Fabian oder der Gang vor die Hunde

Sex, drugs and street fights

Fabian, 32 years old, extremely charming and chronically broke, stumbles through Berlin's feverish (night) life with his best friend Labude. Sexual freedom characterizes the city just as much as inflation and the battles between right-wing and left-wing parties. Things heat up. Fabian doesn't find a real job, but he does find the love of his life in the aspiring actress Cornelia. But nobody gets anything for free here and success comes at a price.

A plot straight out of a Hollywood movie, you might think. But life is more complicated than that: Erich Kästner's novel Fabian, written in 1931, tells of Berlin in the Weimar Republic, divided between an unprecedented liberalism and the rise of National Socialism. The First World War is only a few years behind the people, the mood is charged and social conditions are precarious. Fabian himself is a war returnee, internally scarred, love is ultimately for sale 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 a Berlin that is torn between the longing for a past order and the struggles for political power in a weakened democracy.

With drama students from the Folkwang University of the Arts, Thomas Dannemann tells the story of a time that, in its ambiguity, casts light and shadow on our present in a wild, musical revue.