The Crooked Building

A strange anxiety pervades the block of flats. Parents speak in whispers, and all they talk about is the possibility that they will soon lose their jobs or that bombs will start falling or that some other disaster will strike. They seem to forget they have children who can sense this anxiety but don’t understand exactly what is going on. And it’s not just the building that has become crooked, but the whole world. With this undefined threat suddenly hanging over their heads, Enno, Fabian, Sasch, Nele and Irene start meeting in the big attic room. Here they can spend time together with just the five of them, discuss, deliberate, try out different roles and identities in their games and, if necessary, fend for themselves for a while, until – they hope – ‹somebody brings the adults back to their senses›. Or, in the end, might they themselves prove to be those somebodies?

Despite the differences in their ages and opinions, the children in Thomas Freyer’s play join forces and find inventive ways to take a stand against the adults, in order to free the building from its crookedness.