Don't Spoil The Surprise
A Christmas play

Christmas, a celebration of forced family reunions. With dark forebodings, the parents – baby boom hippies, academics, and to this day, enemies of “the system” – await the annual visit of their ill-bred offspring. Where did their progressive education go wrong, failing to produce pot-smoking revolutionaries, but instead turned the children into career-driven philistines? The children, on the other hand, are solely motivated by material interests, when they come home: Marie and Lukas would like to inherit the family mansion, and would rather see their parents moving into a nice retirement nursing home. “The mother: feminist, drinker, an extravagant ‘Susan Sontag’ type’. Can’t stand her kids, whom she sees as too conformist. The father: someone who has to retrieve the TV set from the basement, just for the benefit of his visiting kids … The children: the epitome of careerists, and representatives of the neocon bourgeoisie … This family celebration, with its ritualistic exchange of catty remarks, brings many a surprise to light … witty, pointed, mean.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

“A light farce for intellectuals.” (Frankfurter Rundschau)