Niets (Nothing)

De Nwe Tijd & hetpaleis

One day, a young boy decides that there is no point to life and that everything on the planet is worthless. He leaves his classroom, climbs a plumb tree, and stays there. Although his classmates try, they are unable to change his mind. So to prove that life has meaning, the children decide to give up things of importance. In an abandoned shed they point to the new pair of shoes of a girl: “These shoes are valuable but if I leave them here, you all should sacrifice something meaningful too. They challenge one another to build a ‘heap of meaning’. Nobody expected it would get terribly out of control.

Nothing is based on an award-winning novel by the Danish writer Janne Teller. The play deals with fundamental questions – is life worth living; do we share the same values; what is good and what is evil; do religious people look at life differently?