Toto or Thank You for This Life

Born in a cold East German delivery room, Toto – arbitrarily referred to as “he” – grows up with an overwhelmed mother, ends up in a foster home where he is tormented, then with brutal foster parents on a farm, and finally flees to the West. There he becomes a woman, but otherwise remains unchanged, enduring the impositions of capitalism. Toto finds solace only in singing – and in her love for Kasimir, her childhood friend, who is secretly working on Toto's ultimate destruction.

Sibylle Berg has adapted her novel Vielen Dank für das Leben for the stage and «writes humorously about the sad existence of people, touchingly about the bleak existence and aggressively lovingly against a dark world. No matter how gloomy the story may seem, its passion speaks a different language.» (Frankfurter Rundschau)
«Behind the determination to take note only of the darkest aspects of life is a moral appeal, a crazy hope and a simple question: Why do we tend to be angry citizens instead of what Toto embodies: friendly people who say thank you for life, which, one way or another, will simply and pointlessly end at some point?» (Theater heute)
«Until the very end, Toto is in search of the good, the beautiful, the true. But Berg leaves us in no doubt that the bad guys are the others, i.e. they are us.» (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)