A Credit to the Club

»What interested me in Fleißer’s narrative was this process from the idealisation of romantic love to the focus on the economic relation and a confrontation with the realities of capitalism. Today, too, I see women switching to part-time employment, carrying out unpaid care work, and then falling into poverty in their old age. In the novel, Fleißer also sheds light on the nexus between sport and fascism. In the late 1920s, the local swimming club becomes a focal point for the young men from the town, who are faced with a future without prospects thanks to inflation and unemployment. Their personal hardship makes them receptive to scapegoating, and their hatred is directing against whatever is alien to them. Here, too, I see parallels with the present day.« Alina Fluck, theatre director