About the work
"Ein wenig Licht. Und diese Ruhe." ("A Little Light. And All This Silence.") is a theatrical monologue by the writer Sibylle Berg, one of the best-known voices in contemporary German-language literature. It premiered on 26 September 2025 at Schauspiel Hannover (directed by Lena Brasch, with Katja Riemann); the Berliner Ensemble also stages the piece (directed by Dennis Nolden, as a solo with Gabriel Schneider). The text is a tender monologue about despair at our present and the fear of growing militarisation.
Plot
The play is set in a near future that feels unsettlingly like our present. When a war breaks out in Europe between Liechtenstein and Luxembourg and mobilisation begins, an engineer too is drafted for military service. Slowly it dawns on him: perhaps his queerness could never really be reconciled with his job in the arms industry. From this constellation, Berg unfolds a monologue about a present whose discourses idle like an engine in neutral, and about the return of the military into the heart of society.
Cultural significance
Sibylle Berg is among the most frequently staged and most discussed authors in the German-speaking world; her tone combines a bitter diagnosis of the present with laconic humour and great tenderness for her characters. "Ein wenig Licht. Und diese Ruhe." takes up highly topical themes – militarisation, the arms economy and queer identity – and translates them into the intimate form of the monologue. That the play is staged at several major houses attests to its resonance.