About the work
Sibylle Berg's play was premiered on 23 November 2013 at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, directed by Sebastian Nübling, in co-production with the Junges Theater Basel. The text bears the subtitle "A text by Frau Berg for one person and several voices. Or otherwise" and counts among the author's most important contributions to contemporary German-language theatre. The work was named Play of the Year 2014 by the magazine Theater heute.
Plot
A young woman, in her mid-twenties, sits alone in her apartment in the evening. Outside is the world — but she prefers to stay indoors, barricaded against the expectations the outside places on her: successful and fit, but cool. Politically correct, but not mainstream. With a model's figure, but effortlessly. Unattached, but constantly on an erotic voyage of discovery. The protagonist makes contact with her environment only via text message, Skype and telephone. Her anger, exhaustion and longing articulate themselves in a torrent of speech that oscillates between sarcasm and despair. In Nübling's production this monologue is distributed among four actresses — as the chorus of a generation.
Cultural significance
Es sagt mir nichts, das sogenannte Draußen is one of the most influential plays of contemporary German-language theatre and marked the beginning of a long collaboration between Sibylle Berg and Sebastian Nübling at the Maxim Gorki Theater. The production was invited to the Biennale Teatro in Venice in 2019. The work struck the nerve of a generation of young women caught between self-optimisation and retreat into the digital. Berg later wrote sequels (Und dann kam Mirna; Nach uns das All; Und sicher ist mit mir die Welt verschwunden) that carry the protagonist's life story forward.