Der Gang vor die Hunde

Dramatic Reading Based on Erich Kästner

The original title of Erich Kästner’s urban novel Fabian, the Story of a Moralist was Going to the Dogs. Kästner’s tale of love, prostitution, violence and the menacing rise of fascism and is set against the metropolitan backdrop of Berlin in its wildest days. The story of Fabian’s descent into the pits of debauched 1930s Berlin was censored and shortened upon its original publication in 1931. The version that Kästner intended never saw the light of day until 2013.

For Ruhrfestspiele, Christine Sommer and Martin Brambach venture on this wild ride. Accompanied by the Christian Hammer Trio and Jürgen Hartmann, these two actors dare enter Kästner’s eerily timely topsy-turvy world. Their dramatic reading mingled with 1930s music conjures up the Moloch Berlin in its heyday: a political, pornographic, decadent and excessive tour de force.