Fabian oder
Der Gang vor die Hunde

Sex and drugs between the wars: a bitterly evil portrait of society in the late 1920s.

Fabian, 32 years old, extremely charming and chronically broke, stumbles through Berlin's feverish (night) life with his best friend Labude. He doesn't find a proper job, but he does find the love of his life in the rising actress Cornelia. But her rise has a price - and it puts their young love to the test.

One might think: A plot straight out of a Hollywood film. But life is more complicated than that: it is the time of the Weimar Republic, the First World War is only a few years behind people, the atmosphere is charged and social conditions are precarious. Fabian himself is a war returnee, inwardly wounded, love can be bought and morality is not always as important as claimed. In any case, nothing is black and white. Even if that sometimes seems easier. Fabian whirls through Berlin, torn between the longing for a past order and peace, and the battles for political power in a weakened democracy.

Erich Kästner's 1931 urban novel Fabian paints a picture of the years surrounding the rise of fascism. Thomas Dannemann is now devoting himself to this text with drama students from the Folkwang UdK and tells of a time whose political developments cast their shadow on our present day.