Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015
Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2015 
 

Fabian – Going to the Dogs

by Erich Kästner
Direction: Peter Kleinert

Co-production with the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst »Ernst Busch« Berlin

After studying German philology, Dr Jacob Fabian ekes out a living doing odd jobs. His secondary occupation is life itself. In semi-legal night clubs and overcrowded bars, he makes a study of Berlin and how it is entertaining itself into oblivion. He is accompanied by his friend, Labude, an ambitious academic who is convinced his generation can transform Germany’s political future. Fabian, in contrast, despairs of humankind. But things change when he meets the lawyer Cornelia. He suddenly sees sense in making a difference – and promptly loses his job. There follows a long odyssey through social welfare offices and visits to newspaper editors to beg for a job. Meanwhile, Cornelia meets a film producer and leaves Fabian to become an actress. When Labude commits suicide after his doctoral thesis appears to have been rejected, the rug is finally pulled from under Fabian’s feet.

Erich Kästner originally intended to call his novel »Fabian« (1931) »Going to the Dogs«. It describes Berlin just before the seizure of power by the Nazis: a city torn between the Depression and a hysterical quest for pleasure at all costs. Disoriented yet unstoppable and at breakneck speed, its protagonists hurtle towards the abyss.

Peter Kleinert turns his attention to Kästner’s »story of a moralist«, including the passages from the first edition which were censored at the time. Together with an ensemble of drama school students from the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Art, he reimagines the texts for the present day.

By: Erich Kästner
Direction: Peter Kleinert
Set Design: Peter Schubert
Costume Design: Susanne Uhl
Music: Gregor Graciano
Video: Silke Briel
Dramaturgy: Nils Haarmann
Choreography: Matteo Marziano Graziano
Duration: ca. 120 minutes

Premiered on 24 January 2015