Youth Without God

Our hope rests in our young people. They are not yet consumed by the world, are still unaffected by the cynicism of old age and have a keen sense for what’s really important. Or are they? What if a teacher correcting class essays is confronted with racism and misanthropy? What if his students blindly repeat phrases they’ve learnt from their parents, signalling a new and less considerate age? In his book published in 1937, Ödön von Horváth crafted an insightful portrait of a society undergoing momentous change by depicting a teacher despairing of the increasingly brutal tendencies of his students. Tina Müller’s adaptation recalibrates the text’s perspective. The focus here is not on the teacher and his conflicts but the students as vessels for society’s hopes and expectations. Unflinchingly, they scrutinise the lies and cowardice of the adults. They reply with refusal, mistrust and derision having realised long ago that they can rely on no one and that they can’t be better than the society that formed them.