THE BALL has gone into one ear of humanity and out the other.

Based on a text version by Franz Schuh, which presents the war not only from the perspective of Karl Kraus, Anna Luca Krassnigg and Franz Schuh read from "The Last Days of Mankind." Accompanying them on stage at the reading theater is accordionist Stefan Sterzinger.

The title is a quote from the play "The Last Days of Mankind" by Karl Kraus. The piece is so extensive that Kraus intended it for a "Mars theater." Paradoxically, one could argue that the "Last Days" are better suited for reading theater, but certainly just as well suited as the stage versions.

For Kraus, it is World War I that brought about a then-unknown, war-critical brutality, but it also had to be a prerequisite. Franz Schuh interprets, analyzes, and comments on the work and its author for our times: knowledgeable, amusing, and unrelenting.