Foreword by Diana Damian Martin Werner Schwabs final work also known as a theatreextinction comedy is a brutal irreverent and bizarrely comical piece about what happens when an emerging stage production is sabotaged by outsiders Following a dispute with the cast the director replaces all the actors with pensioners from a nearby home for the elderly At first compliant and polite the forgotten and dispossessed gradually start to question the directors authority leading to a coup detat where the theatres cleaning lady is selected as the groups leader Not everybody survives the new order Marking two decades since the playwrights death this is the first Englishlanguage publication of a forgotten masterpiece Werner Schwab was only thirtyfive years old when he was found dead in his room following a New Years Eve drinking spree in 1994 He was at the time the undisputed star of Germanspeaking theatre who effortlessly rose to fame for his unique talent with language and his darkly humorous confrontational narratives In only four years he completed fifteen plays with Dead at Last At Last No More Air Endlich tot endlich keine luft mehr being his last