The Resistant Text in Postdramatic Theatre: Performing Elfriede Jelinek's Sprachflächen

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Notes

¹ All translations of German quotations throughout this essay, unless otherwise noted in the references, are mine.

² A comprehensive list of existing translations of Jelinek's works, compiled by the Jelinek Forschungszentrum, Vienna, can be found at: http://www.elfriedejelinekforschungszentrum.com/fileadmin/user_upload/proj_ejfz/PDFDownloads/%C3%9Cbersetzungen.pdf.

³ Notably, the encounter between formally challenging new playtexts and bold creative directorial and performative approaches has been more prevalent in the comparatively lavishly state-subsidized German theatre system than, for example, in Britain. As David Barnett argues with respect to this relationship, ‘one specific result of the heavy subsidy and the decentralized sytem in Germany is that theatres are able to work with difficult texts in a productive fashion … [T]he system actively encourages plays that are not easily performable and thrives on the challenges that they pose’. (Barnett, 2008b: 11–12). This productive encounter is facillitated not only by comparatively generous production budgets and an infrastructure of extensive and varied training opportunities but, as Barnett further argues, by the collaborative work of committed permanent ensembles over long rehearsal periods and with the creative input of ‘production dramaturgs’.

⁴ The reference to Roland Barthes here is to his Empire of Signs, in which he champions Japanese Bunraku puppet theatre and its ‘three separate writings’ (‘the puppet, the manipulator, the vociferant’) as a desirable alternative to Western modes of mimetic theatre (Barthes 1984 [1970]: 49).

⁵ When I saw the performance the cardboard heads were ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Bild editor Kai Diekmann, and Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank – the images, Stemann explained, however, would change depending on the mood and scandals of the day.