Gerhard Meister

The world is getting smaller and smaller, and its contradictions are becoming more and more unavoidable. For some live in abundance and others live with nothing. In Africa, a whole continent is dreaming of a better life in Europe. But what does the disparity between rich and poor, and the migration it triggers, mean for me specifically, for my thinking, feeling and action? The characters in Gerhard Meister's play try the desperately comical feat to confront the facts of their reality in the here and now.

"Gerhard Meister has written a play which is a manifesto about the contradictory moods of compassion and self-interest. It is well known that in many parts of the world bitter misery prevails, and at the same time, that capitalistic values lead to fantastic wealth.
Meister himself ... has wondered "whether it is nonsense to write a piece about the perversity of the world instead of doing something about this world”—and thereby let the figures on the stage, who do not even have names, to say it in Meister’s words, "flounder in their contradictions." This has led him to a charming theatrical form, one that changes between chorus and monologue, and shows us a collective ego which is literally driven crazy by these contradictions. "(Nachtkritik)