How can young people today even manage to find their way and their place in society when everything they are...

How can young people today even manage to find their way and their place in society when everything they are exposed to on a daily basis is violence? At home, at school, in the streets. It seems that today, in a time when we are constantly flooded with influences from all sides and when the flow and accessibility of information have reached their peak, it is harder than ever to know how to be a young person who thinks independently and to feel that you truly belong somewhere. The play If the Bees Disappear from the Face of the Earth, inspired by Ödön von Horváth’s novel Youth Without God, begins with the question of the position of young people in a world marked by violence, distrust, and uncertainty. Yet it transposes this question into our contemporary social context, intertwining themes of the generation gap, the search for identity, and the need for community in a time that increasingly drives us apart.  In this way, Horváth’s vision of a society on the verge of collapse gains a contemporary resonance and becomes a space in which today’s young people reflect, confront themselves, and strive to find their own voice.

Tijana Grumić