In 1986/87 the company mounted the world premiere production of Fassbinder's Trash, the City and Death in a new translation by Gabriele. After a long back and forth with the Fassbinder estate, including a face to face visit in Germany, the company managed to secure the rights and to mount the world premiere of the play, which had thus far eluded even Fassbinder himself. The play was written in 1974 but had remained unproduced due to protests that the play was anti-semitic. One of the characters is named "The Rich Jew". The play involves the destructive effects of real-estate speculation in the city of Frankfurt. Fassbinder had stipulated that the play must premiere in either Frankfurt or New York. It opened at ABC No Rio [a Manhattan Lower East Side performance space. (This production was the company's second cooperation with ABC No Rio, which had been squatted and "stolen from the city" by a group of artists. In 1982, its directors invited Thieves Theatre to bring Fracaro's Travelling Light from it's performance venue, W.P.A. in Chicago) . As Trash was being performed, the city was locked in debate about the massive redevelopment of the Lower East Side. Thieves Theatre felt that the play's alleged anti-semitism was no reason it should not be produced, that a society's wounds must first be exposed before they can be healed. The script's political incorrectness was one of its appeals. Or as Nick said to a reporter from Der Spiegel , "Antisemitism? Yes, alright, fine, that, too." In this day and age, the politically incorrect is the new outlaw.

"If I examine my work, I now perceive in it,"
patiently pursued, a will to rehabilitate
person, objects and feelings reputedly vile...
I was involved in the rehabilitation of the ignoble."
-- Jean Genet