About the work
Tempo ist kein Taschentuch is a production by P14, the youth theatre of Berlin's Volksbühne. Text and direction are credited to Caspar Schüchner and Seedy Touray. The work was part of the Volksbühne programme in 2025.
Plot
The production takes the experience of travelling by train as its central environment. Crowded compartments, food, conversations, fatigue, digital menus and the walk towards the final train toilet create a panorama of being in transit. This everyday journey is connected to larger historical and existential motifs: industrialisation and the present, departure and stagnation, movement and the feeling of being powerless before the passage of time. The train gradually becomes a model of a society that continues to move without necessarily knowing where it is going.
Cultural significance
As a P14 project, the work forms part of the Volksbühne's long-running youth-theatre tradition, providing young theatre-makers with an institutional space for their own texts, directing and performance practices. Tempo ist kein Taschentuch turns the mundane experience of railway travel into an exploration of acceleration, waiting and uncertainty about the future.