When There‘s Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set Yourself On Fire

In the shopping centre of a German city, a young man sets himself alight. Petra, an acquaintance of the man, whose name is Jan L., tried to find out the reasons for his action. She talks to the people who knew him and saw him last: his comrade in the Bundeswehr who fought with him in Afghanistan. His ex-wife and the mother of their child. His neighbours. Petra meets people whom society needs as workers, consumers and soldiers, but whose anger and grief interests nobody. A story about consumption and war, terror and dream, right at the cold heart of late-capitalist society.

Chris Michalski's play When There's Nothing Left To Burn You Have To Set Yourself On Fire is one of the three winning plays of the Autor:innentheatertage 2021. It will be premiered in June as an open-air-project and then – with the other two winning texts – will be shown again at the festival in early September.