On the 20th of January 2020, we, class 5A, as well as 5B, 6A and 6B, took the bus to Klagenfurt to watch the play “Web of Lies”, which was presented to us at the Bachmann Gymnasium. We had already read the screenplay in advance and were very excited to watch it. The story shows us the great dangers of the internet.

There is Charlie, who posts a music video of his talented friend, Lena, on the internet. Soon after, a woman called Alice shows interest in getting to know Lena as she thinks that Lena has great potential and they have a phone call in which they arrange a meeting. What the teenagers don’t know: “Alice“ is actually a scammer called Danny who wants to trick Lena into meeting him in a studio. Then, things get out of hand: Lena passes out after having a tampered drink and Danny takes revealing pictures of her. Later on, Danny blackmails Lena with these photos and says that she has to work for him if she doesn’t want them to be published. Because Lena is so scared of her mother’s reaction (she doesn’t know about her daughter’s dream to become a singer), Lena agrees and gets into Danny’s van. In the end, a damaged tyre saves her life: Danny leaves the van and Lena takes the opportunity and tries to run away – but trips. When Danny tries to get her back into the van, Lena punches him in the face and runs to the train station where she takes a train to London and stays there for several days until the police find her. In the end, she returns home unharmed.

This story shows us how much luck Lena had and it reminds us that everybody should be careful when surfing the web, chatting with strangers online or even meeting them in person. We especially liked the scenes in which the actors were singing but we also enjoyed the whole play, as it was very entertaining, and the actors did a great job.

Anna Stanz and Selina Lessiak, 5A