Revelations about far-right party’s secret meeting rock the country and lead to widespread calls to ban controversial group

Theatrical performances don’t usually end with a packed auditorium chanting “Everyone, together, against fascism” for 10 minutes after the curtain call, even at the Berliner Ensemble, a left-leaning German theatre by the river Spree founded by the playwright Bertolt Brecht. But then Brechtian epic theatre is rarely as politically galvanising as what the audience witnessed last Wednesday night.

In a “scenic reading”, five actors dressed as waiters took turns re-enacting scenes from a media report that jolted the nation awake from its winter slumber in the second week of the new year, triggering sackings and resignations, mass rallies across German cities – and a politically risky debate over an outright ban of the country’s second-strongest party.