The Thing (Das Ding)

"A thing that’s worth something doesn’t end. Never. The thing knows that."
 
In his new play, Philipp Löhle describes the mechanisms of our globalised, technology-driven and transient world in an extremely funny and fast-paced fashion. He takes the seemingly infinite interconnectedness of world trade and applies this to humanity and to his characters – and pushes things to the extreme. Thus, without meaning to, the characters’ smallest actions have global consequences which wreak havoc on lives far beyond their own.

Philipp Löhle explains the inspiration behind his play: “Last year in Argentina, as I stood opposite a farmer whose land had been confiscated by soybean barons through semi-legal means, I recognized that there was a direction connection between his sparsely furnished hut and the schnitzel on my plate in Berlin’s district of Prenzlauer Berg. It confirmed the old image of the poor farmer as being a small cog in a big machine. But therein also lies his greatest hope. Because, if you turn it around, the power of small farmers around the world is precisely that a big machine comprising many cogs can’t work properly if the littlest of cogs is missing. Or, to put it another way: the more complex the system, the more vulnerable it is. If everything really is connected to everything else, then it’s also dependent on everything else. And that means each event is, as the culmination of a chain of events, explainable and changeable – right down to the tiniest of details. This, in turn, means there’s no such thing as coincidence anymore!” 
 
Philipp Löhle’s big break as a playwright came in 2007, with 'Alias Gospodin.' Since then, many of his plays have been performed in cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Mainz, Munich and Vienna. 'Lilly Link or Hard Times for the Rev…' was invited to the Autorentheatertage playwrights’ workshop at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg and won the Jury Prize at Heidelberg’s Play Market.  Philipp Löhle is one of Germany’s most promising young dramatists.
 
'The Thing' is performed by students from the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, alongside members of the DT ensemble. The play is directed by Daniela Löffner, whose production of Anne Nather’s  'Im Wald ist man nicht verabredet' ('You don’t have a date in the woods') was invited to Berlin’s first Autorentheatertage festival of contemporary drama.