himself.

Over a period of eight years, Helgard Haug followed the slow fading in this great work. It lets the bereaved of the unfortunate flight have their say, who have to live day in and day out without answers, including the fact that there can be no funeral without a corpse. And it tells of an illness with no chance of a cure, which touches the existential. What is the self, what does dignity mean? In his last email to the director, the father wrote: “Please keep in touch with me, try to understand and, where possible, forgive”.