Surely the World Has Disappeared With Me

How does it feel when, at the very end, you see your life pass by in front of your eyes - and all your memories are disappointingly unspectacular? What is left of the dreams and plans, the loves, friendships and alliances, the fight against ‘the system’ - a system you have, in the end, always been a part of, without noticing it? And how sobering is the realisation that the world, which you set out to shake up in its very foundations, will keep turning, unperturbed, once you have gone? Is there anyone you can blame for all this?

The last in Sibylle Berg’s series of plays - which began with Und jetzt: die Welt! oder Es sagt mir nichts, das sogenannte Draußen (And now: the world! or: Doesn’t mean anything to me, the so-called ‘out there’) and continued with Und dann kam Mirna (Then came Mirna) and Nach uns das All (After us: the universe) - kicks off with a spectacular exit, a final act of defiance. Her ‘anti-heroine’ takes stock, sometimes with sarcasm, sometimes with melancholy, and the result is not exactly flattering for anyone. Even if, as we all know, hope springs eternal.